Poor Paul Helmke. I don't envy his latest stint as head of the Brady Institute For Gun Control one damn bit. Then again, if former Mayor Helmke would back up and get a lot more facts straight, maybe he'd be seeing things in a lot different light. He keeps pushing for GUN control....that is NOT the issue. GUNS (themselves) are NEVER "the issue". Inanimate objects (without any human intervention at all) will NEVER be an issue. It's when "we put our 2 cents in" that most of hell breaks loose.You might want to give this link a look-see:
Or you can always drop by the DOJ and look over their UCRs (uniform crime reports).
And if guns WERE "the issue", then we could all make debates over matches causing arson, vehicles causing DUIs, and water causing drownings (of such Biblical proportions) that not even Plato could foster a rebuttal. But we don't because we're rational thinkers (for the most part). At least I'd like to "think" we are...LOL!
In every case (with NO exceptions) it invariably comes down to the PEOPLE...the operson or persons RESPONSIBLE for these acts of crime or stupidity (usually BOTH). It is by THEIR hands that others are made to suffer unjustly (like there is a JUST way to suffer anyway???), and reap the harvest of abhorrent human behavior.
I'm all for making it harder for the (wrong) PEOPLE to GET guns when they shouldn't be able to. And that my friends is NOT "gun" control...it's ( all together now.....) PEOPLE control. Yeah, at first it sounds more Orwellian than not, but it's the ONLY way to effectively DECREASE the number of guns in the "wrong" hands. Is placing guns in all the "right" hands a definitive answer? I don't know, but it would be interesting to find out. Kennesaw, GA has a "law" (dating back to '82) that says all law-abiding people (with no criminal history) must own a gun. I'd wager crime doesn't find much time to play THERE.
If any real analysis is to be done about gun control, it has to come back to the person. Do they have a history of mental illness that (by nature) disallow them the purchase of any firearm? Are they substance abusers that just haven't been caught yet (urine tests would be inconclusive, as there are numerous ways around that as well). Why isn't there a comprehensive database already in place that can show (up front) to gun store owners these criteria?
Now that's all well and good for a majority of the populace and would go far to alleviate people such as the VA Tech shooter from ever getting a firearm legaly. And there's the rub. It always cames back to the LEGALITY of gun purchases. The ILLEGAL market for gun sales is huge beyond belief, and why shouldn' it be? After all, it's PROFITABLE six ways from Sunday! And we already KNOW that he criminal element will get a gun no matter what, no matter what the cost (to themselves OR to others).
Stricter penalties for gun crimes "can" make a slight dent in the overall picture, but it's not the "magic bullet" (no pun intended) that many hope for. If you could find an effective way to crack down on gun dealers that only have dollar signs in their eyes, that'd be a damn good first step. Just stay the hell away from the decent, responsible person. If America collectively "owns" 80,000,000 guns, then we've got about 79,999,975 people EVERY DAMN HOUR OF EVERY DAMN DAY that DO NOT cause ANY type of crime with them. That's a damn good ratio...in ANYBODY'S book! And since those guns aren't getting up and shooting themselves off at people, what is left, but the person HOLDING the gun that assumes the responsibility.
Much the same can (and should) be argued about getting a DRIVER'S LICENSE. There are way too many people on our roads, streets, and highways NOW that do not posess the ability to be RESPONSIBLE behind the wheel of ANY vehicle. And we're seemingly OK with THAT...it's just the "gun thing" that bothers us. And I never found ANYTHING in our Constitution that assured us any "rights" about driving any vehicle, no matter how much "horse-power" it had (1 or 300). We always used to say the most dangerous part of ANY vehicle was "the nut that holds the wheel".
Paul Helmke can try to assuage our fears by claiming that GUNS are the cause of all this evil. But until Paul can ante up, and speak a lot more of the TRUTH about the realities of the dark nature of our species instead, I'm just going to keep saying that..."I'm from Missouri".
In other words....SHOW ME!
Just remember...criminals LOVE gun control...it makes THEIR job EASIER!
No comments:
Post a Comment