I’m angry because we have had scores of opportunities to right this wrong. People kill people and guns make it easy.
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There was another school shooting today.
I find myself angry and mournful all at once.
Ten people (so far) have lost their lives with reports saying an additional 20 have been injured. Umpqua Community College has been devastated by another senseless act of violence. Today is October 1, and we’ve already had 45 school shootings this year.
Let that sink in for a moment. Think hard on that number: 45.
When will we finally say enough is enough?
I believe in common sense gun control. I believe there are people in this country who are neither deserving of nor intelligent enough to be considered capable of handling a weapon. I believe the Constitution, the very basis of our government, does not guarantee anyone unfettered and unregulated access to weapons.
We can’t pass legislation on a good day, let alone on an issue as polarizing as gun control.
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I also believe we have issues beyond gun control that need addressing. We have overpopulated prisons, poverty, poor access to mental health services, and a fractured political system. We can’t pass legislation on a good day, let alone on an issue as polarizing as gun control.
I believe there are types and grades of weapons nobody (and that includes the police) outside the military should have. I believe we are in danger of becoming more like the fictionalized Wild West than any of us can imagine. I believe we are slowly losing our humanity and sense of community, and it has isolated us as individuals and as a nation.
The American infatuation with firearms is an international embarrassment. While most developed nations have varying forms of control that are designed and implemented to keep their citizens safe, we continue deregulating the gun manufacturers. We allow lobbyists from arms manufacturers and the NRA to write legislation regulating their own industries. They have essentially bought and paid for politicians who no longer care about the safety and well-being of their constituents.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
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I believe there are people in this country who should have their guns, especially certain types, removed from their possession.
Yes, forcefully if necessary.
There are no well-reasoned arguments why certain types of weapons belong in the hands of average citizens.
It’s OK to believe that: we don’t allow Indy cars on the road and we shouldn’t allow Joe Citizen access to military grade assault weapons.
Right now many of you are probably screaming about your Second Amendment rights. What specifically does it say? “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” It’s easy to see why people feel they have an absolute right to keep and bear arms.
Except most of them are not militiamen.
That pesky militia the U.S. Constitution mentions? It was the precursor to our National Guard, under the direct authority of each state governor. You and your neighbor, unless you are members of the guard, do not qualify as militia members.
We’re like spoiled children screaming over toys.
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Our love affair with guns goes back centuries. They have become a part of our national identity, like apple pie, baseball and McDonald’s. We used them to help gain our independence. Firearms helped us combat the Native Americans while we stole their lands. We annexed part of Mexico with them. They’ve helped us do good and terrible things. but we cannot deny the correlation between guns and lost lives. More guns simply mean more death.
Yes, I’m angry right now. I’m angry because we have had scores of opportunities to right this wrong. We’ve been in position to make positive change before, but organizations like the NRA pay millions to block legislation and spend millions more on marketing and public relations schemes blaming people and not easy access to weapons. These deaths have been preventable.
They have been avoidable.
How do we know that? The sheer number of deaths related to firearms in our country is staggering. Somehow though, no other developed nation experiences the same problem, not even our Canadian neighbors. Fierce opposition to gun control is uniquely American, and we have no positive outcomes on which to base it. We’re like spoiled children screaming over toys. The only people winning are the ones manufacturing and selling the toys.
The debate over gun control makes me angry. I’m angry because we continue to look the other way while kids are murdered. We continue to close our eyes while families are torn asunder. We turn a blind eye as toddlers are shot in their own homes. We bury our collective heads in the sand while families are ripped asunder, futures are lost and people simply disappear from our lives. I’m angry because too many of us are silent, relenting to the bullying and screaming perpetrated by spoiled children who refuse to give up their toys.
I’m angry because more people died and we continue to do nothing to prevent the next time.
I fear retribution and reprisal for publishing this piece. That fear is fed by the irrational and unstable members of society so hell-bent on protecting their own guns they engage in aggressive tactics and bullying to shut down those who disagree. Instead of open dialogue, they threaten peoples’ lives and families.
Those people are exactly why we need more restrictive gun control.
They are why the NRA and organizations like it are a problem. They are why I will speak up.
They are why we all, the rational people of this country, need to take a stand and finally say enough is enough.
Photo—Eli Christman/Flickr
Study history. Buddhist monks in China were pacifists, yet they invented Kun Fu and Steel weapons to protect themselves from the violence of the outside world. Japanese Ninja began as peasant farmers who were oppressed by the ruling warlords and their Samurai. They were forbidden to own weapons, so they fashioned their own out of farming tools. How far would Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot or other tyrants have gotten if their victims had been armed? The solution is armed guards and teachers.
Actually the “Right To Bear Arms” is only for white gun owners. The police shot and killed a black man buying a gun in Wal Mart in Ohio, an open carry state. My suggestion is for all black folks to arm and open carry where legal. Beat you will see a change of opinion when that day comes.
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There will be mass killings by the police. Radical enough?
Go to http://www.jpfo.org and check out the pamphlet, “Gun Control Is Racist”, which shows how those laws were used to keep blacks and other minorities from defending themselves. Then look up the Deacons For Defense And Justice. They were a back militia group formed to protect people from from violence because the police wouldn’t, or were part of the problem. Self defense is everyone’ s right.
“I fear retribution and reprisal for publishing this piece.” Has any pro-gun person attacked an anti-gun person yet? I can’t think of any incident. The reverse is your preferred public policy. “I’m angry because we have had scores of opportunities to right this wrong.” You are angry because you lack control over yourself and your environment and you feel afraid due to your lack of personal empowerment and security. “They are why we all, the rational people of this country, need to take a stand and finally say enough is enough.” Those who advocate permission slips and controls and regulations… Read more »
Shawn, I’m sorry you’re angry. Maybe the people that get angry enough will do the requisite research to understand the details around the problem. I guess it’s just too easy to say we need more laws but the problem really is a combination of good laws but also enforcement. I’m not against good common sense laws but at the end of the day you’re going to have a math problem…so many innocents killed by whack jobs each year vs giving in to the idea that our government will just take care of everything for you and remove the personal control… Read more »
stick to something you know something about like your photography. your an idiot.
I see a basic “logic” for those who argue against common sense firearms regulations. Regulations on firearms challenge the reality of a patriarchal system based on notions of hypermasculinity with the qualities of control, domination over others and the environment, competitiveness, autonomy, rugged individualism, strength, toughness, forcefullness, decisiveness, and, or course, never having to ask for help or assistance. Concepts of cooperation and community responsibility are pushed to the sideline. Ultimately, unless we change from an Individualistic to a more Cooperative soceity, the United States is destined to failure, not from external threats, but from within.
This will illuminate you IF you actually read it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland#Gun_crime
Imagine that, a wealthy developed European country filled with gun nuts that don’t have issues due to their common sense policies.
Thank you for sharing
You need to do some research on the subject of the militia. And go to some real legal scholars, not some activist hack paid for by the Brady Campaign. You don’t think you and your neighbor are part of the militia? Try telling that to the Selective Service when you are called to serve. “I believe there are people in this country who should have their guns, especially certain types, removed from their possession. By force, if necessary.” Is that going to be with, or without, due process of law? And just who is going to decide who those people… Read more »
Wow what a breathtakingly ignorant article. The “militia” and the “people” of 2nd Amendment fame are one in the same thing, so held by the Supreme Court. Cars kill many many more people than guns but we are not banning cars.
The elephant in the room in this and other cases is “mental illness” which IS NOT being addressed!
216 murders in first half of 2015 in Chicago. Wide majority were by guns … ALL were illegal guns.
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/82-shot-15-dead-city-strictest-gun-laws-united-states/
But we’re gonna concentrate our efforts to take guns away on some “nut case?”
There are countries which have implemented gun control with success – start there. Next get rid of the culture that glorifies death and killing.
If we use the drug law model, everybody who wants a gun will have one if breaking the law isn’t a big deal. How is that an improvement?
You don’ twant to remove all guns. Which of us get to keep them and how is it to be decided?
Which guns currently legal would you want to make illegal.
The UK gun laws applied to Northern Ireland. Thing is, if people want guns, they’ll
have them.
Meantime, the old, the weak, women, will be at the mercy of big, strong men. I know! We’ll call it….the patriarchy.
Gun control is not crime control.
Pass Criminal Control!
If found using a firearm unlawfully….
No reduced bail, no plea bargains, no reduced sentences, no early release from prison, and minimum state sentencing laws for crimes committed with a firearm.
We already implement the harshest criminal penalties across the board of any modern democratic nation, and many of our prisons and jails are more comparable to those typical of 3rd world countries. The only ways we could get any “tougher” on crime would be legalizing torture / corporal punishment (Saudi style), enacting reprisals against the families and friends of perpetrators (the earlier days of Spain vs. ETA), or just executing people willy-nilly (N Korea, ISIS).
That’s a pretty grim road, with questionable payoff upon reaching the destination.
Then half the juveniles we have in our unit are done for because at least half have charges which include the use or at least the possession of a gun.
Gun control like poppy eradication is a failed approach. Until enough of us and our leaders realize that we are all Sandyhook, we are all Umpqua, unitl we are all the friends and relatives of the victims, until we are not disconnected from the violence, we will not have the political will to change. I believe we will get there, but I’m afraid that we’ll have to continue to live through more reports of death by gun violence for too long to come. May enough people be sorry for our loss today, not just sad that it happened that we… Read more »
I’m not sure how we can say it’s a failed approach when we’ve barely tried it. After all, it seems to be working pretty much everywhere else.
What I mean is that just advocating gun control doesn’t work. It hasn’t worked, like saying we need to get rid of drugs by passing laws to get rid of drugs or destroy crops hasn’t worked. I appreciate what you are saying, I’m just looking at it from a different perspective. Laws need to change but we’re not going to get there by talking about it from the same point of reference that has failed. The idea that gun control is an intrusion into our lives or that it violates our constitutional right to bear arms is deeply ingrained in… Read more »
“After all, it seems to be working pretty much everywhere else.”
Everywhere else the common man toils as a slave to the power elite and there is no escaping the mass madness in those lands.
First thing we do is pass a law against civilian gun ownership. We can use the war on drugs as a model.
Which guns are currently legal that you think should be made illegal for civilian use?
We should probably start by modeling our laws on those of countries that have been successful. I’m not advocating the removal of all guns. However, our laws are ridiculously lax and we allow the manufacturers and lobbyists to essentially craft their own legislation. We cannot call it a failure if we haven’t tried it. On the other hand, putting more guns in the hands of people has been a dismal failure.
Here is the problem: People killing people are about a lot of things. And gun laws are way down the list. The problem of people killing people with guns won’t be solved by tougher gun laws alone. Look at the countries with the fewest murders per capita. The society they live in will have a whole lot of things that are different than the US. They are likely to have higher taxes, cheaper health care and college education costs, longer maternity leave, better social security programs, etc. I bet we would be likely to find that just cherry picking their… Read more »