Mass-Murder Shooters and Gun Control

Another mass shooting and the gun control types come crawling out of the woodwork.

You have to ignore all the special interests on both sides of this issue to figure out the smart thing to do. Too many people have too many axes to grind. There’s too much one-sided rhetoric on both sides.

And none of it addresses why the Second Amendment actually exists.

If you look at the other writings of those Founding Fathers who would not sign the Constitution without the Bill of Rights, then you find out the actual purpose of the Second Amendment. Quite simply, an armed population presents a credible threat of armed revolution, so that government will behave itself.

I wish that knowledge was more often stated in public, but it is kept hidden as “politically incorrect”. If there are too many restrictions on personal arms, then that threat of armed revolution is no longer credible, and government will oppress you, as it has throughout history.

On the other hand, we also have a long tradition of “reasonable restrictions”, starting in the Old West, believe it or not! It proved very practical for cities to require that no one carry arms within city limits. This stopped an awful lot of drunken gunfighting in and around saloons.

We have perfectly good laws restricting crazy folks and criminals from even owning guns, and we still restrict most folks from carrying guns in cities without being well-trained and properly-certified to do so. The problem is loopholes: too many crazies and criminals are “slipping through the cracks”.

Fix that, and crazies like Jared Loughner in Arizona, that idiot in the theater in Colorado, or neo-Nazi Wade Page in Wisconsin at the Sikh temple, no longer cause death and destruction with guns. We don’t need new laws, we just need to properly enforce the ones we have, and fix the loopholes.

The issue isn’t gun type or magazine size, the issue is spotting crazies and criminals. Background checks are not required at gun shows or for internet sales, but they should be.

GW