Hundreds Mourn Officers Slain By Antigovernment Extremists
WEST MEMPHIS, Ark. — Two West Memphis police officers slain during a roadside shootout with an anti-government advocate and his son were remembered Monday as dedicated public servants and as loving fathers.
Hundreds of mourners, including family, friends, neighbors and their fellow law enforcement officers packed the West Memphis High School auditorium to pay tribute to the fallen officers, Brandon Paudert and Bill Evans...
It was Evans who pulled over a white van being driven by 45-year-old Jerry Kane of Forest, Ohio, and his 16-year-old son, Joseph Kane.
Authorities say the Kanes fired on the officers with AK-47 assault rifles, killing them. About 90 minutes later, police killed the two suspects during a shootout in which two other officers were wounded.
Do you gun advocates out there really believe that the men who shot the Arkansas police officers had a constitutional right to own AK-47 assault rifles? Does "right to bear arms" really have to mean any kind of weapon in order for your "right" to be secure?
Do limits on the type of arms available to ordinary citizens really violate your civil rights to such a degree that you are willing to sacrifice innocent lives in your pursuit of opposing them? Is that a "price of freedom" you are willing to live with?
If you say yes, then what you are really saying is that your very literal interpretation of the Second Amendment is more important than the lives of those police officers. You are saying that your interpretation of the words "shall not be infringed" meant that their fathers had to die.
Would you be willing to look the children of those men in the eye and explain that to them? Go ahead, tell them: "I'm really sorry your dads had to die. But, you see, my civil rights would have been violated if those men had not been allowed to purchase assault weapons. You understand that, don't you?"
Would you be willing to do that? Really?
To those police officers and their families- and the thousands of others whose lives are affected by gun violence and death - debates over limits on the rights covered in the Second Amendment are not some theoretical abstraction. They are the most painful, appalling reality imaginable.
The government should not have to set limits on gun ownership and gun use.
The gun users and Second Amendment advocates should be setting the limits voluntarily. Coercion by the "authorities" should be unnecessary in an intelligent, compassionate society.
Every "sportsman," every hunter, every target-practice-loving gun owner, every person who understands and respects the power and danger of weapons should be crying, "Enough!"
The intent of the Second Amendment was not to make it easier for people to kill each other - which is what every study has shown is the effect of easy access to every kind of weapon. The freedom to own a firearm, by its very nature, is qualitatively different from freedom of expression and the other rights enumerated in the Constitution.
This should be the manifesto of every gun advocate with a conscience:
"We respect our Constitution. We also understand that no right is limitless. We understand that our right to bear arms must be balanced with other important considerations.
We are therefore willing to undergo a more complicated and even difficult process in order to own our guns because we value the lives of our fellow citizens enough to do so. We understand that weapons in the hands of the wrong people results in the loss of innocent life. We will therefore accept specific limits on what types of weapons citizens may own and what types of ammunition may be used.
We accept the idea that "limits' on our right to bear arms, such as background checks and stricter licensing laws are not intended to deprive us of our rights. Rather they are a reasonable measure that, though perhaps not our preference, benefits the society in which we live. We understand and accept that these limits are intended to help protect the lives of men, women and children from terrible tragedy and loss."
This will never happen. Our society has decided that the sanctity of the right to bear arms trumps the sanctity of life. It is a very sad indictment of our nation's priorities.
But as a wise man once said:
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."
UPDATE: Apologies for the HTML problems. No HTML appeared on my screen when I published the diary, so I was unaware of the problem. I re-formatted the diary and I believe it is now fixed.
UPDATE 2: The CDC study that many seem to be referencing found "insufficient evidence" that gun control laws are effective. This is not the same as saying the laws are "ineffective." There were simply too many variables to prove conclusively one hypothesis or another.
My argument is not naive or infantile, or based on "intuitive" or wishful thinking. On the contrary, those of you who believe the old saw that "guns don't kill people, people do" are in a state of denial that I find incomprehensible.
Despite what some have suggested, I am not trying to provide ammunition - no pun intended - to Republicans or anyone else who would like to make this debate political. I don't believe it should even be a political issue. It's a moral issue.
As I think I inferred, I don't think it's possible to change people's - or society's - mind on this issue. But staying silent about it is not acceptable to me.
Here is a link to the Brady Campaign, in case anyone is interested:
http://www.bradycampaign.org/...
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