First of all, my condolences to the family and friends of Trayvon Martin for the horrible loss they have endured.
There have been many beautiful and touching diaries about this young man that lost his life too young and it is pretty clear to the majority of us in this community that the shooting (or at the very least least the chasing of Trayvon Martin) was racially motivated and that racially motivated policemen came to the quick conclusion that Zimmerman was exercising his right to self defense - essentially they indicted, prosecuted and judged a dead boy, without ever giving him any benefit of innocence until proven guilty.
There is an issue that almost everyone seems to want to avoid, the fact that gun control laws, more specifically that the lack of these is a direct cause for what happened to Trayvon Martin. Florida gun laws have gotten more lax, the shooter had easy access and could carry a concealed weapon in spite of having had violence in his past that should have disqualified him, but was expunged. To make things worse, the NRA has gotten, not just Florida, but also 19 other states to institute the "stand your ground" laws - better described by others as the "Make my day" laws.
Now I am not against the Second Amendment and I am not in favor of banning all guns or making it so onerous that it would be as good as banning guns.
I want to repeat: I AM NOT AGAINST THE SECOND AMENDMENT AND I AM NOT IN FAVOR OF BANNING ALL GUNS. Is that clear? This is not a diary about the right of the people to keep and bear arms, rather a diary and a discussion about how we can save the right of Trayvon Martin (and many others that have been senselessly killed) and still honor the rights Second Amendment.
There is a certain group among us that will always hijack any diary on this topic and will start name-calling any of us that want to even discuss about sensible gun laws. [I hope they will stay away and allow others that want to discuss an option different to the unfettered access to guns that they profess is the most important right in this Country. Please stay away, I know that you probably will not and you will engage with nastiness against any of us that you disagree with. I stay away from your diaries as it became clear that any time I tried to engage in a reasoned discussion it would not happen because you disagree with my opinion that there can be sensible gun control laws without violating the Second Amendment. I know that I can only use my HRs against anyone that I asked to stay away and hijack the discussion, but I guess the moderators will sort out the melee after the fact if you guys still feel that you must hijack my diary to show that you can overwhelm anyone with a different opinion. Feel free to write your own diary flaming me, but I am only looking to engage people that have an open mind on the issue.]
If Florida had not enacted the "make my day" law and conceal carry laws had not been made so lax that essentially anyone but a convicted felon can carry a concealed weapon, Trayvon Martin would probably be alive today. Sure some will argue that Zimmerman could have still killed Trayvon Martin with his hands or with a knife, but that is not what happened. Others will argue that Zimmerman could have obtained his gun illegally and used it anyway. Others will argue that more guns (as in having had Travon Martin armed) are the way to stop gun violence.
To me there is only one solution, common sense gun laws that are enacted nationally, not on a patchwork as we presently have. I know that what I am saying sounds simple but that it is extremely unlikely to ever happen in this Country. The NRA for one has way too much power - they control just about all Republicans and a great deal of Democrats. To the NRA a simple national set of gun laws would be the worst thing that could happen because the patchwork laws result in so many loopholes that guns are almost as available in a state with tough gun laws as they are in any state that has very lax gun laws. I live in MA, a state with very tough gun control laws, but we still have plenty of guns and plenty of gun crime. The NRA and the gun promoting people say that this is proof that gun control laws don't work and actually only work to benefit criminals, not law abiding citizens, but this is just a smokescreen as the great majority of those guns used in crimes in Massachusetts are bought legally in states like Georgia and then brought to MA by bus (making it practically impossible to detect/deter the entry of these weapons into our state).
My simple national gun laws would look as follows:
1. Background checks for anyone buying a gun, no matter where the gun is purchased. A clear definition would have to be made as to what persons would be excluded from gun ownership (this is not trivial and would take quite a bit of work to make it fair and equitable). Perhaps a minimum age would also be defined for gun ownership as children do not have the maturity to discern between play shooting on a video game and actual shooting with a deadly weapon.
2. Training and licensing of anyone that wants to own/operate a weapon. Not anything onerous, just some simple training and a brief demonstration to show that one can follow simple safety instructions when using a gun. To the absolutists requiring this would be no different than literacy tests to be able to exercise our First Amendment rights or knowledge tests before we can exercise the right to vote, but these are false equivalencies that ignore the fact that free speech or voting do not have the potential to directly end anyone's life.
3. A clear registry of all guns that are purchased so that if a gun is stolen, or even worse used in a crime, the gun can be traced back to the purchaser.
A simple national law like this would eliminate all of the loopholes and any state that would like a stricter law could try to implement tougher laws, but I know this will never happen. The attacks will be the usual:
- you are trying to take away my liberty! I am not trying to take away anyone's liberty to own a gun, the liberty has not been infringed on. The question is why would a law-abiding person not want to demonstrate that they can handle a gun safely and why would they be against a registry that would help track criminals that may have stolen their gun? Sure they will say that the first step is for the government to register the guns before they come for all of them and other Orwellian accusations, but the question is: what constitutes an "infringement" on their Second Amendment rights? Simple training, licensing, registration? It is harder to get a permit to operate a business than it is to get a gun. For the majority of people, a gun is not part of their livelihood, yet it is easier for George Zimmerman to get a gun that it is for me to start a business upon which I depend for my life.
In the 10+ years since 9/11 we have lost more than 30 times as many people to gun violence as happened on that horrific day. That means that we experience the deaths of three 9/11 attacks every year, but the fact that they come as a trickle desensitizes us to these senseless deaths. Sure some people will still be murdered and we will never be able to get that number to zero (even if we banned all guns, which once again I am not advocating), but what is an acceptable target? One 9/11 death count per year due to senseless gun violence? To me any death is too many, but we have to start somewhere and 3,000 gun violence deaths per year would be a great improvement on the 9,000 plus gun violence deaths per year we now experience.
The problem is that any discussion such as this always degenerates into a screaming match in which the pro-gun people absolutely declare that any gun control is a total obliteration of their Second Right Amendments. I would like to think that we could have a civilized discussion about what would constitute sensible (and effective) gun control laws that does not take away the rights of anyone to own a gun or use it to defend themselves.
I'd like to think that Trayvon Martin's death wold allow us to have this discussion so that someday one of us will not have to bury a son/daughter that was gunned down.
To those that will scream about their gun rights, I say what about Trayvon Martin's right to live? Do the Second Amendment rights of George Zimmerman trump that? What gun control laws could prevent this? What are reasonable limits? Where do our rights end and those of other begin?
As I ponder these, I can only think of the parents that lost their 17 year old son and how nothing will ever bring him back. If that were my child I would work tirelessly until the laws change to make things better. I pose that we all should be doing that even if we have not lost a child to senseless gun violence. Sure the odds are long, the NRA will spend millions, the Republicans will scream that liberals are out to take people's guns, and the gun industry will continue flooding the market with guns because that is their strategy - more guns means more violence, more violence means more fear that results in gun purchases, and the spiral will keep going until everyone is armed to the hilt.
Peace to the family of Travon Martin and may our Country find a way to bring more peace to our children.