It breaks my heart that we have to visit this issue again… and again and again and again. When mass killings have become an almost weekly event in the United States, we live in a sorry nation. If you don’t think so, quit reading this now and move on. You’ve surrendered yourselves and your children to the would-be killers among us and have moved beyond sensible and productive discussion. If recent slaughters in a temple, in a movie theater or in a shopping mall haven’t moved your heart to ponder America’s gun culture and what we can do to change things, is there any hope the crumpled, bloody bodies of children in a Connecticut school and the unimaginable anguish of their parents might still bring you to your senses?
In response to yesterday’s tragedy and in memory of 20 innocent children and seven dedicated educators forever lost to senseless gun violence, some plain-spoken common-sense rebuttals to the same, played-out excuses offered by advocates of the status quo:
Now is not the time to talk about it.
Wrong. Now is exactly the time to talk about it. Americans, and especially politicians, have notoriously short attention spans. We are aroused and incited to action, the quickly lose interest when the next shiny object comes along. Mass murders have become so commonplace in America their news value has become measured by the number of deaths involved. Twenty-seven people slaughtered in a school captures our attention, but a disgruntled worker blowing away two or three people on the job merits only a brief notice after the sports, weather and traffic update. Murder is so commonplace in the United States that when no one was murdered in New York City on November 28, that was news.
The time to put out a fire is when it is burning. Better yet, let’s take steps to prevent that fire from igniting in the first place. If now is not the time to talk about this issue, then when is? You tell us. If you’re not ready, we’ll just do it without your input.
They’re trying to take our guns away.
Settle down, Wild Bill, nobody is trying to take your guns away. Maybe a few zealots think we can eliminate all guns, but advocates of rational gun control do not. No one is looking to disarm the hunter, the sportsman, the trained and sensible home gun owner. Apoplectic rants about the government coming to seize everyone’s guns are designed to turn gun owners into frightened sheep. Reject the loonies and show us you have a mind of your own.
Law-abiding people need guns to protect themselves.
See the previous rebuttal. Again, gun control advocates have no problem with a trained and sensible gun owner who keeps a licensed gun safely in his or her home. But consider this: You may get lucky in a shootout with an armed assailant, but more likely your family will soon be planning your funeral. My father, a gun-owning, Lifetime Member of the NRA, decorated war veteran and expert marksman, always told us this: If someone holds you up, just let them take what they want. Things can be replaced, your life, and those of your family, cannot.
Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.
A childish argument and a semantic canard. Of course guns kill people; that’s what they’re made for. Guns are only tools, you say? Yes, guns are tools. When used properly, guns are tools for killing. I am well aware that people can also be killed with knives, clubs, candlesticks, falling anvils, and someone’s bare hands. We will never put an end to senseless killing but we can make it harder to commit mass murder. No one is going to burst into a school and beat two dozen children to death with a monkey wrench, at least not before he is subdued after the first one or two. Don’t tell me about the whack job in China who knifed 22 people. Mass knife slayings are as rare as hens’ teeth; that’s why it made the news. Mass shootings have become almost routine in America. Guns kill people, or, if you prefer, people with guns kill people.
Criminals will always be able to get guns.
We know that; we don’t dispute this. But look beyond the phony scare tactic: I have no fear whatsoever of the professional killer, the armed drug trafficker, the gun-toting mobster. These people are not out to kill me or my family or my neighbors. I’ll tell you what I am afraid of: I am afraid of living in a country where any ordinary Joe can “snap” after a fight with his girlfriend or boss, walk into a Kmart, come out armed like Rambo and kill dozens of innocent people on a whim. Does that sound like the country you want to live in? I hope not. If it is, God help us all, this nation is doomed.
The Second Amendment guarantees all Americans the right to own guns.
Maybe, maybe not. It’s a question of intent and syntax. One thing is clear: the founding fathers wanted a well-regulated militia. Unless you’re old enough to remember the War of 1812 you’ve never seen a militia in the United States, well-regulated or otherwise. Could the founding fathers have envisioned someone slaughtering 27 people in a school with a single-shot musket?
Anyway, since when is the Constitution written in stone? The Constitution has been changed dozens of times since 1787. They call those things at the end “amendments” for a reason. We’ve made changes in the right to vote, the right to own slaves, the right to buy and sell alcohol. Curiously, a lot of the same people who are lobbying for changing the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage are telling us the Constitution can never be changed with regard to guns. Those people are hypocrites.
Again, we will never put an end to gun violence, but why do we fight to make it so easy? Preventing even a few senseless deaths is worth the trouble, especially if one of them is your child. A national gun registry, mandatory background checks, the Federal Assault Weapons Ban and other common-sense laws impinge upon no one’s rights.
More people are killed by... than by guns.
So what? We clamor for practical, mechanical and legal steps to be taken to reduce the number of people killed by disease, automobile collisions, train wrecks, elevator accidents, sports injuries and exploding soda bottles, but we can't discuss reducing the number of deaths by guns? How many deaths are too many to be ignored or too few to bother about?
One can’t help but wonder if someone opened fire in a convention of the National Rifle Association and killed 27 NRA members if we might see some laws changed more quickly. I don’t wish for such a tragedy, I only wonder. It’s easy to say we don’t need to change our laws and our thinking when it’s not your child’s blood being mopped up off a classroom floor.