Who needs an AK-47 when you can kill something just as dead with a sturdy old Winchester? Who needs a cyclic rate of fire of 600 rounds a minute when one shot from a well-aimed hunting rifle will kill something just the same? This was the question I always posed to pro-gun advocates when I was standing up for the now defunct Assault Weapons Ban of 1994. It was a good question, one I've yet to meet a good answer to. Of course, that was before I realized the answer for myself:
Who needs a 2005 Mustang when a 1998 Contour will get you where you need to go all the same? Why do people aspire to Harvard when you can get a perfectly valid diploma at Ball State University? More importantly, who cares?
This was my Great Awakening: why not? What right does anyone have to legislate out a right put forth quite clearly in the Second Amendment to the Constitution? The gun rights argument is a good one, but it requires one to look beyond what is simply out front, because what is out front is often spoken by those who are ill informed. The abortion debate is much like this, in a sense.
Who can legislate out a right to a choice that the Supreme Court upholds? If the Supreme Court decides something is so, as they have done with the Second Amendment and Roe, why do activists on the left and right feel empowered to cross it out? Why do liberals feel so inclined to blot out the Second Amendment? Why do arch-conservatives possess such a drive to ignore the decisions of Roe? It's nonsensical.
I stand in the middle of the road ideologically, with clear views on both issues. My position is simply this: keep it safe, and make sure that the people in positions of responsibility know what they're doing and know how to instruct those who do not. With guns, even the vilified "assault weapons" that the far left has waged such a desperate campaign against, make sure they go to law abiding owners and we won't have a problem.
A law abiding owner of a weapon will not go crazy out of the gate once he or show gets their hands on an "assault weapon." The same goes for abortion: keep it safe, keep it rare. If the mother is risking death, or if the pregnancy is the grim product of rape or incest, go ahead. It is no one's business but that mother, just as it is no one's business whether or not you buy a gun, so long as it is in accordance with the law. Abortion, like purchasing a gun, ought to be safe, secure and private.
Americans are responsible enough to make their own decisions. The rallying call of the hard right seems to be that liberals want to take away our God-given right to make our own decisions. They point to the Assault Weapons Ban as their Holy Grail of liberalism out of control. But do the hard right legislatures that want to ban abortion feel the same way about what they are doing? Are they not also limiting the right of Americans to make decisions that are within the boundaries of law?
Democrats and Republicans put the country at risk, each in their own way, by pushing too far in their ideological direction. The Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 is a lasting testament of what happens when one ideology gets too much power, too much ability to pull one way: we see rhetoric trump fact and reason. Now, with Republicans in a strong majority in Congress, and with the White House on their side, Republicans must remember to act with discipline and common sense. There must be no Abortion Ban of 2005, or nominating of far-right judges who have just that idea in mind. It is no different than what happened in 1994 that led so many gun owners on the march to hard-line conservatism in the first place.
Let's use some common sense, drop the rhetoric, and finally start making some progress for the people.
Blogged by The New Democrat