I want to debate you about which of our favorite baseball teams is better.
To convince you I explain that our first baseman has hit 45 home runs this season, our left fielder has a .336 batting average, our center fielder has 67 stolen bases and our top pitcher has 239 strikeouts.
I have your team’s stats right here in the morning paper, and you have nobody to match those numbers. So I win.
There’s only one problem. I made all that stuff up. None of those guys have statistics nearly that good.
See, it’s hard to have a debate with someone who makes things up, and that’s what it’s like for someone who wants common sense gun laws to discuss the issue with some gun enthusiasts because the most fervent among them have a tendency to lie about what my side really believes.
Here’s what they say: “You want to take our guns.”
Here’s the truth: “We don’t.”
Now, we do believe the average citizen shouldn’t be allowed to possess military style weapons and accessories like large magazines designed to maximize the carnage. We don’t believe you need this kind of firepower. We don’t believe you should be better armed than our police and our military. We don’t believe someone predisposed to kill should be outfitted with equipment that will make his efforts exponentially more lethal.
We don’t have a problem with law-abiding citizens owning handguns or hunting rifles. We’re fine with that. Many of the people who want common sense gun laws are gun owners or grew up in families that had guns.
So why do so many gun folks not tell the truth? Why do they start every argument with this preposterous lie?
One reason might be they’re taking their cue from the National Rifle Association, which is one of the biggest terrorist organizations in America. Look no further that its internet commercials, which are really thinly-veiled threats of violence against people who don’t agree with them.
Memo to the NRA: We don’t scare that easily.
Here’s what I would call some common sense gun laws:
*Upgraded universal background checks that include mental health.
*Close the gun show loophole.
*Make bump stocks illegal.
What could possibly be the rational argument against these ideas? Do responsible gun owners really think we should not have as strong a background check system as we can to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous or deranged people? Are they fine with things like bump stocks that serve the purpose of making a semi-automatic weapon fire more like an automatic one?
I haven’t heard any arguments, even from the NRA, why any of these ideas are bad. All they do is keep saying “you want to take our guns.”
That’s just a smokescreen, and a pathetic one at that.
The gun folks were on the attack after Sunday’s Oscar ceremony, screaming how all those Hollywood types want gun control but look at all those security guards they hired. They’re hypocrites.
No, they’re not. They believe the high-powered weapons belong in the hands of trained professionals, like those guards at the event. It had nothing to do with individuals owning guns.
And while we’re at it, school teachers should not be armed. If you want people with guns to protect your school that’s fine, but hire professionals to do it.
Raise your school taxes if you have to in order to pay them, but get people who are trained and know what they’re doing. I would imagine there are a number of communities where some kind of partnership could be developed between the school district and the police department to provide officers during class hours and after-school events.
And yes, we do know the bad guys will still get their guns. But if you use that reasoning why do we have any laws? Why is it illegal to burglarize someone’s home when you know there are still going to be burglaries? Why is it against the law to drive over 70 miles an hour on the interstate because there are a lot of people who will do just that?
Look at it this way, if it’s illegal to have an AR-15 with a large magazine and the police catch someone with those things they arrest him. No gray area. No chance he’ll talk his way out of it, walk around the corner and mow down a crowd of people in a park or a bunch of kids on a playground.
If you only had laws that could be perfectly enforced then you’d have no laws at all.
By the way, we hear your claim about protecting your Second Amendment Rights. We agree that constitutional rights should be protected.
But the fact is when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that individuals do have a right to possess a firearm for lawful purposes, such as self-defense, it added some other information worth noting that the NRA and gun supporters usually ignore.
The late Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that “like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.” It is “not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”
So your right to assault-type weapon is not guaranteed by the Second Amendment. Period.
Gun control, like a lot of things, can be calmly and intelligently debated. Compromises can be reached. But you have to start from a truthful basis or you’re wasting your time. And that truth bears repeating:
Those of us who want common sense gun laws are fine with law-abiding citizens owning reasonable weapons of self-defense.
In fact, we wouldn’t have it any other way.
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