So you know how grandpa has a safe filled with guns. And how he used those guns to feed his family when mom was a kid. (That's not figurative. Literally the majority of the meat my mother ate while living at home was killed and butchered by my grandpa). I don't have a problem with guns. I have a problem with criminals having guns. Or convicted abusers. Or the mentally unstable.
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| Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey, authors of failed bill to extend the same background checks that apply in stores to gun shows and internet sells, while excluding transactions between family members. And explicitly outlawed a national gun registry. AKA, a completely non-controversial move to increase gun safety. |
It's totally cool to not trust politicians to do right by you. But, it's not cool to think that any efforts at gun-control are just a prelude to a totalitarian state. Basically it's not cool to be afraid all the time. This is America. In this world there are places where fear is not a choice. In the child armies of Central Africa, fear is not a choice. In the starved and rhetorically insane nation of North Korea, fear is not a choice. But this is America. Our most endearing trait is irrational bravery.
In Plymouth Colony, almost half of the pilgrims died in the first year. But settlers still came. For nearly a century, the death rate outpaced the birth rate along the Mississippi River due to Yellow Fever, but Americans still moved out West. We waged a war with one of the greatest powers on the planet without a dream of winning on our own, and we fought that way for nearly three years before France would officially back us up. America, traditionally, is a gutsy nation.
And speaking of being afraid all of the time. I refuse to let terrorists win.
tromokratiphobia: n. (from τρομοκράτης , the Greek word for terrorism, and φοβία, for fear) the irrational fear of terrorism. Notable sufferers of tromokratiphobia include many important persons in the American political world. Like many phobias, tromokratiphobia often leads the sufferer to ignore healthy fears in service of the irrational one.
I refuse to tell my child that there really are monsters out to get him. I refuse to say that we need armed guards as a daily reminder of that fear. My son is 25% more likely to be struck by lightning than to be killed at school. Meanwhile, one child out of 25 (an average 1st grade class) will drop out of school each year. One third of all elementary school kids won't graduate from high school.
In order to fly, the TSA would have me pass my son through a body scanner, letting men I do not know or trust view his privates. There are 400,000 registered sex offenders in the US. There were 523 terrorism
Our national obsession with terrorism is distracting us from things we have a much greater need to worry about.
My heart goes out to anyone that has lost friends or family to violence. My prayers are with the still mourning families of New York, Washington DC, Newtown, Aurora, Boston, and thousands of homes across the US missing loved ones that have died in service to their nation. I hurt to even think about it. In December I cried every night for weeks as I put my son in bed. I know that statistics are cold, lifeless things beside the suffering of so many touched by terrorism.
I don't want terrorists to leave a legacy. Every pat down performed on a terrified innocent person just trying to fly home is a monument to Al Qaeda. They won that one. And I refuse to support a world where they keep winning.
Toby Keith got it wrong. It's not a boot in their ass. It's a smile. It's joy that doesn't worry too much about the worst case scenario. It's persistent bravery. That's the American way.
We get back at terrorists by refusing to be terrorized.
Let there be peace on earth,
Steph
I know this is a contentious issue--what are your thoughts? How do we balance safety with freedom? How do we protect our children without instilling fear?
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Well the problem is this bill does literally nothing to ensure that criminals or crazy people won't get guns. It's misguided and flawed legislation. There is absolutely no reason to meddle in private transfers, and the vast majority of Internet sales DO go through a valid FFL. Like any other gun. So really this is misdirection at best, and a complete intrusion on rights for no reason at worst.
ReplyDeleteWe should be focusing on getting mental health care in America to not be: "throw them in prison when they happen to finally snap."
I know you're just trying to protect the innocent the way you see best, but I don't understand your arguments.
ReplyDeleteI don't see how this legislation doesn't even have the potential to save a handful of lives. It could've saved *three. Isn't three lives worth the effort? Yes, criminals will still get guns. Yes, people will still get shot. But at least with this bill criminals wouldn't get their guns from law abiding citizens. We should protect each other when we can. We're on the same side.
I also don't see how this law infringes on anyone's rights. Every potential elementary school teacher has to prove they aren't a sex offender. Every potential gun buyer should prove that they aren't a convicted wife-puncher. "Most" in these situations isn't good enough. The ramifications are too serious.
And of course, we should take other measures to curb gun violence in addition to this bill. That doesn't this bill is worthless.
-Steph
*I'm referring to the shooting last year in a Wisconsin spa. The shooter had a restraining order filed against him, but he bought the gun online to skirt the background check. He killed the woman who filed the complaint and two others.
DeleteIt MIGHT have saved three. Can you prove that it would have? The DOJ has released statements saying that this legislation is useless w/o a giant firearms database. You have to force gun registration.
ReplyDeleteThis law steps in and regulates what you can do with your private property. Why is it okay to let the government do that at all? That is a huge breach of liberty.
It is worthless if the only people it affects is the people it is supposed to protect.
What was to stop him from getting a gun some other way? This Bill would not have stopped him. There's no way to do that.
The bill makes it a felony to attempt to make a gun registry. Regardless of whatever anyone said to the contrary, that's what the bill says.
DeleteThe government routinely tells you what you can do with your private property. Copyright protections, vehicle inspections, withholding taxes from your income. That's price for living in a society.
Of course I can't prove that the bill would save lives. Likewise, without a time machine, you can't prove that it wouldn't. But if it MIGHT save lives and also MIGHT just be a giant waste of time, I think the potential benefits justify taking that risk.
I fundamentally disagree with the statement that you can't help gun violence. People aren't binary. There's not just criminals and innocents. There are certainly gun victims that were shot because a gun was handy. Jumping through hoops is actually an effective deterrent. It's like locking your car. Yes someone could just smash in the window. But you still lock your doors because that still deters some criminals. Just because we can't stop gun violence completely, doesn't mean there's no point in doing anything about it.
"The government routinely tells you what you can do with your private property. Copyright protections, vehicle inspections, withholding taxes from your income. That's price for living in a society."
ReplyDeleteEeeeeeeeeeh. Copyright just means you can't sell something that belongs to someone else. You can resell your cds w/o violating the original author's copyright. Vehicle inspections are a necessary intrusion in operation on govt roads. You can buy and sell cars to whoever you want if you use them on your own property. Withholding taxes is more a convenience thing. The impetus is on you to pay taxes or not. None of those really come close to saying that your property isn't really your own b/c it's scary. How does that not completely and utterly violate the 2nd amendment?
"There are certainly gun victims that were shot because a gun was handy."
You could reduce gun crime sure. But would that reduce violent crime in general? Just because a gun was handy doesn't mean it was the only possible murder weapon. There's always the candlestick... ;) Seriously though I don't buy that. This is not what is happening in the vast majority of gun crime. It's not even close to a justification for ANY legislation.
"But if it MIGHT save lives and also MIGHT just be a giant waste of time, I think the potential benefits justify taking that risk."
Yes, exactly. This is where we truly disagree I guess. I think it can only do harm without providing any measurable benefit. There is much greater risk for abuse. There's only some small shred of a chance that it could save a life, but there's demonstrable harm.
If the only reasoning people can give for more gun control is to save lives than they just need to stop. If the goal is to save lives through legislation, why focus on a fraction of the deaths in America? Cars kill like 3 times more people than guns. Why not just outlaw them altogether. No one actually needs a car. It's just a convenience thing.
I have yet to hear a single compelling argument for more gun control than we currently have, other than fixing what's broke in the current system.