A friend of mine sent me this cartoon earlier, and I find it perfect considering the media’s anti-gun standpoint in the wake of the mass shooting last week.
[ Copyright © Leo Garza / San Antonio Express-News ]
Having been around guns since I was … well, born, actually … I learned to have a healthy respect for them. As a child, I never touched them unless they were handed to me. I didn’t tell my friends about them. I didn’t ever show them to my friends. I didn’t carry them around with me. I certainly never took one to show-and-tell.
Why?
Because I listened to what my father told me.
Flash forward a lot of years, and any time a child doesn’t listen to their parents and does any of those things with a gun, the media goes insane about it.
The problem isn’t guns — it’s in raising a child who has no idea about cause-and-effect relationships, no responsibility or consequences for their own actions.
Guns should be kept away from children. I agree with that. Some people should not own guns. I agree with that. But making widespread sweeping changes and Federal bans on guns?
Congress doesn’t know enough about firearms to make any such distinctions. There are any number of stumbling blocks here. You can’t go out today and come home with a handgun. You can’t go out today and purchase a fully automatic, military-style weapon — nor can you in two weeks. Or a month. Or six.
We have enjoyed gun ownership since this country was founded. There are plenty of them around. Employing strict gun control laws only affects guns that the Government knows about, viz. AR-15 rifles. Since we’ve been signing up for them, with background checks, for nearly thirty years, then what are we supposed to do?
In essence, the Government would be saying, “Oh, by the way, that gun you signed for twenty years ago? Give it here. No, you haven’t done anything wrong. But … Give it! No, I don’t care how much you paid for it, and I don’t care what it’s worth. I’ll give you to the count of three, or I’ll have to shoot you… 1 … 2 … I thought so.”
“But you don’t need a Glock 17 that can hold 19 rounds!” some scream.
I would argue that they don’t need an SUV with a 24-gallon gas tank that has to be refilled every 200 miles.
Sure, my gun might, one day, give one person a really bad day if they come into my home with the intent of causing me harm. But their SUV is nothing more than a carbon monoxide factory that is destroying the ozone layer and screwing it up for all of us.
Which one’s really more important?
On 19-Apr-2007, vehement gun control activists, The Brady Campaign, released a press statement, titled, “Cho Seung-Hui Was A Prohibited Purchaser Under Existing Federal Law.”
Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence President Paul Helmke issued the following statement:
“We believe that based on existing Federal law, Cho Seung-Hui should not have passed his Brady background checks and should not have been allowed to purchase firearms.”
So, basically, they’re saying that even though there were laws in place to prevent Cho from ever owning a gun, he got them anyway, because someone broke the law. Was it Cho? The seller? Those responsible for the background check?
Whatever the answer, it doesn’t change the fact that no amount of legislation would have kept it from happening.
Heed My Words: Gun control isn’t going to affect the massive number of illegal, untraceable guns that are out there, and it will leave a populace completely undefended against those who possess them.
For a few weeks now, Fracas has been pointing out the fact that plenty of people are searching for Shyamali Malakar, and crotch shots, and ending up at her blog.
Fracas is also doing the “FuelMyBlog” thing. She’s entered the Design a Widget competition over there, and done a helluva job, too, but they haven’t updated the competition page with it just yet.
