I'm learning in this life that there are some topics that people cannot discuss rationally. Not everybody has the same taboo, of course...but there are some issues that just make people lose their ever lovin' minds. The tea party. Homosexuality. Particulars of religious faith.
But these days the issue that makes most people insane is the issue of gun control. One reason I've basically dumped facebook is that I just can't stand the insane 'sharing' of pictures, and in the last five days, since the tragic shootings of 26 people in Connecticut, almost everybody has a picture they think they need to share with me about gun control, be they a variation on the theme of 'guns don't kill people, people kill people', 'we gotta keep our guns or the government will destroy us all' or 'let's all get rid of guns and then we can live in happy rainbow land'. It's not just this issue, of course...facebook is becoming an ideological cesspool on so many issues...but this is the one that has sent me over the edge. We need more words, better words about this and so many other topics.
In all honesty I don't have all the answers, but the extremes on both sides are just mind-boggling stupid. Yes, I said it...stupid. A word I try to make sure my kids don't say, like 'poopyhead' and 'butt'. Etymologically, I think 'stupid' and 'poopyhead' must be related, for most of the comments and/or facebook pictures I've seen and heard about this are either a)pulled straight from some special-interest website or b)the butt. Same thing, really.
30,000 dead from gun violence, 100,000 injured from gun violence a year in this country. Just this weekend two more cops in Topeka were killed by guns. Some think that all this will go away completely if we just eliminate guns. Truth is, people will still kill people if so inclined. Cain didn't need a handgun; Jack the Ripper did fine without a semi-automatic. There are so many guns out there now, so much ammunition readily available, that banning guns now would be like saying that no more Twinkies will be made...it's going to take years, decades even to whittle down the stockpile we have now. And even so, the Little Debbies of the world will soon jump in and fill a void and the black market on these guns will make prohibition look like a John 2 party.
But let's be rational, please? Are we honestly saying that we can't look for better gun laws? That we can't tighten some of the huge loopholes that people keep blasting their way through? The insanity of the discussion from the NRA-loving crowd is that any change of gun laws to make it more restrictive is a fundamental challenge to the second amendment. But a little bit of common sense makes us see that the right to 'bear arms' is not an absolute right...do we allow private citizens to own shoulder-launched air-to-ground missiles? How about the newest fighter jets? Heck, by the reasoning of the gun lobby we all ought to have nuclear missiles at our disposal...that will sure make the government back off our property, right?
There is no sane reason why anybody in this country outside of law enforcement needs the kind of weaponry that seems to always be at the center of most of this trouble. Thinking that an automatic weapon that can shoot a hundred rounds in ten seconds is as much like my dad's shotgun as a tank is like my bicycle. Why can't we sanely tell the difference?
We can't (and won't) ever have the courage to get rid of all guns. But we can surely eliminate the very worst of them, can't we? A sane, civilized place like here (I give America in 2012 way too much credit, but still...) can certainly figure out that the most dangerous of the offending weapons be made illegal.
Epilogue: here are some miscellaneous simple steps that have been going through my head. Not really related to what I've said before, but this gets them out of my head:
1)All guns should be registered and, if the technology is possible, their signature ought to be saved. Or has CSI been wrong about how much they can track weapons? If so, forget this...but surely, we should stop this idea that guns should be anonymous...we ought to be able to track whose weapon does what.
2)Related to this, everybody who owns a gun ought to have liability insurance on it. Low-danger weapons have low insurance...but if you think you have to own a handgun in a high-crime area or an automatic military-grade assault weapon, you'll pay for it, as they could track what weapons get fired at who. I have to pay liability insurance for every car I own, why not guns?
3)My favorite thought in all this: all guns are illegal, but ammunition cannot be manufactured or sold en masse. You have to make your own ammunition, just as they did back in the days of the constitution's writing. Then we'll really get back to 'original intent' when it comes to the constitution...I don't think James Madison had armor-piercing shells in mind when he wrote those blessed words.
