It could be just about any day when I sadly announce, 'There's been another mass shooting'. It doesn't matter when, it doesn't matter where, it doesn't matter that it happened in a red state at a school where there were armed officers. We live in a nation that loves our guns perhaps more than anything else. I confess that I'm almost numb to it, and can only pray that it doesn't happen here. I'm sick of all the rationalizations that come from the gun lobby as to why we shouldn't do anything about this, from 'well, abortion kills far more people!' to 'We need guns to the good guys safe!' to 'I can't think for myself so I have to let the NRA think for me!' to 'We've got to have a well armed citizenry so that we can be free from government tyrany!' Only three of those four have been spoken, but they are all real.
Once again, we have thoughts and prayers for the victims of the families, we put our flags at half-staff, and we engage for a day or two in an endless debate about what to do that will change nothing. It's easy to put all the blame on guns and their supporters for this, but in fact both extremes are wrong.
The liberals are forever going to be ineffective in fixing this because they are unrealistic in their hysteria. "We need new laws to stop this NOW." New laws won't change the fact that there are already 300,000,000 guns out there...even if no guns were sold in the next twenty years, there's still going to be plenty of weaponry out there to keep up with these shootings. New laws won't change the fact that some people DO need guns...if you live in rural areas, one needs them for protection, and hunting is a noble task that should not be eliminated. New laws won't stop the hysteria that will happen if government agents come to confiscate guns...'See, we told you this would happen!' New laws won't change the hearts and minds of the 38% of people who own guns (ironically, the same amount of people who think Trainwreck Trump is doing a heckuva job) and have been fed a diet of fear from the NRA and their willing publicists Faux News.
But ultimately, it's the gun lobby that's more in the wrong because they have lost all common sense. Because they have completely misread the 2nd amendment to be absolutist (amazingly, few of them see that the point of it was to keep a well-regulated militia ready against foreign intrusion) and individualistic (note that it speaks to the people, plural), they resist almost any common sense ideas to regulate the abuses of gun ownership. We regulate the building of cars to take out the most dangerous aspects of them (hello, Pinto's exploding gas tanks), we regulate the safety of new structures built to ensure they can withstand earthquakes and won't poison those who live there, we ensure that chemical plants no longer can dump toxins in rivers (well, until recently, thanks to the impending demise of the EPA under TT). Why can't we have some common sense about guns? 1)If you own guns, you have to own a gun safe. 2)Guns have to be registered at the point of sale. 3)Every gun must be trackable not just in ownership but in ballistic markings...that way we know whose gun was responsible. 4)Let's come to a recognition that the general public does not need to own certain types of high volume, high capacity guns. We don't let people own shoulder missile launchers or tanks...why should anybody be able to own an AK-47? 5)Limit ownership only to those who can pass strict background and safety checks. In the time it took me to get licensed to drive a school bus, I could have bought several guns and gone on multiple rampages...this is wrong. 6)Tax the crap out of ammunition. You you want a trophy to put up on your wall? Fine. But tax ammunition like we tax cigarettes. Make it unappealing to buy. And the money that is collected in this taxation, put aside for victims of gun violence.
In this day and age mass violence would still happen even if all guns were taken away...as long as there are knives, crowbars, and rocks, people will find something to kill other people with. But can't we ate least stop the most egregious examples? Law-abiding people can still own guns...but we have to start changing the tone of the conversation in which hysteria on both left and right take over. Until this happens, the shootings will not stop.
