Monday, February 4, 2013

The Obvious Choice, or the Oblivious Choice?


Congress is now considering a ban on guns that look like assault weapons.  They do so in response to a number of homicides, including the tragic events of Newtown CT, even though no assault style weapon was used.  I will be the first to admit I am not sure I know the right answer, but I am pretty sure the agenda being pushed by the Democrats is self-serving and will do nothing to prevent future outrageous gun violence.
An old friend offered a studied and reasonable approach to reducing the ability to rapidly reload weapons, but those reasonable measures will probably never be adopted because we are rushing to decision based on emotion instead of reason.
This weekend a Navy SEAL sniper, a true warrior/hero was slain at a gun range, by a Marine Veteran alleged to be suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  I don’t know the specific details, beyond what was in the news, but when Chris Kyle was killed he was helping troubled veterans in the way he thought best.  He wasn’t killed because the gun was evil; it was because someone who shouldn’t have had a gun had one.  Would the proposed laws have prevented this tragedy? 
As we see with the wide ranging degree of state restrictions, just having laws restricting or mandating controls does very little to stop the violence.  For example, I would cite Chicago where even though they have among the most restrictive laws in the nation, if not the most restrictive, the murder rate from guns is the among the highest per capita in the country. 
Could that be because the laws are not strict enough, or is it because an overworked Police Department and a judicial system that has lost its authority through lax enforcement and judicial involvement in social engineering, work against the intended safeguards of a strict law?   
If we move forward with these proposed bans on semi-automatic assault style weapons it will be because Congress and the Administration continue to write legislation that is out of touch with the real issues.

2 comments:

Gino said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
John said...

Gino, for the record I did not remove your post. The only thing I can conclude is the internet police at Google feel it is their duty to control political thought.

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