Guns Yet Again

I am truly tired of blogging about guns--and Americans should be more than tired of this never-ending series of mass shootings. But this will never change until and unless America gets over its love affair with guns, abandons the idea that everybody is entitled to own a gun, and gets some resolve to rein in the NRA (National Rifle Association) and somehow diminish its influence over our legislators. Maybe this will happen at the state level first--but then the Supreme Court, now more conservative than ever, will rule the state law unconstitutional because of the Second Amendment.

When I think this, I think it's hopeless. Meanwhile I am sure Europeans (and people everywhere else in the world) shake their heads about those crazy Americans who go on killing one another.

Copyright (c) 2019.

Not Again!? Yes, More on Guns and School Shootings

I have said I am tired of blogging about guns, mass shootings, and school shootings. But they keep happening and I for one can't ignore them or keep silent (nor should anyone be able to).

After student survivors of the Parkland, FL, school shooting met with President Donald Trump, he was pledging action. But anything he has done has been completely ineffective. What happened is that, after his meetings with the Parkland students, Trump had a late-night meeting with representatives from the NRA (National Rifle Association)--and it's well-known that Trump is persuaded by whomever he last spoke to.

There have been over 150 school shootings in 30 years. What is it going to take to stop this ridiculous and intolerable phenomenon? We need widespread public outrage, and we need that to translate to people ceasing to vote for pro-gun legislators--those who accept money from the NRA and any and all other pro-gun lawmakers (which pretty much means Republicans).

Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens recently said that we might need to think about repealing the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment to the Constitution states that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

The Founding Fathers who wrote and approved the Second Amendment were thinking in terms of muskets that could do a limited amount of damage. They did not foresee such progress in weapons that we would one day have semi-automatic and automatic assault rifles that could kill many people in literally a matter of seconds--let alone that any Tom, Dick, or Harry could easily buy and even stockpile six or 10 or 14 of these weapons.

Copyright © 2018.

Guns--Yet Again

I really don't want to blog about guns anymore and had thought (or hoped) that I was done doing so. But, alas, we've had another awful mass shooting of innocent school children.

President Donald Trump held a highly publicized meeting with survivors and parents of victims of three school shootings: Columbine, Sandy Hook/Newtown, and the latest, Parkland, Florida.

As part of what he proposes to do about the problem, which was dramatized to him by some very emotional speeches by the student survivors and parents, he cited the coach who was shot in Parkland, saying that if that man had been armed, things might have been different.

In other words, the answer to the shooting problem so often given by gun-rights advocates and the NRA (National Rifle Association): MORE GUNS! The answer to the problem of prevalent, too-often-used guns in America is MORE GUNS! The idea being that, if I am in a situation where someone is shooting and killing, and I have a gun myself, I can shoot (and presumably kill) the shooter--thus saving myself and others.

I can see one problem with this idea. There is one element in the equation that is being omitted: If I am face-to-face with someone with a gun, and who is using that gun, the outcome--isn't this obvious?--depends on who is the better shot; that is, who can shoot faster (i.e., be quick on the draw) and more accurately--that is, who is the better shot.

I, for one, would not have faith in myself to be the one who comes out better (or alive) from this hypothetical situation. I guess everybody in America must not only get a gun but "learn how to use it," that is, spend time on one of those things I think are called firing ranges.

And, again for myself, I think that, even in a situation where it might be viewed as a case of protecting myself, I would not want to have to make the decision to shoot someone else. Maybe if it was a case of "him or me," a survival or self-preservation instinct would kick in and provide the answer. But just finding myself in that situation seems to me to be the stuff of nightmares.

No, the answer is not more guns, but fewer guns. Australia (and three other countries) began programs to remove guns from their countries--and homicides by gun  dropped dramatically.

Unfortunately, the United States not only has a very strong lobby in the NRA (which is said to have given $31 million to Trump's campaign) but also something called the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which (as it is usually interpreted) guarantees US citizens the "right to bear arms." What is often forgotten is that centuries of jurisprudence have established that limits may be set on this "right to bear arms." We need to be thinking in terms of what limits can be set, short of seriously considering whether we can, or should, get rid of the Second Amendment (which is probably pretty much unthinkable, even after so many mass shootings).

Copyright © 2018

Update, March 1, 2018: Trump has actually proposed some restrictions on guns, and if he is serious about this, and can get this done, I might consider taking back all (well,some, anyway) of the nasty things I've said about him.
However, Trump is proverbially persuaded by the last person he talked to. So someone from the NRA or some Republican politician might get him to reverse himself (which of course he is quite prone to do). So it's premature to do any celebrations or even thanking him.
Plus, he still wants to arm teachers. This is just a paraphrase of the oft-repeated NRA mantra, "The best defense against a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."
And, let us not forget, the president does not make the law. This would require Congress passing some laws, and the pundits don't seem to feel this is likely.

Update, March 2, 2018.

It looks as though I was right. Today the media are reporting that the White House is "walking back" some of President Trump's comments made yesterday on the need for stricter gun laws, and the need, and ability, of our congressional lawmakers to defy the NRA. This reversal comes after he met with some representatives of the NRA late last night.

As I said, whatever opinions Trump is espousing depends on whom he was last talking to. The man is so intellectually weak, shallow, and worthless that he has no opinions of his own.

Guns--Yet Again

I have blogged about the problem in the US of gun violence a number of times. But the shootings just go on, so I go on thinking and writing about this same subject.

In England (or, to be more accurate, the United Kingdom, thus including Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales), they do not have large numbers of people killing one another with guns. 

Why? Maybe it's because it's illegal to own firearms in England. Remarkably (to us Americans), even the police in England do not routinely carry guns.
 

People in American who own guns often say that their gun ownership is a matter of their "freedom," expressing some sort of freedom and independence, or maybe self-reliance--even protection of themselves against a tyrannical government (and, after all, that is in keeping with the spirit of the very founding of the United States).
 

I think it's part of a lingering "wild west" mentality that we have in the US. In the nineteenth century, law enforcement in the West was often weak or ineffectual, so a man's owning a gun might in fact be necessary for his self-defense.
 

Today people who own guns say they want them for self-defense. The chief (and very powerful) gun lobby organization in the US, the NRA (National Rifle Association), believes the solution is more guns, not less; they want to see more people owning guns. Their argument is that people who currently don't own guns need to acquire guns to protect themselves against the bad guys.

 

Well, first of all, we have stronger law enforcement, nowadays, than they had in the days of the Old West, and I, for one, hope to rely on the police to protect me against the "bad guys." And I feel that, when everyone owns guns, we are less safe, rather than more safe. I think we see this every day in the US: people being shot during drunken rages in bars. Children getting their hands on their parents' guns and accidentally shooting themselves or others.

Are people in England, barred from owning guns, less safe than Americans?  Well, they have a much lower rate of homicides. In a decade, they have fewer than the US has in one year. Are they somehow less free? I'm not sure what the metric is to determine that, but I suspect not.

 

The legal/constitutional difference between the two countries is that we in the US have the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which says,

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

For quite a while jurisprudence generally held that some restrictions on gun ownership were permissible under the Constitution and the Second Amendment. However, recent decisions by the US Supreme Court, which these days is frequently dominated by conservatives, have overturned many gun-regulation or -restriction laws. And, regardless of what issues of interpretation the Amendment may raise, the pro–gun ownership lobby feels that the Amendment confers an absolute right and admits of no abridgements whatsoever.
 

Interpreting the law is never as simple and clear-cut as some people want to believe. So, some rulings that guns may be restricted might help. Even better, it is in principle possible to amend the Constitution with a new amendment that would basically repeal the Second Amendment. But I doubt that this will happen any time soon.

Note added 8/26/2015: Please check out this link to some interesting statistics on gun violence in America. 

Copyright © 2015.

Yet Another Shooting

It's happened again, another mass shooting.

I've hoped that one of these times, it would prove to be a tipping point and there would be a loud outcry from millions of Americans saying, "Enough! This has to stop," and effectively pressuring their leaders to do something about these shootings and control guns.

Guns, to my mind, are nasty things. Some people think they need a gun in their home for "protection," but that produces accidents where a very young child picks up the gun and shoots herself or a sibling or parent. (Do a Google search for "father shoots son." It will turn up news items on sons being shot by fathers and fathers being shot by sons—often accidentally.)

But there are those individuals, and the NRA (National Rifle Association), who get paranoid at the very mention of any sort of controls on guns whatsoever. If owning a gun is not a God-given right, it's a Constitutional right. Never mind that (1) there can be a lot of arguing over the meaning and/or intention of the Second Amendment; and (2) there has been a significant history of jurisprudence holding that guns can be regulated.

It's no secret that the NRA is very powerful. The NRA very recently, in Colorado, backed the successful recall of two state senators who had voted for gun-control measures.

The NRA claims it's just a bunch of owners of guns for hunting and handguns possessed for protection or target practice. Why, then, do they oppose legal limits on assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition magazines?

One thing that should be understood is that the NRA has not only gun-owning individuals as its members but gun manufacturers as well who, of course, want to see more guns and more ammunition bought. For them, one or two or three guns per household is not enough (and I believe that, as a national average, we already have more than one gun per household).

Other countries can scarcely believe that America is so gun-crazed and that we put up with these shootings again, and again, and again.

Copyright © 2013.

And Still Another Gun Massacre

America is currently reeling from yet another massacre by gun.

Readers of my blog know where I stand on gun control. There has been jurisprudence that has affirmed government's right or power to place some limits on so-called "Second Amendment rights" (gun ownership). But, with the current conservative Supreme Court, and enormous lobbying power by the NRA (National Rifle Association), enacting any meaningful gun control--even over assault weapons, which are certainly not needed or used by hunters--is extremely unlikely.

At this moment I don't intend to take on the arguments of the pro-gun segment of the population. I have done so numerous times, in various places. I just want to point out one effect of this most recent event on the collective consciousness of Americans, which is that now people can no longer feel safe even going to the movies.

There are more and more places where we can no longer feel safe. When I was in school, some 55 years ago, there was no such thing as school shootings. Lockdown was not a word in our vocabularies, back then. We may legitimately wonder what has happened, what is going on with our society.

Is this the kind of America that we want?

It should be clear enough what the problem is: guns, and even assault weapons, are too readily available and can get into the hands of mentally unstable people who will use them to create havoc. The American people must cry out, and cry out loudly.

Copyright (c) 2012 by Richard Stein

I Have to Speak Out on Guns Again Because the Problem Is So Dramatic

Yet another of those tragic, shocking shootings. When, when, WHEN will there be a loud outcry from the public saying that this has to stop?

As I have said before, the problem as I perceive it is that there are too many guns around, and guns are too easily obtainable, to the extent that mentally unstable people can (and do, very sadly) get their hands on guns.

It's terribly tragic that a recent US Supreme Court decision has undermined attempts of government jurisdictions to have gun control laws (this reverses years of jurisprudence that had held that some degree of regulation of firearm ownership was permissible).

Aside from this unfortunate Supreme Court ruling, most of the remainder of the problem is the NRA, the National Rifle Association, which, despite its name, seems just as concerned that there be completely unrestricted access to handguns and even assault weapons as it is with rifles.

The NRA is a very powerful, well financed, and vocal special-interest lobby in the U.S. Congress. According to a 2009 article, "The group's political action committee spent $15.6 million on campaign donations during the past two years, according to disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission." (Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/30/nra-lobbyists-hold-strong-influence-policy-agenda#ixzz1AeRrW2FG) Read more of this article for information on just one instance of the influence of the NRA, which ended up killing voting rights in Congress for the District of Columbia because the NRA wanted the abolition of DC's gun control laws to be a part of that measure.

To tie in with another posting of mine on this blog, if the U.S. did not incorporate the South, we would not have as much influence by the NRA. This is because support for the NRA comes largely from rural areas and from the South.

Those who want to see some restraint on gun ownership have not only the NRA in the way—a not insignificant obstacle—but also the Second Amendment to the Constitution. As I said above, a recent Supreme Court decision lends greater influence to that amendment, or at least a certain interpretation of it. The Amendment itself is quite concise, but (despite what some people think), the interpretation of law (or of anything else written) is never simple and self-evident. I won't go into issues of interpreting the Second Amendment here; I'm not a law professor or a Constitutional scholar. However, I'd even go so far as to say that if gun ownership cannot be curbed because of the Second Amendment, the Amendment should be repealed. But I'm pretty sure that can't happen in today's America.

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein