I for one have grown weary of the clichés used against common-sense gun laws. You’ve heard them: “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” “Guns don’t shoot themselves.” “The only solution to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” “Bad guys will always find a way to get guns.” “Blaming the guns.” These are not arguments; they’re ways in which those who have no logical argument to defend their position attempt to make the opponent look foolish. People who utter these phrases ad nauseum are those who have accepted the NRA brainwashing that the Second Amendment to our Constitution gives them unlimited rights to own any type of gun as well as any type and quantity of ammunition they choose. They’ve also accepted the NRA/Fox News paranoia that they must staunchly protect that “right” because our government is their enemy who (a) wants to disarm all citizens and (b) once that goal is accomplished, will then place them into slavery, kill them all, or whatever the imagined threat may be. Could we all take a few deep breaths and have a conversation?
To begin, these clichés are not only inane, they’re insulting. But of course, when you have no logical argument, insulting the opponent is all you’ve got to work with. I don’t know anyone stupid enough to imagine that guns fire themselves; yet this one is typically spoken in a smug, gotcha tone as if the speaker imagines he/she has just uttered the wisdom of the universe and left the hearer permanently speechless. Not quite. Everyone knows it takes a human being to aim a gun at another human and to pull the trigger. What many of us want, however, is some common-sense restrictions on who is pulling that trigger and what is being aimed at. Shooting for sport is something very few reasonable people oppose. Protecting oneself and one’s family against genuine threats is also a pretty commonly accepted reason for owning a weapon. No one “blames the gun”; people devastated by the mass killings in our country blame the people using the guns, but some of us would like better ways of controlling who is allowed to use guns.
Here’s another clichéd response: We’ll never stop people bent on doing evil from obtaining guns, so there is no solution. In that case, I should remove all the locks on the doors of my house, because a bad guy who really wants to get in is going to do it anyway. Lots of people are quite good at picking locks and gaining entry. And if all else fails, the easiest thing in the world is to break a window, so why bother with locks and security systems? And why do I lock my car doors? Same as my house: locks can be opened with instruments other than keys, and windows are easy to break.
And while we’re at it, why bother trying to enforce our laws against stealing, rape, trespassing, identity theft, driving while intoxicated? People just keep doing those things every day, so why not just stop fighting it? We’re never going to stop them completely. We’ve tried and tried, but there is no solution; so let’s just save ourselves a lot of stress, time, and money and forget about those laws. And why stop there? Let’s just throw away our law books, since every law in the books has been broken thousands of times.
Years ago, someone attempted to break into my house while I was at work. My alarm scared him away, but a sheriff’s deputy came out to investigate. Since the final place the person attempted to gain entry was my kitchen window, which is in the back of the house, the deputy said it would be a good idea to put locks on my gates. His reasoning was that a locked gate won’t stop a determined burglar, since fences are pretty easy to climb (for some people); but he said criminals look for the easiest route, so any obstacle we can place in their way will act as a deterrent. Will locking my gates provide 100% protection against break-ins? Of course not. Nothing will do that. But I continue to place as many deterrents as possible in the way of would-be evil doers. Shouldn’t we do at least that much to save lives? We can’t save them all, but wouldn’t it be worth it to save SOME?
The biggest obstacle to common-sense reform is the all-or-nothing thinking that so dominates some elements of our current culture. Masses of people have fallen prey to some gross logical fallacies, particularly the black-white fallacy which is all-or-nothing thinking. Enter the cliché “Bad guys will always find a way to get guns.” Following that “logic,” if we can’t solve a problem 100%, we should simply do nothing at all. This is where our Senate has been for the past few years, and they failed us again in the wake of the deadliest mass shooting in our modern history. I say 56 senators should be looking for new jobs after November!
The Second Amendment to our Constitution, in its entirety, is this: “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.” Those 27 words, combined in a confusing sentence structure not common in modern writing styles, are at the heart of the whole problem.
The NRA and all of its sheep can quote the last 14 words in their sleep, but they ignore the first 13 as if they don’t exist. They’re admittedly confusing, but they’re part of the sentence, so they can’t be ignored. Grammatically, what this sentence says is “Because a militia is necessary for state and national security, people must be permitted to own guns.” In other words, we were originally given the right to own firearms so that we could protect our country from invaders. Since we no longer have militia, and the National Guard does not require troops to supply their own weapons, the Supreme Court in 2008, in District of Columbia vs. Heller, provided an interpretation more fitting to our modern life. That interpretation allows private ownership of firearms for “traditionally lawful purposes,” such as protecting one’s home. I can’t think of anyone in my acquaintance who disagrees with allowing certain types of firearms to be owned by sane people for lawful purposes. However, insuring that only sane people who want to hunt or to protect their homes get their hands on guns and distinguishing between weapons for military use and those for private use requires a reasoned and logical conversation, which many people refuse even to consider.
The bottom line is that the second amendment is not and never has been blanket permission for anyone to own any type of weapon he/she chooses or to stockpile weapons and quantities of ammunition which serve no other purpose than killing large numbers of people. Whatever happened to common sense?!
I know the second amendment gives us certain rights, but those rights are not absolute; it’s not all-or-nothing. Every right we have has limits. I grew up hearing the saying “Your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins.” Kinda corny, but it sums things up nicely, I think. I have the right to own knives, but that right does not allow me to stab people; and since 2001, it has not allowed me to carry my knives on board an airplane. My right to own and use knives has limits. As a State of Florida licensed driver, I have the right to own and operate a motor vehicle; but I do not have the right to drive that vehicle across my neighbors’ lawn or through their living room wall, to crash it into another vehicle, or to run down pedestrians on the street or sidewalk. If I do any of those things, or if I fail to pay my insurance and annual registration fees, my right to operate a vehicle will be temporarily or permanently revoked. Limits.
I also exercise my right to private property ownership. I own a house; however, I have to observe the limits on the freedoms I enjoy as a property owner. My right to own property does not give me the right to refuse paying my taxes, to operate a business out of my home, to use my home for subversive gatherings, or to completely neglect my home’s maintenance. I have the right to worship and live by the faith I choose; but if my chosen religion practiced human sacrifice, the law against murder would supersede the dictates of my religion. The first amendment (the one right before the second) gives me the right of free speech; but I can’t yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater unless I actually see a flame, I can’t publish libel or slander, and I can’t use my words to bully another person.
The second amendment has limits. It’s insane to parrot those last 14 words as if they give blanket permission to do whatever the hell we please. Placing limits on who can own firearms, what kinds of firearms we can legally own, how many of those firearms we can legally stockpile, and where we can legally carry those deadly weapons are common-sense matters which I have no reason to believe our country’s founders intended to preclude. And they’re no different from the limitations placed on our right to use knives, operate motor vehicles, own private property, follow our own religions, or speak what’s on our minds.
If we really grasp the fact that we’re in this together—Democrats and Republicans; liberal and conservative; Christian, Muslim, and atheist (and all the other theological positions); gay and straight; black, white, and brown; male, female, and the whole gender continuum—that we have a common stake in keeping our country safe and strong, we HAVE to start having real conversations. And conversation starts with listening, really listening, hearing what others think and respecting their thoughts and feelings and only after hearing and understanding, speaking a response that addresses those thoughts and feelings and doesn’t simply repeat the clichés and talking points that get us nowhere.
Maybe we could finally agree on common-sense laws that would not infringe on the rights of law-abiding citizens but would limit the activities of those who would commit evil acts. As is, we can’t establish consequences for those who purchase weapons with the intent to do evil, because most of those purchases are LEGAL. Would new laws keep arms out of the hands of all people bent on wrongdoing? Of course not, just as laws against stealing, rape, DWI, etc., haven’t prevented people from committing those crimes. And yes, guns would be available on the black market, as are all forms of drugs. Yet we continue to fight against legalizing particularly deadly drugs because we figure we’re at least going to save SOME lives, even though we’ll never save them all. Reasonable gun laws would also save SOME lives, though definitely not all. Don’t you think we should do at least as much as we can do?
I have locks on my house doors. I lock my car doors when the car is anywhere except my own garage. I lock my gates. Could anyone with enough determination break into my house or steal my car? Of course. But as a sheriff’s deputy once told me, most criminals take the path of least resistance, so whatever road blocks we can set up will prevent SOME crimes. Not every would-be criminal would even know how to access the black market. Some would not have the money to purchase arms sold at the prices that market might demand. Some would be deterred by the difficulty of it all. Not all, but SOME. I believe every individual person is worthy of our protection, worthy of our saving as many as we can, even though it will never be all.
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