Guns, Guns Everywhere

But Not a Stop to Think

          The recent school shooting and the shooting in Buffalo have brought out the anti-gun people, again.

These are the facts of every intentional shooting whether someone was hurt or died or not.

Fact 1: there was a shooting.

Fact 2: there was a gun involved, hence a shooting.

Fact 3: a person, for their own reasons, pulled the trigger.

If you remove fact 2 or 3 fact 1 doesn’t happen.

          It is a common litany that we are exactly like other democracies except for the number of guns in our nation. That is absolute Bull Stuff. The USA is very different in almost every way from other democracies. We have greater diversity both ethnically and culturally. We don’t have a majority rule system thanks to gerrymandering within an inch of our political lives and the Electoral College. None of them have a Second Amendment and most don’t have an equivalent First Amendment. They also, mostly all, have universal health care, including mental health. Most also, have community centric attitudes where the US is very individual centric. Very, Very, different.

In an aside, the correlation is kind of obvious but, besides our institutions’ and leaderships’ failures during COVID those very differences are why the US had such high rates of infection and deaths per capita compared to the others. And guns didn’t cause that either.

The claims that the assault weapons ban that Clinton signed into law caused a Hugh decline in shootings is also false. It caused a massive surge in AR sales before it took effect. Many more guns of the AR type flooded the USA, yet shootings didn’t spike in response. Maybe the guns aren’t out there killing people. Shootings decreased because of the ban is an erroneous statement. Just like the statement that when Australia confiscated and destroyed over 600,000 guns their violent crime rates plummeted. Don’t get me wrong, they did go down though plummet isn’t the word I would use, as ALL of their crime rates went down by the same amount. That isn’t a bad thing, or is it? I doubt fewer guns caused decreases in burglary or battery. It may be that people lost trust in the state and less crimes are being reported because of its draconian behavior.

          The Second Amendment says, for those who don’t know it: 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. By its wording it applies to the people possessing military weaponry. You say, whhhhhat? The people are responsible for their own freedom so they need to possess and have familiarity with weapons they would use in a Militia setting to protect that freedom. The fact they stated security of a free State depends on it means the Militia would also be responsible for dealing with an internal threat if someone decided to oh, I don’t know, ignore the will of the voters, and overthrow the government. It does not state the Militia must be a component of the state.

          Has it occurred to these people that want to get rid of guns that we are currently experiencing what appears to be low grade warfare or in some terms distributed domestic terrorism, since generally speaking people aren’t shooting back a lot as in war. Many groups like the “Proud Boys”, “Three Percenters”, and “Oath Keepers” are organized white supremacy Militias bent on asserting their views on the world by force. According to their recruitment and radicalization materials their goal is genocide of anyone who is not like them or disagrees with them. They are anti-freedom except for themselves to do whatever they want. These radicalized groups have the open support of the GOP now. They are no longer trying to hide it. Thank you to Donald Trump. The GOP needs them to further their agenda and keep power. If the GOP is successful who will protect the lives and freedoms of everyone who isn’t them. Remember, the GOP would be in control of the government and therefore the State military. It means an internal war for freedom. Freedom is NEVER free. It is paid for with the blood of patriots and tyrants (Thomas Jefferson).

          I just heard something on the Rachael Maddow Show (I love her show) that irked me, about an 18-year-old not needing an AR. This person isn’t wrong, humans need nourishment, water, and because we are frail animals, shelter (even if it is just clothing appropriate to the environment). We are also generally biologically programed to procreate and self-preservation. That is ALL we NEED. Kids don’t need an education. They should be out in the forest gathering nuts and berries, etcetera.

However, I digress, someone said of the shooter at Robb Elementary, that he went and bought two ARs. She said nobody needs that. I know she is hurting and may not be choosing her words well but that is the height of arrogance if you think someone doesn’t need something because YOU say so. I also, hear many people expressing the same arrogant idea. You can say I don’t need a motorcycle but, you know something, riding makes me happy and as such, I need my bike. You say someone doesn’t need a gun. Well, I enjoy shooting and am a responsible gun owner like 99.9% of the gun owners in America. I also, always carry a gun so I can, if the need arises, protect you whether, or not you would protect yourself. Can you or would you be able to make the decision to take a life to protect another? If your answer is no, then you are right and YOU don’t need and shouldn’t own a gun and that is YOUR choice, but you have no business telling anyone what they need. If you say yes, I will talk to you all day about the best platforms for the task.

Many also say the good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun doesn’t work. They point to police response failures and say that police are the good guy with the gun, and they fail to stop bad guys with guns. That is also erroneous. There was a teacher at Robb Elementary who saw the gunman coming and tried to secure the door he entered. She kept her head and did everything she could to stop him. If she had been armed with a weapon with the proper loadout (ball, hollow point, and armor piercing rounds) that tragedy could have been stopped at the door. She could have been on the phone with the police while covering that door. If she had the will and tools, she could have shot him when he entered the building. Tragedy averted. Yes, someone, actually many people, have suggested trained and armed administrators and teachers. One of the vehement arguments against it is it would cost too much. One estimate is between 12 and 18 billion dollars annually for 5 to 10 trained people on every campus. How much is too much to protect children? How much is our annual military budget again? The same type of situation happened in Buffalo. There was a security guard who was armed and did engage the shooter. The shooter had body armor and the guard did not have armor piercing rounds (they are illegal for civilians) so when he shot the shooter, he did not stop him because he did not have the necessary tools and lost his life in the defense of others. THIS is the good guy with a gun idea. The person who is there and can act to PREVENT a tragedy, not the police who only arrive after a tragedy has occurred or begun.

So, what not to do? We can’t look at what other countries have done because we are nothing like them and what they have done has not actually accomplished what is claimed in many cases. The US Constitution is quite clear that the rights not specifically given to the US government is reserved to the states or the people. When it says that a right belongs to the people it MEANS something. It is very specific that the Right to keep and bear arms belongs to the people and shall not be infringed. So, removing guns from the fact statement is not going to be the only or the best solution. Yes, we can and should prevent access to guns for people who are determined to be a danger to public safety. That category does not include “18-year-olds”. They are Citizens and deserving of all the Rights of Citizens. I don’t approve of the 21-year-old rules on handguns either, for that same reason.

So, what CAN we do?

Put it in perspective. Mass shootings are high profile. They get a lot of attention and outrage, but they are by far a small factor of gun violence.

Fix loopholes in background checks. Loopholes don’t exist but the background check system does have a high error rate. It denies people who it shouldn’t a LOT. That needs to be fixed.

Require universal background checks, no. There are some serious constitutional things that need to be addressed with this and in general a bad idea. Main problem with this is it requires a gun registry which is illegal. It would also infringe on Fourth Amendment rights.

Universal mental health programs. Yes, even though only about 25% of mass shooters are determined to have serious mental health issues, knocking 25% off the total is worth it. This is also one of the major points where the US differs from the countries people insist on comparing us to.

This one is tricky as it comes up against the First Amendment, the government cannot do it directly, ban hate/racist speech and disinformation. The government can make rules requiring an elected official or candidate to provide actual evidentiary documentation of something they claim, you know proof, or be held legally and officially accountable. Just saying, “the proof is overwhelming, and it is “out there””, would no longer be acceptable rhetoric. Or, referring to hate, prove that CRT was being taught in K-12 before being allowed to use it in a campaign or write laws or executive orders about it.

Allow arming of people who are responsible for our children if they choose to be armed. Provide them with training and compensation. Also, related to that, anyone with training including proper handling of ammunition (including armed security officers) be allowed to purchase and carry Armor Piercing ammunition. If a shooter knows he is likely to encounter effective armed resistance, he may rethink an attack on a school. Right now, they are soft targets. Hardening them is actually a good idea, though the anti-gun club disagrees. For them all guns are evil and beget evil. They say the guns are to blame and gun manufacturers have deceptive or targeted ads intended to attract evil doers to their product. Again, I digress, sorry.

Gun manufacturers and lobbyists need to change their ad line focus. Maybe: “We make guns for you to enjoy and protect yourselves. Please, don’t use them to commit murder. That will just cause us to deal with the lawsuits from the anti-gun wackos. We would much rather use that money to make more fun guns for you to enjoy instead of having to raise the prices of the ones we already make. Thank you for your patronage.” This shift probably wouldn’t hurt the GOP either if they get on board.

Employ a shadow group to hunt down and eliminate all the white supremacists in the US. That would only be what, a quarter of the 70 plus million of those who voted for Trump in 2020? They aren’t hiding anymore, that’s doable, right? Ok, in all seriousness hate groups need to be addressed. How? Honestly, with the First Amendment, I have no idea.

Last but not least, don’t vote GOP. Right now, they are a big part of the problem. Voters need to send them a hard message. Get your stuff together.

The objective behind all of this is to eliminate fact 3. No shooter, no shooting. Admittedly the perspective thing is more: “yes, you pay attention when 19 kids are murdered but Anne down the street being shot by her abusive husband goes right over your head”. People are so media oriented.

Removing guns may seem easy but it leaves you open to not being able to defend your freedom against a, say fascist state. If you want to have no way to protect yourself from a holocaust event, ok? Sorry, I just don’t get that.

Addressing the person component is certainly more complex, but more durable.

So, catastrophic downstream reactionary or long-term investment in people for long term solutions. By the way, the GOP is not on board with any of this at the moment. They think they can seize power with this chaos. Voters need to squash them like they did with Gingrich a couple decades ago.

Care all the time people and maybe we can get through this turmoil together. Is it going to be easy? No. Can we get through it? Yea, I think we can.

Here’s to hope.