On guns and recent events
Recent events, shootings across the nation, have people talking about the nature of weapons in our society and ways in which they feel they should be restricted and regulated (rights be damned).
With recent killings of four police officers in Oakland as well as 13 people in Binghampton the press has been interviewing every anti-gun politician and man on the street they can find in their sad attempt at connecting passionate gun owners and supporters of gun rights, to the lunatics behind these ruthless slaughters.
Yes, none of these people should have owned a gun but ask yourself… within the confines of our right to keep and bear arms, how would you enforce such a measure on someone who had, up until then shown NO signs of intent to harm others? The man in Oakland was a clear example of someone who we KNEW should not have been near a weapon, but again… define for me, clearly how you would structure a gun restriction that would have kept firearms from the Oakland shooter, yet allowed me my full and complete rights as a US citizen.
Those of you out there who feel that we need to classify weapons, and ban those that do the most harm first (assault weapons), explain to me how that ban would have protected those four, now deceased officers in Oakland. Assault weapons and pistols and shotguns all share a common trait… bullets. It is the person behind the gun that does the harm as without them, that bullet has no way of assaulting you. I ask you, if I lay a loaded M-16 and a Colt .45 on a table, which will kill you the quickest? Neither, until a crazy person picks one of them up. Redefining “crazy people” and “lunatics” as “gun-lovers” and “those passionate about the second amendment” does a great disservice to those of us who ARE passionate about our rights, yet would never march into a school and massacre children.
The Constitution was written by men who took up arms against a tyrannical form of government. They may not have had access to AK’s or RPG’s… but if you asked anyone on the receiving end of the revolutions firearms, they might as well have been their equivalent of assault weapons.
Politicians prefer unarmed peasants to citizens willing to fight for their freedoms. Just because a crazy person was capable of acquiring a firearm, does not mean I and my fellow Americans must suffer the consequences.
I flat out refuse to accept gun restriction and registration as a way to curb gun violence. Show me a way to block criminals from guns and ONLY criminals, and then I’ll listen.
Ron Russell
6 Apr, 2009
James, as usual, you are righton. But then, I expect no less from you. Maybe we are distant cousins. I use to own many guns, mainly for hunting and target shooting, but I’m getting own in years now and have given most of them away to the kids. I still have my first gun. A old 22 rifle, purchases through the Sears and Roebuck catalog many years ago. I was 11 years old at the time. Of course, the right to purchase through the mail was made illegal after it was learned that Lee Harvey Oswald purchased him rifle by way of mail order. This list of restrictions goes on and on after that usually spurred on by some tragic event in which some crazy person used a gun to kill someone. Those of the left can always find reasons for restricting gun ownership—they never have to look far. What they always seem to overlook is that many in this country love their guns, for many different reasons–hunting, target shooting, personal security, and a varity of other reasons.
They on the left for the most part have never owned or even shot a gun and have no concept of how strongly the gun-owner feels about his guns and his right under the Constitution to own them. Thanks again for your post.
Ron Russell
7 Apr, 2009
Your post brought back some old memories, so much so, that I had to post on the events. I mentioned your post and gave a link back to it. Thought you may want to check it out.