Now that our national obsession with guns is linked to our national love for the great outdoors, with Congress voting to allow loaded and concealed weapons in our national parks, I began thinking what the summer might hold in terms of fun with guns.
Imagine how we could market this new recreational combo.Looking for a summer thrill? We have parks that really kill.Do you need a place to stay? Call your local N.R.A.Pack a pistol in your pack, U.S. law has got your back.
On the trail it’s really fun, scaring strangers with your gun.If the neighbors make a noise, silence them with big boy toys.Go ahead, give all a fright, it’s your constitutional right.
Bring the sutures, bandage rolls, iodine for bullet holes.Bug spray, sunscreen, snakebite kit won’t protect you from a hit.
Okay, campers, you get the idea? Now, let’s consider the possibilities if the all-powerful gun lobby, the Great Horned Shooters of America, given their triumph over common sense, decide to flex their muscle even more and push to make firearms legal in all the other places Americans go to rest and recreate.Do you need one in your car? Would you take one to a bar?Would you reload at the mall? Or in a museum hall?Going to an outdoor theater? Don’t forget to take your heater.
Would you pack one at the pool? How about at summer school?Draw your gun at seventh inning if you hate the team a’winning.
When you’re sunning at the beach, keep an Uzi within reach.Summer dances on the green viewed through cross-hairs can be keen.
Love that holster on your bike. Do they make one for a trike?Stash a sidearm in your basket, bring home Grandpa in a casket.
I know this sounds as sing-song silly as a Dr. Seuss rhyme. But who would have thought that the grown-ups who are leading our country, with our epidemic of murder rampages, would agree to make it legal to take a loaded firearm to Yosemite or the Grand Canyon or your favorite national seashore.
We go to our parks for fun, not so we can scream and run.Outdoor’s made for peace and quiet, not for those who cause a riot.
Mother Nature’s hit the floor since the sniper moved next door.Smokey Bear is worried too. He’d feel safer at the zoo.
Do Our Liberal Gun Laws Make you Feel Safer?
We all see it in the news everyday. We grow numb to the violence that we’ve become accustomed to. With the latest mass shooting in Binghamton NY, mass shootings since the beginning of the year have resulted in 53 dead in 7 separate shootings. And the fear doesn’t stop with some random act of a deranged murderer starting a rampage of revenge. The Mexican drug wars are spilling their violence in the U.S., using guns legally purchased here in America by straw purchasers hard up on their luck. And now Obama is feeling the heat from 62 Congressional Democrats who have told Obama they can't back him on his campaign promise to renew the assault weapons ban. And the Federal Credit Card bill? Be careful on your next trip to a National Park because the tourists may be packing heat!
What do we do about it? There are plenty of places to start. And public officials need to stand up to the powerful gun lobby that keeps meaningful and reasonable policies from reigning in our liberal gun laws that provide no retribution to those selling guns and ammunition to others with no right to bear them. It’s time to get more conservative and preserve the 2nd amendment right for those entitled to exercise it properly. (Note: Although there is still much debate on the interpretation of the Second Amendment, I am working under the assumption that it does exist because of the recent Supreme Court Decision striking down the gun ban in Washington, DC. John Massaro, NY, is coming out with a book this July that further challenges this premise).
And what do our state and federal legislatures propose? Gun-toting everywhere! Guns-on-demand advocates snuck through an amendment to the National Credit Card overhaul bill to allow guns in National Parks, and states like mine (TX) are close to passing legislation allowing guns on college campuses. More proliferation of guns without more responsibility of owners AND sellers will only breed more violence. I grew up in Lubbock, Texas, and there’s no doubt that guns are part of our heritage and way of life. My husband and I own guns, both for self defense and sport. Many in the southern states have an inherent mistrust of the federal government, as some of their cities endured Martial Law and other atrocities during the War between the States. The western states have a frontier culture that has relied on vigilante protection for simple justice during the last 2 centuries. Relinquishing some of your and your family’s protection to others isn’t always easy for some people, but there’s got to be a better way to protect legitimate ownership and use of deadly weapons and ensuring to the public that those acquiring the weapons are legally entitled to do so. So here’s my take on the situation and ways that we can make our gun policies more conservative by tightening up on the illegal acquisition of guns many times purchased legally.
In my opinion, guns have one of three purposes: 1) Sustenance (hunting our dinner!), 2) Sport (hunting and gun collecting is a way of life for many), and 3) Self-Defense (the right to protect ourselves from harm’s way). But regardless of what I think, the 2nd amendment protects our right to bear arms, but owning street sweepers and AK 47’s crosses the line for an individual purpose. But one thing I do get tired of is that lack of open dialogue regarding gun responsibility and accountability and intolerant opinions that stifle true debate on the many issues confronting our communities to date: such as the proliferation of “mass weapons of destruction” and the pervasive degree of violence plaguing most of our cities. Below you’ll find 5 myths about guns that I’d like to dispel, as I’m sure these are all arguments that you’ve heard over and over again:
1) Myth # 1: Guns have played a large part in American history outside of war, as settlers of the frontier had to rely on them for a rudimentary form of vigilante justice.Reality: That role has been exaggerated. Robert Spitzer, Professor of Political Science, SUNY Cortland, comments in a book review of Alexander DeConde’s “Gun Violence in America,” that ….strict gun laws existed even in colonial America…and….were quickly enacted in newly established frontier towns during the nineteenth century, and they were widely debated in the 1920s and 1930s during Prohibition and the meteoric rise in gangster activity. DeConde notes in his book that the number of guns during colonial times was far less than legend would have it. "English colonists did bring firearms with them for self-defense as well as for offense," but they "also brought the practice of restricting gun keeping, usually to selected upper-class males" (p. 17) The scarcity of firearms in America was attributable to some obvious facts, including that they were expensive (guns were either made by hand in America, or imported from abroad), were made of materials that deteriorated rapidly, meaning that they had to be constantly serviced and maintained; required considerable skill to master; required maintenance after relatively few firings; and required firing materials that were also difficult to come by and that had short shelf lives. During the Revolutionary War, 80 percent of all firearms and 90 percent of the needed powder had to be imported from France and Holland. In the early 1790s, Secretary of War Henry Knox concluded that only about 20 percent of the nation's 450,000 militiamen carried firearms. Of the government-owned stock of 44,000 muskets, half were didn’t even work. The difficulty in affording and obtaining firearms during the 18th and 19th centuries contrasts sharply with the ability to obtain cheap firearms made in China like they were toys.
Myth # 2: We need the 2nd Amendment’s Right to Bear Arms to protect our freedoms and the rest of the Constitution. Reality: Why isn’t it working?Contemporary times have seen many of our constitutional rights erode, and none of our Bill of Rights should individually be upheld in a vacuum. 9-11 has seen a drastic emphasis on National Security, sometimes at the expense of our individual rights. Over half of our Bill of Rights relates to due process, and the following amendments in my opinion are in dire jeopardy of further erosion:
First Amendment – freedom of speech is abridged every day with school censorship, and workers trying to organize unions are denied their constitutional rights to free assembly.
Fourth Amendment – illegal searches and seizures are now commonplace! Congress just overwhelmingly passed the FISA bill allowing for warrant less wiretapping of our phone conversations (yes, “ours”), and the Supreme Court recently ruled that the long-standing “knock and announce” practice by police before searching a home is no longer necessary. I recently had a headlight out on my car that may have been out for weeks, and my husband pointed out to me that a non-working headlight is actually probable cause for a police search of a vehicle without a warrant. Probable cause? How can a missing headlight prompt and invasive search of me and my vehicle?
Sixth Amendment – better hope you’re a US citizen if you end up in Guantanamo Bay, as people rot in jail for years without formal charges being filed! It’s a shame that what applies to us as citizens, like basic human rights, gets denied to those who can’t call themselves an “American.” I hate double standards.
Seventh Amendment – the right to a trial by jury by your peers in civil matters is almost non-existent in some states, thanks to “conservative” efforts commonly known as “tort reform.” The saying “he’ll have is day in court” is becoming a euphemism, as more and more people are being shoved into “binding arbitration” as a way of settling disputes, with little recourse if you’ve been wronged. The courts were meant to be an avenue to seek justice, but our access to the courts is being denied every day by those who see “litigation” as a nuisance. The threat of a lawsuit has long been a deterrent to keep individuals and corporations from doing the wrong thing, which they can now do with impunity.Yes, we’ve all heard that the Second Amendment protects “freedom” and our “way of life,” but where is the Second Amendment in protecting these rights disappearing before our eyes? During the 2000 elections in Florida when thousands of Floridians were denied the right to vote, can you imagine if they had whipped out guns to protect their right to vote? Riots could have gotten pretty bloody, especially with racial tensions at an all-time high during this large-scale voting rights controversy.
Myth # 3: We already have enough gun laws, we just need to enforce the ones on the books. Reality: Illegal “possession” is meaningless without illegal “acquisition.” It’s kind of ironic to me that guns-on-demand advocates use as a defense existing gun laws, when they fought what laws we have every step of the way! But aside from that hypocrisy, let’s look at what’s wrong with it being perfectly legal for you to sale your gun to someone without the legal right to carry a firearm, namely the mentally ill, a convicted felon, or a minor. Some people in our society don’t possess the right to bear arms if they meet one of these 3 conditions, and our liberal gun laws allow them to access guns on a daily basis through perfectly legal means. For every 10 people in this country, there is a gun for 9 of them. Maybe I’m just traveling in the wrong circles, but it seems to me that more than 10 % of the people in this country are under 18, mentally ill, or a convicted felon. In fact, one out of 5 Texans possesses a criminal record, but that’s a story for another debate. More conservative gun laws would attach a level of financial and/or criminal responsibility to those who sold their guns to someone without the legal right to bear them. The NRA has studies that show the average homicide is committed with a gun that is 6 years old. Registration at point of purchase is meaningless, since most guns are sold in the secondary market. Back to the illegal “possession” and the fourth amendment. Now, for law enforcement to get someone on an illegal weapons charge, they sometimes have to “bend” the fourth amendment right against illegal searches and seizures to find “probable cause” for a warrantless search. It’s even happened to a family member of mine (who had a chain in the back of his pickup truck characterized as a “weapon”). I’d rather keep my fourth amendment and tighten up on people legally purchasing a gun if they don’t have the legal right to bear it.
Myth # 4: The Government will confiscate your guns if you register them. Reality: Watch out for the politicians undermining your 4th Amendment, NOT your 2nd Amendment!It seems ironic to me that, the politicians that ostensibly claim to want to protect your 2nd Amendment Right to Bear Arms give such little regard for this OTHER Bill of Right to so critical guard against exactly what most gun rights advocates fear about registration: Confiscation. Yes, Hitler confiscated guns that were registered in Germany, and no, they didn’t have a Bill of Rights. But pick the right one to protect here! If we want to instill true responsibility with gun ownership and ensure that guns aren’t sold to those with no legal right to carry them, then transferring legal “title” to the gun upon transfer, much like transferring title to your car, which can also be a deadly weapon, will help protect you from liability upon sale as well as the public. Sure registration carries risks. But so does sex. Does that stop people from risky behavior?
Myth # 5: Only criminals will possess guns of you require registration and law abiding citizens won’t have access!Reality: Criminals legally acquire guns now, and why is that? Criminals SHOULD only get guns through criminal means if they’re going to get them at all! Franklin D. Roosevelt's attorney general, Homer Cummings, said in 1937, "Show me the man who does not want his gun registered, and I will show you a man who should not have a gun." Being from the South, I do understand an inherent distrust with an autocratic, overreaching government. Southern cities were put under Marshall Law, and we in the South value states rights to avoid an overzealous Federal Government. But we don’t have anywhere close to a balance. If a criminal gets a gun, it SHOULD be done illegally and not through legal channels as they do now. The status quo is anarchy, and yes transferring title might seem bureaucratic, but I want the assurance that those acquiring guns have the legal right to do so. That’s NOT too much to expect, and counties could charge an at-cost fee of $ 15 or so to cover the background check when transferring title. Besides helping assure the public that only law-abiding citizens are acquiring guns, gun title will attach a level of financial responsibility as well as the criminal responsibility to gun ownership that to date has been lacking. If a gun you own is used in the commission of a crime whether you pulled the trigger or not, then taxpayers can seek restitution from irresponsible gun owners who can’t keep track of their possessions that are dangerous in the wrong hands. Gun violence costs taxpayers billions of dollars in the form of police costs, court costs, and incarceration costs. Taxpayers should be able to place a lien on property to reimburse taxpayers for irresponsible gun ownership (any relatives living in a homestead could be protected as long as they’re living in the house). If your gun(s) is/are stolen, you can be given a window to report your weapons missing for protection from liability. Also, without legal title to the guns, burglars and drug addicts won’t be able to sell the weapons to pawn shops, etc. Will taxpayers recoup that much money? Probably not, but John Hinckley, attempted assassin of Ronald Reagan, comes from a family perfectly capable of footing at least part of the taxpayers’ bill incarcerating him. It can be a feature exercised in instances such as these to at least recoup part of the billions we spend each year incarcerating the guilty, insane, and irresponsibles in our midst. Gun title will also attach a level of responsibility to the seller, who to date has been able to skirt out of any culpability in selling to ill-fit individuals.This leads us to a discussion about the mentally ill, a serious problem with their ready access to firearms and ammunition. States should send data of the mentally ill to the federal database to keep them from passing background checks on purchases. States such as Texas are flat-out wrong to not participate in providing that data, even after we’ve seen our own university massacre resulting from a deranged individual’s legal access to weapons.
Myth No. 6: The threat of a lifetime in jail or the electric chair will deter enraged individuals from committing mass murder.Reality: These deranged individuals usually commit suicide when they’re done with their rampage anyway, so there’s no deterrent incentive.This takes us back to carrying gun title and the taxpayer’s right to attach liens on any existing assets the murderer may own to reimburse the public for the tremendous societal costs. Maybe there’s nothing we can do about a dead gunman. But the public CAN do something about the person or store equipping an ill-fit individual with the instruments that can cause so much damage in the wrong hands.
No one has all the answers to help us address these serious questions of public safety and their relation to balancing our individual rights, but thoughtful dialogue free from rote, rehearsed responses is the only way for us to come together and tackle this serious issue. Gun violence in this country does NOT have to be tolerated to the level it’s at, and we can still give people their guns if they want them. Just make them criminally AND financially responsible when they’re used irresponsibly and/or criminally, even when they cross the border, and we’ll see serious changes that save thousands of lives and millions of taxpayers’ dollars.
