The columnist Dionne wrote this today in the Washington Post:
"Try a thought experiment: What would conservatives have said if a group of loud, scruffy leftists had brought guns to the public events of Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush?
How would our friends on the right have reacted to someone at a Reagan or a Bush speech carrying a sign that read: "It is time to water the tree of liberty"? That would be a reference to Thomas Jefferson's declaration that the tree "must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
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ReplyDeleteGun control is a tough subject for me. Constitutionally it is fiarly clear. Morally...not so much. Guns are scary, six year old kill other six year old, gangs blow each others (and bystanders) heads off, people kill themselves. But as the second part of that thought expariment mentioned, perhaps a time comes when we need to over throw the government, water the tree of liberity...kind of tough to do with out guns. And the passing of a gun control law in good faith in the present may give the a future government worth over thowing the power to keep the means to over throw out of the publics hands.
ReplyDeleteI posted the above twice...somehow the first one showed up with out my name.
I always feel a little pity for protestors. Witnessing plenty of liberal protestors at the Republican National Convention was entertaining; but I did not see any guns, even at the Rage Against the Machine Riot, except for the oppressive and unreasonable police officers and military. Should guns be controlled? Of course; but to what extent? Anyone can be very dangerous with a gun: even the most experienced police officer or soldier. Am I suggesting that we take away all the guns, from civilian and police? Definitely not! People will always find a way to get or make guns. Back to topic: there are extreme and dangerous liberals and conservatives. They make people angry on both sides. Just go on any comment-ased site, if you've never been, and you'll see what I mean.
ReplyDeleteI thought the author of that post posed a very interesting idea. The NRA has always been extremely quick to defend, advocate for, and utilize the rights awarded to them under the 2nd amendment. However, the conflicted situation illustrated above could be just the right environment to contradict every argument made by right winged, pro-gun Americans. For example, what if every left winged democrat showed up to a republican rally or convention carrying guns? Let’s make it particularly interesting and assume these people are primarily of African-American, middle-eastern, and Hispanic descent. Would the NRA and other left-winged supporters continue to uphold the 2nd amendment as written in the Constitution or would it soon become apparent that, when immediately faced with it, their 2nd amendment rights conditionally and unequally belong to white males?
ReplyDeleteThere are at least fifteen guns in my house. I own two of them, a 20 gauge shotgun for small game and a 30-30 rife for big game hunting. That said, there is no reason for civilians to carry or own handguns or high powered, fully automatic rifles. The only purpose of those types of guns is to harm others. I would even support the idea of only manufacturing single shot hunting guns.
ReplyDeleteAs the child of a card-carrying NRA member, gun safety instructor, certified range officer/ instructor, and gun show dealer (Love you, Dad), I have heard about these issues quite a bit (read: ad nauseum). I certainly heard about it when Clinton pushed it and the NRA members pushed back. Now critics say Obama's breaking campaign promises to close the gun-show loophole, but after what history has shown, jumping in with a hard line might be political suicide. Still, his position was taken seriously enough that Obama's inauguration caused ammunition to fly off the shelves, likely stockpiled by the NRA's four million members. Dad included.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite saying of Dad's: "If you make guns a criminal offense, only criminals will have guns." That double entendre includes those that commit violent crimes (of the greater concern) and the formerly law-abiding individuals formerly exercising the right to bear arms who become criminals if they keep them. It’s not enough to say that guns don’t kill people, “people” kill people, when actually it’s “murderers” that kill people – so the thorny issue of keeping the guns out of the hands of the murderers.
Consider too the approximately 5 million guns per year made available for civilian use (stats dating back to 1980 on www.gunsandcrime.org) and only about 100k destroyed per year, the likelihood that we'd get guns out of the criminals' hands is pretty low as there's millions of them out there to be had, legally or illegally.
This is not a conservative or liberal issue when it comes to gun control. When a legal citizen of the United States of America cannot exercise a right to carry arms, not concealed, in a non offensive way we have a definate problem. Don't worry, if the individual holding the gun pointed the barrel in an offensive, way the Secret Service would have shot him without a blink of the eye. Obama has been making a lot of non transparent statements since he has been in office totally contradicting his campaign promise. I think exercising ones 4th amendment right is obviously transparent and no words need be spoken.
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