UPDATE: I got a call from one of the editorial people at the Star, asking me to verify that I had written a letter to the editor. I called her back and let her know that I had, so that might mean that they are going to print my letter on Thursday. Here's a link to the Star's letters page, if anyone is interested.
The two paragraphs in italics, below, are my response to this letter to the editor, written by an idiot from Danville. Go figure. Anyway, I tried to be somewhat restrained in what I sent to the Star, but my verbose nature began to get the better of me while I was writing the response, and I wound up with enough material for a tasty blog post. I present it here because I'm sure the Star won't print it.
There are two problems with Mr. Kenneth Dewey’s Nov. 21 letter about gun laws. The first is his claim that gun laws are not enforced - an efficient way of passing the buck on guns to the cops, who are doing their best to enforce the laws. Laws against carrying guns and hiding them in your trunk can’t be enforced without probable cause, because of the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure. The illegal sale of guns by dealers is a red herring - the guns are being sold legally in the store and then illegally on the street; and, again, the Fourth Amendment protects the owners of gun stores. The second problem is when he passes the buck again, from guns to people when he says that anything can be used as a weapon to kill someone. This is true, except guns are more effective and far too easy to get.
Creating stricter gun laws is the only way to reduce gun crimes, because it is the only way to reduce the number of guns that exist. The people who make guns will always turn a blind eye to the horrors being committed with the products they make, so it is left to government to step in and make laws since the people can’t or won’t understand just how dangerous guns are. The failed war on drugs is proof that blindfolded enforcement will never solve the problem. There will always be people who want to do drugs, and there will always be people who want to kill other people with guns. We can’t force people to do right, but we can force people to do without.
The gun people love to stand behind the Second Amendment, although none of them really seem to understand it. The gun people are what we call strict constructionists when it comes to interpreting the Constitution, and that means they interpret the Constitution based more on what the words say specifically than on the spirit with which the words were written. The Second Amendment says that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. What it does not say - but what it does, in fact, mean, especially when viewed in context along with the Third and Fourth Amendments - is that the people have the right to keep and bear arms in the defense of their homes. This was back in a time when a major war had just been fought by a breakaway people who were trying to make it in a foreign land - self-preservation was right at the top of their list of priorities. Thus, the people were empowered to secure their homes, something that municipal police departments and county sheriff’s departments were later created to do. The times have changed, but the law, as written, has not.
The Second Amendment was never meant to allow for people to carry guns in state parks - even though that is now legal here in the cosmopolitan state of Indiana. It was never meant to allow for people to possess automatic weapons. The true brilliance of our Founding Fathers - and don’t forget that these guys we glorify for founding our country were mostly tobacco planters and slave owners - is shown by the fact that they created a constitituion that could be changed over the years to remain consistent with the times. I personally think the Second Amendment should be repealed, as it is no longer relevant. This won’t happen, of course, because the NRA has grown too powerful and bought too many Republicans. Also, the gun manufacturers aren’t going to grow consciences overnight - hell, probably ever at all.
Thus, if it’s going to continue to exist, then it has to be restricted with gun laws that are designed to discourage the further manufacture and use of guns. It is the nature of Americans to embrace, whether they know it or not, the title of that 4 Non Blondes album from 1992 - Bigger, Better, Faster, More! - the pursuit of happiness thrusts us blindly along that path. Unfortunately, it is no longer the province of most Americans - who, it can only be assumed, watch so much television more because of inertia than because of actual interest - to embrace temperance, and that’s where government regulation comes into play. In cases where we can’t or won’t understand what’s good for us and what isn’t the government is in place to pass laws that protect us from ourselves.
And there need to be a hell of a lot more gun laws, so that the number of guns on the street - regardless of their (dubious) legality - is drastically reduced. Guns give criminals the advantage, and opponents of gun control are basically just helping to arm the criminals.
No comments:
Post a Comment