I REALLY hate it that so soon after the tragedy hit Newtown, Connecticut that it turned into a gun control battle. I don't know who started it and frankly I don't care. There should have been more time to let the families of the victims and the country as a whole grieve for the loss of these Americans.
But if it's going to happen, if we're really going to let our opinions known, I'll throw mine in. After all, it is my constitutional right to share my opinion.
Taking guns away from law abiding citizens will not solve the killings. The people you should worry about are the people who don't care whether what they are doing is legal or not. Criminals do not care if guns are banned. They will find some other way to do their evil deed because criminals do whatever they want. That has been the case since criminals and evildoers began walking the earth and that is how it always will be.
If there are going to be criminals walking the streets, I want the right to keep and bear my own arms. As a citizen of the United States of America I have been given that right and I refuse to have that taken away from me.
If a criminal came into my home armed and I had no way to defend myself, wouldn't that be worse than defending myself with an arm of my choice? It is only logical.
Are there many gun crimes in the world today? YES. Are those the fault of guns? NO. Bad people kill other people, not inanimate objects. Please use your common sense.
There you go.
I agree with a lot of what you said here. I dislike that it was turned into a gun control battle. The fact that some lawmakers have used it as a springboard for their agenda was sickening, as was the actions and statements of the Westboro Baptist Church on the other extreme.
ReplyDeleteI think my main problem is that I see points on both sides of the gun debate. On one hand, I could see why you would want to ban guns. The United States has the highest rate of gun violence of any developed nation, and also just happens to have the highest rate of legal gun ownership. Guns, and especially handguns, are far and away the most heavily used weapon in murders in the US (over 66% in 2004 according to the FBI, for an example).
With that said, the Supreme Court clearly states in District of Columbia v. Heller that guns like handguns and hunting guns are protected under the 2nd Amendment. I can understand the feeling like needing one in the home for self defense. I probably will have one for that purpose someday.
I can understand not wanting to have random people carrying guns around in all situations. Even if they did manage to keep their wits enough to get their guns out, having a bunch of random people shooting at each other is just going to make things many times more complicated and dangerous. However, I also feel better knowing that people who are trained to handle those high pressure situations, such as off-duty police officers and military members. In fact, every story that I can think of that involves a shooting being stopped by someone with a gun involve off-duty police officers (including that shooter at the Hobbit opening).
What I don't understand is why a few things couldn't be discussed before the tragedy. Why do people need assault rifles or automatic weapons? Those are weapons designed to kill large numbers of people, and they aren't really used for self-defense or hunting. Why can't we make it harder for nut jobs to get guns by taking out the gun show exception? Why don't we work harder on making sure that background checks are done so that we can keep the guns out of the hands of felons? I think that those are things that can be discussed without threatening a lawful person's 2nd Amendment right while cutting down on the violence. That's just my two pence.
I agree, Garin. I wish that we could be more careful with who gets to have a gun and who doesn't. But that is still taking away someone's right.
DeleteI think, though, people are still so uneducated when it comes to mental illness. Are all people who struggle with mental illness dangerous. Absolutely not. It gets hard to draw that line.
I don't really know what the solution is, here. Whatever the case may be, I plan to take action as soon as I can to become more educated on protecting myself and others from bad people who have guns.