Balancing your right to a gun with my right not to get shot
How can we coexist in a democracy where their right to bear arms doesn’t supersede my right not to get shot. You know … my right to the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. Especially the life part. Call me crazy, but I like a bullet-free body. In case you’re not clued in yet, I’m not a proponent of guns on demand. In fact, I’m personally against the idea of giving guns to anybody beyond the military, police force and actual hunters. But, against the current fashion in our national politics, I realize I live in a democracy where I can’t always get everything exactly the way that I want. Some of my countrymen and women support responsible gun ownership. So what’s a democratic and rational solution?
Are you suffering from “What the Hell?” exhaustion in the gun control debates yet? Lord knows I am. Every time I’m pretty sure I’ve just about heard it all, someone says something to push my “WTH” button.
This time it was NRA President Wayne LaPierre with his suggestion that we construct a national database on the mentally ill as a viable solution to prevent mass gun violence.
Say what, now?
Sure. Why not? While we’re at it since most of the mass killers were men, I’d like to suggest a national database of those suffering erectile dysfunction too (if intensely personal medical disease is on the table for federal scrutiny).
I mean somewhere in the United States a guy who couldn’t achieve the pinnacle of his own success shot somebody. So, putting his name in a database with all the other “erectile dysfunctioneers” just has to tell us something. Right?
Right. It would predict just about as much and protect us just as little as the one La Pierre suggests.
There’s almost too much irony in the very same people who don’t want government up in their lives regulating their guns or building gun ownership databases proffering up ways the government should intrude on the medical privacy of other Americans by building databases. (HIPPA laws be damned, I guess?)
And, what would we do with that information exactly? How deeply or often could we expect to invade someone’s medical privacy?
But, okay, let’s say we do it. Then what?
Would we “pre-punish” mentally ill people in some way for crimes before they committed those crimes? Maybe, lock them up based on what we’re scared they might do? Would we use the information to control their movements? Pressure their doctors to break confidentiality and inform the government beyond what’s already required by law? (Excuse me while I let the freezing cold from the chilling effect that would have on medical treatment work its way down my spine.)
Perhaps LaPierre (the hardest working man in the gun business) is suggesting (ironically) that we curtail the Second Amendment rights of the mentally ill and stop them from buying guns if they have a history of violence or serious instability.
Wait? Aren’t there already state laws that do that last thing?
Yes. Yes there are. You can see them enumerated state by state here on the website of the National Council of State Legislatures: http://www.ncsl.org/issues-research/justice/possession-of-a-firearm-by-the-mentally-ill.aspx
Funny thing: It turns out that one of the very few things besides a criminal record that can keep you from getting your hands on a gun in this country is a history of mental illness.
So what good would a national database possibly do? Not much beyond appearing to be a real solution when it’s not. Something the NRA likes to pretend it has - when it doesn’t.
I might be more inclined to believe they care as much about ending gun violence as they care about holding on to their guns at all costs if they stopped the misdirection, the sleight of hand with all five fingers pointing to mental illness, entertainment and everything else as the cause of out-of-control gun violence except the over-proliferation of crazy-high powered guns and itchy trigger fingers.
Or, I might buy their line that they want to engage in meaningful change if they wanted to talk about mental illness for real.
An informed understanding of mental illness could show us, for instance, that mental illness alone doesn’t predict who will become violent like say drug and alcohol abuse do, a history of family violence might or huge stressors like job loss have. In fact, the best estimate is that 95% of gun violence is committed by people without a diagnosis of mental illness.
A better question might be how to keep guns out of the hands of violent people. Well, that one is kind of tricky since we can’t generally know who the violent ones are until they do the violence.
It’s trickier still for the NRA since guns sometimes turn people without a history of violence into perpetrators of gun crime, particularly in domestic violence. On occasion, even though the majority of gun owners are law-abiding citizens, guns help perfectly law-abiding citizens do wrong.
Tell me if you’ve ever heard this one before: “He’s the last person I thought would do something like this.”
So, basically I’m still waiting for the gun-worshipping guys and gals up at the NRA to work with the rest of us in good faith. What’s the rational answer on how to balance their rights with mine?
How can we coexist in a democracy where their right to bear arms doesn’t supersede my right not to get shot. You know … my right to the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. Especially the life part. Call me crazy, but I like a bullet-free body.
In case you’re not clued in yet, I’m not a proponent of guns on demand. In fact, I’m personally against the idea of giving guns to anybody beyond the military, police force and actual hunters.
But, against the current fashion in our national politics, I realize I live in a democracy where I can’t always get everything exactly the way that I want. Some of my countrymen and women support responsible gun ownership.
So what’s a democratic and rational solution?
While I personally don’t buy the illogic of making the world safer by making sure everybody has something at his or her disposal to shoot off, I accept that guns are a part of American life for now.
In a nation where a good number of people believe guns to be a sacred part of U.S. history, tradition, notions of honor, family, heritage, culture, manhood, individualism, property, protection, politics and where guns actually do represent big billion dollar business, I doubt I’ll ever get the gun-free nation of my pacifist dreams. But I will always advocate for a gun murder-free America.
None of us should do any less. In fact I’d argue that those who advocate for unlimited access to guns have the moral obligation to do more: If the NRA claims the right to tote guns this aggressively, they should claim the corresponding moral obligation to prevent senseless gun deaths of innocents with as much fervor. In ways that will actually work, I mean.
Not one more child should lose his or her life in a classroom. Not one more woman should lose her life at the hands of a brutal spouse. Not one more child should be shot on an inner-city walk to school or during a “game” at a suburban slumber party. Not one more anybody should be killed through senseless gun violence.
It’s way past time for us to stop accepting all this carnage and senselessness as normal. If you’ll forgive my word choice –it’s crazy.
There are simpler, more straightforward and (to borrow language directly from the exalted Second Amendment of the United States Constitution) more “well-regulated” measures that can be taken.
Can we do that now? Because if not … just … WTH?
Suzanne Conaway
4 months, 2 weeks agoHalellujiaih, Sister. I agree with you totally. In the current USA, we have a ‘well-regulated militia’. It’s called Army. In 1791, our Army was very rudimentary and didn’t keep up as the country expanded.
Now we have at least one Army base in every state. We don’t need assault weapons and 30-round magazines in the hands of our non-military citizens any more.
Hunters should be able to keep their shotguns. People in high-crime areas should be able to have a handgun, if it makes them feel safer. However, keeping a handgun in a safe place many times makes it less attainable in case of a break-in or whatever. So, I can’t see much use in having a handgun either.
The federal law against crazies buying guns says, ‘persons JUDGED’. In other words, if a person’s family has had him/her committed or he/she committed him/herself, that person would not be JUDGED in a court of law to be insane. Ergo, nutso gets out of the loony bin, nutso can go buy a military-grade gun and blow away multiple people.
It’s not the nutsos that are the problem as LaPierre suggests. It’s the people not JUDGED to be insane — like LaPierre.
Robert Copher
4 months, 2 weeks agoSorry Guys there is no right to not get shot. The government was not designed and should not consider redefinition of constitutional rights, how they are earned at birth, and should never be asked to surrender. There should never be societal rights thats supercede Inalienable. Taking away of the inanimate object at hand will not stop people from figuring out how to kill each other and reduce crime. Its a toy!! Work on cohesive undestanding of what can EXPECT from our rights and stop trying to demonstrate why we should surrender them.
Kent Mueller
4 months, 2 weeks agoSuzanne, you quote the Second Amendment, but you do so as you wish. Now read the portion after the comma. That will contradict what you are saying.
Robert Copher
4 months, 2 weeks agoIn our fears from terrorism we are forcing people to surrender their rights and/or prove they deserve them. Encouraged snitching and mistrust of our neighbors as much as the government. Our crime prevention efforts, became general safety rights?, intrusive exams and a transition to innocent until proven guilty. And too many people are acceping of it. “Papers Please” is in the near future because we are requiring it for every social interaction we have. You have now changed America from a land intended to protect idividual rights that is more focused on protection social. There needs to be a balance. A defined end to the circumstances that give you the right to ask me to surrender my individual rights for you concerns. Safety precautions to a certain acceptable lever, but for preventative maintenance of the poulation, To work at your company or buy your products, the “help”. Its not helping to make us surrender rights and demonstrate hypocrocy to ourselves. Sorry for any spelling errors. I should be suspected guilty until proven innocent under any circumstance except when knowing putting myself in danger or assuming responsibility of others. Period. Until you are ready to make Constitutional changes, stop defining when it is OK to violoate it And figure out ways to support it. please.
Robert Copher
4 months, 2 weeks agoSince 9/11 our response has been there is a class of person amonge us that is out do do us all harm and so we must all start proving we are not that person. When does it end? When does prohibition end Guantanamo close and expectations of American values can be returned? That when the violence will stop. WHen we send men into battle as a NATION and present cohesion.
Gary Sappington
4 months, 2 weeks agoSuzanne you say “Hunters should be able to keep their shotguns”. Do you think all hunters just use shotguns? What about Deer and other big game hunters? I know some deer hunters that use assault type weapons. How many crimes are committed by law abiding gun owners? Get rid of the criminals using unlicensed guns and then we can talk about the remainder.
George Hunsucker
Northland
4 months, 2 weeks agoI am just glad zero promised not to take our guns away. We “know” that he has kept all his promises too!!!!
http://cnsnews.com/blog/gregory-gwyn-williams-jr/flashback-obama-i-will-not-take-your-guns-away
How do you anti-second-amendment zealots justify this when you can look at Chicago with one of the more restrictive gun laws and it’s level of crime and murders??? Once more, I am not a smart lib to be able to understand this, fortunately!!!
Suzanne Conaway
4 months, 2 weeks agoRobert, the 2nd amendment is just that — an amendment. And amendments have been amended. Look at prohibition.
Robert Copher
4 months, 2 weeks agoSusan, I’m just clafifying that you don’t want us to have a set of laws and rights for the land I’m standing on and then tell me but if I want to call it American anymore I have to surrender rights to the land you know acknowledge as American everytime you make exception to the basic individual rights issued at birth and intended to be inposed on every person found with in its borders. If everybody votes for social change and agrees to it I am not going to cry at that point. Too much law has come from too few minds and we have given our government incorrect directives in policy for policing its citizens. We are headed for a socialist empire with human cleansing thru capitlist means instead of Communist dictatorship. We just need to make that transistion very carefully and seems to already be failing.
Robert Copher
4 months, 2 weeks agoGuys I am not a Constitutional scholar or claim to know the laws and the justifications used. I looking a the results of the ones made so far and the cooperation and integrity that being able to be maintained thru these testing times. We have chosen thru our laws to force people into poverty before will let let them conduct trade in certain industries. Its just not turning out like I thought it would for my pride of country.
Robert Copher
4 months, 2 weeks agoWe are now too often electing people and sending them to work in government to challenge our rights and not enough people being sent to work in government to protect our rights. WHen we let Koback issue as many attempts at unconstitutional law, why are we to believe that he is protecting and working in the best interest of the individuals Constitutional Rights. Same BrownBack in Ks I think is a great example of good and bad socialiism and defining when it is ok to require people surrender individual rights. Stripping the budget and forcing the re-justification for the tax base is absolutely the correct move. Imposing religious legislation intended to further cleans the population of the undeserving. The two go hand in hand with a very clear perspective of the American Citizen of the 25th Century!! If you know what I mean. I admit I will present what I call plausable absurdities at times in order to be challenged. If I have the facts and feeling more plausable the conclusion will follow that premise. If I have the facts and am feeling thats it more absurd, the conclusions will follow that premise.
Greg McFarland
4 months, 2 weeks agoSure lets have a serious discussion. Rifles are only used in 300-400 homicides a year. Assault rifles amount to a few dozen. Handguns are used in the vast majority. Why are we spending all this time and money talking about assault rifles when that would be so much better spent on other things. 50% of shooters have a felony arrest and 80% have a record. Why are we not spending all this time and money on keeping them behind bars, you know a solution that actually is proven to work unlike gun control that is proven to fail over and over. I continue to ask any gun control person to provide credible evidence (a peer reviewed study) that shows it works. You know why it hasn’t happened, because it doesn’t exist.
Greg McFarland
4 months, 2 weeks agoOr let’s be serious that you are more likely to die from a car wreck, smoking, medical errors and a bunch of other things rather than getting shot. Money is much better spent in the other areas. Also what about my right to defend myself which happens 1-2 million times a year. Again, when you starting banning guns, crime goes up. Show us otherwise. The facts aren’t there and that is why gun control loses.
Yanwen Xia
Overland Park
4 months, 2 weeks agoHappy New Year, a bit late. And be safe, everyone.
There are obviously too many either mentally or psychologically or physically sick people in the society, too many for the society to lock them up (remember we don’t have this money?) and too many to trust having assault weapons unrestricted.
People can have guns for self-defense, but not the ones for mass-killing like assault weapons. Gun industry has gone too far for the safety of the nation.
Realistically speaking, I am not optimistic about any gun control law at this moment, even after Newtown shooting (too bad none of the little ones was related to important people like Wayne LaPierre or his shooting buddies). Because I believe only event like Reagan assasination can change the minds of those who are adamantly against such control, even though I do not hope such thing happens.
Greg McFarland
4 months, 2 weeks agoNo, most of us are smart enough to realize that gun control doesn’t work and why spend millions trying aimed at saving a few dozen when properly spent could save thousands? Come on, show me some proof that gun control works….
George Hunsucker
Northland
4 months, 2 weeks agoIt will be sooooooooooo nice when you libs have disarmed America and we no longer have to read stories like this one….
http://myfox8.com/2013/01/06/ga-mom-shoots-intruder-5-times-saves-children/
Mark Hastert
4 months, 2 weeks ago“Come on, show me some proof that gun control works….”
A simple Google search will provide you all the proof a person could want if they cared to look. Actually it works pretty well all over the world. You’ve no doubt read the references to Australia’s ban on assault rifles. In Japan, Europe and the UK gun deaths per capita are very low compared to the US. Is it absolute? Of course not but it does work and work well but bans are going to be enough. It will take many measures to change out perverse fixation about guns.
Greg McFarland
4 months, 2 weeks agoRight were any peer reviewed? My bet is no. Not to mention all of those places had low gun crime to begin with. The UK murder rate actually trended up after their ban but has come down since to below what it was so there really isn’t a clear trend there, not to mention that their violent crime rate has gone up (it’s actually much higher than the US) and Australia’s violent crime rate has also gone up after their ban to the point a woman is now three times more likely to be raped than in the US. Next…..
Greg McFarland
4 months, 2 weeks agoForgot to mention that while Austalia’s murder rate did go down, it is actually going down at a slower rate than the US. The same difference was noted for the very short reduction that occurred in Chicago after their ban went into effect. It went down slower than the rest of the US, but has since gone way up while the rest of the US has continued to decline.