“When it comes to questions concerning gun control,
let us bear in mind that there is no such thing as a drive-by stabbing” ----from the ‘Quotations of Chairman Joe”
Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the N.R.A. sat, with blood-stained
hands, before a Senate committee and testified with a straight face that this
country needs no further regulations concerning the sale and handling of
firearms. This is the same Wayne LaPierre
who stood before the nation in the wake of the Newtown school massacre and said
that the “only thing that can stop a bad man with a gun is a good man with a
gun”. It is clear that the leadership of
the NRA will not budge an inch in their efforts to obstruct any attempt at
reasonable reforms.
Despite that recent polls show that over 90 percent
of the country and over 80 percent of NRA
Members favor the creation of universal background checks, an act that
would move to check the present situation in which gun sales by private
individuals and others can circumvent such checks through private sales and gun
shows. There exists similar support for
other forms of regulation such as banning high magazine clips, military-style
ammunition, and putting limits on the amount of guns and ammunition that can be
purchased at one time. The NRA in its
recent checkered history has even opposed the introduction of technology on
weaponry that would make it less likely that a stolen gun would be used in a
crime. We have the technology to put
devices on these weapons that recognize fingerprints and prevent the gun from
functioning unless it recognized the owner.
The NRA has moved to block such regulation. If such devices were put in place, the
slaughter at Newton may well not have happened.
The old gun-nut bumper sticker says it all. Not the one that read “When Guns are
Outlawed, only Outlaws will have Guns.”
No the one that read “They will get my gun only by prying it from my
cold dead fingers” The mantra that all
attempts at gun legislation and control, citing a construction of the second
amendment as an absolute prohibition of any such attempt to control firearms,
will meet with fierce and determined resistance.
There are many good proposals now put forward to try
to reign in on this madness. To the
usual proposals regarding universal background checks, increased mental health
spending and screening, banning of high capacity magazines, cop-killer bullets,
etc., I would add the following.
First let us close absolutely the possible ‘holes’
around background checks. Let us pass
legislation that would require a license for a firearm, any firearm, to be
renewed annually.
Second, let us provide for liability for the owner
of any firearm for its use, no matter who uses it.
Third, the sale of any firearm could only be
transacted through a duly licensed dealer.
Thus all private sales would have to be conducted through a licensed
third party. This insures that the sale
and ownership of the weapon can be tracked.
Violations of these provisions would be severe, a hundred thousand
dollar fine to be in possession of an unlicensed weapon.
Fourth, we need to return to the wisdom of our
forefathers and ban automatic and semi-automatic weapons entirely. Again to be found in possession of such a
weapon would incur a severe penalty, say one hundred thousand dollars, payment
of which can be extended over a long period of time, but cannot be bankrupted
and would be subject to court oversight.
The owners of such weapons, the survivalists, the conspiracy nuts, the
militiamen, would forthright face a choice: keep the weapon and risk the
financial liability and penalties, or voluntarily—without compensation—give up
the weapons. Such an act would do much to voluntarily flush the system of the
most dangerous weaponry on the streets of America.
Finally, I suggest that we return to our father’s
wisdom and require that in order to own a handgun, a weapon with no other
purpose that to kill another human being; a citizen would be required to
demonstrate to the local authority (it used to be the sheriff’s department) a
need for such a weapon. This is how our
ancestor’s handled this issue. Until
recently this is how we historically dealt with handguns. Now the state has to demonstrate that the
would-be gun owner is unqualified, or a clear and present danger.
Such reforms will no doubt cut the number of gun
sales in America, but would concentrate such transactions into the hands of
qualified gun dealers so as to mitigate against the diminution of their
business.
There is little here that is new. There is little here that our ancestors, in
their wisdom, have put in place at one time or another in our collective
history. Whether we can get such
reforms, or make any progress worth the name toward national sanity when it
comes to guns remains to be seen.
I’m reminded of another bumper-sticker I’ve seen,
usually on the back of a rusted out old pick-up truck: “My Wife Yes, My Dog
Maybe, My Gun—NEVER!”
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