OPINION PIECE – GUN CONTROL

BY KATHERINE KELLY

Obama is coming for our guns? Too bad he didn’t come for them a little sooner or that family in New Mexico would probably be alive today. They were murdered by their own guns:  a mother, father and three children. They were murdered by their son, brother, 15 years of age, who might not have been able to have access to the weapons used in the crime if his family did not have them in the home. Among the weapons this boy used to slaughter his family was a semi-automatic assault rifle, being used for the purpose it was manufactured, to kill many, quickly.

You are 22 times more likely to be killed by a gun if you have one in the house. I wonder if that number goes up if there are multiple guns in the house. For this family in New Mexico, had they not succumbed to the paranoia that the arsenal will protect them from boogey men, real and imagined, they would not be among the dead bodies that comprise that statistic.

The government is coming for our guns. Obama is coming for our guns. Each and every time I hear someone say that I want to scream. Really? Do the people making such claims even think through what they are saying? Obama has done NOTHING about the massive American Family Arsenal since taking office in 2008. It’s now 2013, and the catalyst for the conversation on gun control happened to be one of the saddest days of my life, the murder of 20 children while they were at school. Too bad it took the horrific death of tiny children to give this wake up call.

Oh but the conversation is not going well. I have heard some of the craziest talk in my life about how Obama is desecrating the second amendment for putting forth some very reasonable ideas about regulation of dangerous weapons of war and high capacity magazines, none of which belong in any American’s closet. To hear the gun lobby you would think there was an all-out assault on the second amendment instead of common sense regulation.

To my friends who believe that the government is coming for our guns, I just have to say, really? How in the world do they think that would happen? Door to door? We don’t even have enough police to keep our streets safe, so I think the lack of manpower rather ditches that scenario. Obama has not made one single move to do anything about guns in this country, so guess what folks? The gun lobby (aka NRA) is the one spreading that unfounded and completely ridiculous rumor in order to make happen what exactly did happen: a run on guns. The gun manufacturers are hip deep in complicity. You’ve been lied to, you’ve been duped. Some people made lots of money on your paranoia, and now you’re 22 times more likely to be killed by one of those guns you bought.

The Republican Party is hugely responsible for the fear mongering campaign to excite the gun toting paranoid nuts in our society. In an email sent to his “base,” Mitch McConnell  makes the claim: “They’re coming for your guns.” That’s the biggest stretch of political baloney I’ve ever heard. They managed to take a few reasonable regulations and turn into an all-out gun-snatching theory. For the record, Obama is not coming for our guns. If you’re paranoid enough to think that then maybe a mental health evaluation is in order. Then you would be on the list of people that should probably not have guns. I would sleep better at night knowing crazy paranoid people didn’t have an arsenal hiding in the closet or under the bed.

Take a peek at what the gun lobby is claiming to constitute Obama “coming for your guns.”

1. Making background checks universal.
2. Improving state reporting of criminals and the mentally ill.
3. Banning assault weapons.
4. Capping magazine clip capacity at 10 rounds.
5. Purging armor-piercing bullets (aka Cop killers)
6. Funding for more police officers.

I see nothing in that list about coming for our guns. What I see is sensible first steps to get a handle on a uniquely American problem: an over-armed populace. Regulation is not abolition, and no “right” is absolute. The first amendment, the right to free speech, has restrictions. You can’t yell “fire!” in a crowded theater, for example. Our cars are more regulated than guns are. No one is trying to stop us from owning guns. The idea is protect us from nuts with an attitude who take out their grievances on crowds of innocent people.

Seriously, why does anyone need an assault weapon? The only purposed for their existence is to kill large numbers of people very quickly. The Supreme Court ruled in D.C. v. Heller that bans on handgun ownership were unconstitutional, so no one is coming for our guns. You can have all the handguns you want, let’s just keep the military assault rifles where they belong, with the military. We need to have a reasonable conversation about gun control, but the fear mongering needs to be left out of the conversation.