So What Is The Answer?

First, I'm going to extend my sincere condolences to everyone affected by yesterday's shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. It's a horrible thing to contemplate, and the survivors are going to need huge amounts of support. After all, watching classmates being shot in the head at near point-blank range has got to be devastating for any human being with a conscience and awareness. I cannot even begin to imagine the trauma from something like that and my heart and prayers go out to the victims, the survivors, their families, friends and the entire community.

Almost disgustingly, even before the last echo had faded, the political wheels started churning. Obama made a speech. He might well have lip-synced the last several because he's chattering on about gun control and many in the public are following his lead.

The fact is, between state and federal statutes, I suspect we have more gun control laws on the collective books than laws for any other single issue. Still, the problem hasn’t been solved. It’s been proved again and again that restrictive laws simply do not work. Look at Chicago, the jurisdiction with what are probably the harshest, most restrictive gun laws in the United States. It has one of the highest rates of gun violence.

Why? Because gun control laws simply do not work. End of story.

Remember Prohibition? How’d that work?

Sure! Law abiding citizens obeyed the law, until they saw how openly the law was being flouted by their friends and neighbors. Then they joined in and started to party down with everyone else. But the criminals – the law breakers – ignored the law. They opened speaks and brought liquor in from Canada, etc., etc., etc. We all know how that went. Government lawmakers tried and failed and repealed.

How about the War On Drugs? Oh yeah. That’s been so successful that some jurisdictions have thrown in the towel and legalized marijuana – which begs the question: how long will it be before other drugs are mainstreamed and legalized so jurisdictions can garner the tax revenues and “control” them? Everyone who has a lick of sense admits the War On Drugs and the associated laws was an abysmal failure.

How many laws are broken each and every day? You'll probably break at least one or two today.

I will, no doubt. I'll jaywalk, or I won't come to a complete stop at that stop sign or I'll forget to use my turn signal or I'll drive faster than the speed limit. All of those are laws, too, yet how many do each and every one of us break every single day of the week? And I am not equating one with the other, but I am stating that each and every one of us breaks some law somewhere on a daily basis.

Now, one group of laws I have never broken and will never willingly break are those laws associated with my firearms. I suspect the vast majority of gun owners will say the same thing, and will mean it just as I do.

Which raises the question: how do we get control of this?

I’m a gun owner. I admit it because I’m not ashamed of it. I abide by the laws. I don’t carry my guns outside of my house unless they’re in a proper, legal and locked case. Having the guns doesn’t make me dangerous. In fact, I’m responsible. I lock them away, unloaded, etc.

Will you punish me because of something someone else has done?

That’s like punishing me for having my house broken into. “Oh! You didn’t have steel shutters on your windows and Biff broke in, therefore you’re culpable and will be punished!”

That makes no sense, does it? So gun control punishes the law abiding people and still the criminals, the law breakers, will continue to do what they do.

I don't have an answer, and given the running in circles and shouting to the skies about "more gun control, more gun control" it seems no one else does, either.

Connecticut has a decent idea, one the NRA would probably back. They require that people who want to purchase guns to go through a two-step system.

First you apply for a permit to purchase a gun. You have to go to gun safety classes, and pass, and you have to have a background check. Now, hopefully, that background check isn't simply, 'does this person have a pulse?' Hopefully it includes a criminal check and a mental health check - although the health privacy laws would have to be waived, but that's okay by me. You want to own a gun, you have to earn it and if that means giving up a bit of medical privacy, so be it.

The other, bigger issue, are gun shows and sales. Those should be outlawed and if I want to sell my gun to you, it has to go through a licensed dealer. Someone who acts as a middle-man, who can handle the paperwork and the checks and everything else. I would have no problem with that, at all. Even if it would cut away from my profit for selling the weapon. If it makes everyone safer, I see no problem.

So here's an idea. How about a collective representative group of gun owners, Constitutional advocates, anti-gun people, and lawmakers getting together and working out a plan. The goal would be to devise a plan that would allow people like me to maintain our Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. We could still hunt and compete in sport-shooting competitions, go to ranges, etc., and not fear prosecution or persecution for simply owning a weapon.

Perhaps use the Connecticut law as a springboard and devise something that's meaningful but not onerous.

Sounds good, doesn't it? All parties would at least be satisfied with a compromise. Of course, that wouldn't work, either, because bad people will still do bad things.

So what is the answer? I don't know, and I don't think anyone else has one, either.

Think about it and let the rest of us know, will you?

Best~
Philippa

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