With the Washington Post on Wednesday essentially singing the praises of the anti-Second Amendment group Everytown for Gun Safety, perhaps the time has come to ask the billionaire-backed gun prohibition lobby a couple of important questions. Why are you so determined to penalize the nation’s 100-million-plus law-abiding gun owners for crimes committed by a minority of miscreants, and suicides committed by self-destructive individuals whose acts of desperation are hardly reflective the firearms fraternity in general?
Where did you get the notion that your lifestyle, which possibly includes guilt and remorse over someone’s self-inflicted death, should become a national mandate?
A story in the Burlington Free Press tells about the effort by the family of a recent Vermont suicide victim to impose waiting periods on all gun buyers in the state because their loved one purchased a gun one morning and used it to end his life that same afternoon. In his obituary, the story notes, the family asks readers to “work for legislation that imposes a reasonable waiting period between a firearm purchase and possession to provide a cooling off period to guard against impulsive acts of violence.”
Tens of millions of other gun owners didn’t hurt anyone, or themselves, on the day this man was overcome by his own despair. While suicide is a terrible tragedy with devastating impacts on families and friends, should it be used to leverage against the constitutional rights of the people at large?
Washington State voters recently approved an initiative that strips young adults of their Second Amendment rights to buy or own semiautomatic rifles because a 19-year-old monster opened fire at a Florida high school in February, and another 19-year-old murdered three of his friends, including a former girlfriend, at a party more than two years ago. Last year’s Las Vegas mass shooting is irrelevant because the killer was in his 60s, and there is still no known motive.
Clearly, proponents of these restrictive anti-rights measures judge all gun owners by the behavior of a relative handful of people who misused firearms. Against what other social group is it considered fashionable, and is it condoned, to practice such broad brush discrimination? Cities across the country have declared themselves “sanctuaries” for “undocumented immigrants” (illegal aliens), despite reports such as the one in Salina.com that the Center for Immigration Studies examined data that concluded “noncitizens are more likely to commit federal crimes than citizens — crimes that have nothing to do with immigration issues.”
Writing at The Daily Signal, Amy Swearer, a legal policy analyst at the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation, reported, “The facts tell us,that most commonly, proposed gun control measures are already ineffective at preventing mass public shootings in states where they are currently implemented, and that they will continue to be ineffective at preventing future tragedies.”
She also took issue with gun prohibition lobby claims about widespread mass shootings.
“Although some gun control advocates claim there have been more than 300 ‘mass shootings’ this year,” Swearer added, “that number is a product of using deceptive and largely meaningless definitions that include incidents far removed from the context commonly associated with the term.
“Since Jan. 1, 2018,” she noted, “there have been 11 mass public shootings in which three or more people other than the shooter were killed, parameters derived from Congress’ definitions of ‘mass shooting’ and ‘mass killing.’”
At the heart of this debate is a constitutionally enshrined fundamental right, spelled out in clear language that the U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed twice in the past 10 years. Alan Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, has recently argued that anti-gunners have dropped all pretenses and are openly campaigning to reduce the right to keep and bear arms to the level of a heavily-regulated privilege, or erase it altogether from the Bill of Rights.
Incidentally, Gottlieb has championed a suicide prevention pilot effort in Washington State in cooperation with the Forefront Suicide Prevention project at the University of Washington.
At some point, rights activists are increasingly contending, the Supreme Court will be unable to dodge its responsibility to the Constitution and put the brakes on this regulatory erosion of one what many believe to be the most important tenets of the Bill of Rights. The Second Amendment protects the right of the people to have the ability to protect all the other rights. That may be unpleasant to some and abhorrent to others, but rights are rights, and simply because some people abuse those rights cannot be an excuse to impair, infringe, or deny them to everyone.
Why do you think anti Second Amendment groups seek to penalize all gun owners instead of proposing real solutions to the underlying issues of criminality and mental health? Share your answers in the comment section.
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Over the years I have known people who have committed suicide. One who told his family that he was going to do it but waited a year to the day after he had first said he was going to commit suicide. One who killed his wife then himself with a rifle that he had owned for years, one man used his favorite shotgun, a neighbor that used a pistol and another man I knew used a rope and hung himself. Then there was the young man in our town who jumped off a high bridge just outside of town. I have not heard any one talking about outlawing bridges or ropes or some other things a person could use to end their life. My contention is that all this gun control is to disarm the people so that the powers that be have total control over all of us.
Why do you think anti Second Amendment groups seek to penalize all gun owners instead of proposing real solutions to the underlying issues of criminality and mental health?
In one simple word, EMOTIONS. The simple and sometimes over looked fact is that the difference between adults and children is controlling out emotional actions and using rational thought patterns. Adults make choices based on facts, children often make choices solely on their emotions. If you notice, the agenda pushed by the Left is grounded in emotional responses. The counter argument on the Right is based on facts.
1. Open borders – “think about the poor children”
2. Gun control – “think about the poor children”
3. Entitlement reform- “think about the poor children”
Notice a pattern? I challenge you the reader to select 5 articles posted by a Left leaning publication, read them and pick out the emotional based quotes from those publications. They will be there every time.
I agree with Ernie in that the gun control effort is more about political power than safety. The one thing the left wingers want more than anything is power. Private firearm ownership is a form of DISTRIBUTED political power…and they fear it. The founders realized this, thus the Second Amentment. If politicians really wanted to “save lives,” they would outlaw privately owned swimming pools an reduce the national speed limit to 35 mph!
You and Ernie are correct – it is NOT about guns as such, it is NOT about ‘saving lives” – as Ernie pointed out ropes or bridges will always suffice – it is NOT ‘for the children’ – it is and always has been about absolute control – with them wielding that control of course. And if one has studied the issues for 50+ years like some of us have, we have known for a really long time that in order for them to achieve that level of control they MUST attain a total monopoly of force. Witness the latest comment from ‘swallow'(eric swalwell (d) kalypornia in case y/all don’t get the reference) – that they WILL win ‘cuz they have nukes.