When they write articles like this, they merely indicate the title of their site is incorrect. They are not ‘good men’. And it begs the question: Which right will be the next one they decide the people should not have?
I love life, and I love the people of my country far far far more than I value the “freedom” to bear arms. I don’t know if any “reforms” will really solve the problems of gun violence in the United States. In all actuality, I believe, therefore, that we must repeal the Second Amendment now!
There! I uttered the unutterable, the ultimate taboo in U.S. political discourse. But I am not running for public office or reelection. I am not expecting large payouts from the National Rifle Association or from the firearms manufacturers through their lobbyists.
As the horse once served as a primary means of transportation in earlier times, it now grazes and prances peacefully on rich pastures. Possibly during former moments in our history, we may have had reason to enact and enforce the Second Amendment of our great Constitution, but those bygone days have long since passed. Now we must put the Second Amendment out to pasture.
I believe that even our brilliant and well-meaning, but flawed founders did not want unlimited and unrestricted rights of firearm ownership. They could never have imagined the enormous leaps and heights to which the Second Amendment now menaces not only the very lives of our people, but more poignantly, how it imposes an existential threat to our nation.
Even if our early leaders had advocated for unrestricted gun ownership, these are the same men who owned and marketed enslaved Africans, committed genocide against and expelled native peoples, withheld enfranchisement from women, engaged in and killed one another in duels, and so on.
Since those early times, legislation, judicial actions, and constitutional amendments have at least attempted to redress some of those past injustices and tragedies. On the other hand, unfortunately, legislation and judicial actions have actually expanded the rights of firearms ownership going far beyond even what the founders had intended.
I often travel abroad visiting cities and people around the world. Increasingly during my journeys, people express to me that they admire the remarkable achievements and wonders of the United States, but because of the perennial gun violence, they vow not to step foot on this land. These same people believe they have more freedoms in their countries with severe firearms restrictions than we could ever have under our Second Amendment.
Because of their well-founded fears of visiting our country, they will never experience our gleaming cities, our fertile plains, our lush grasslands, our majestic mountains and national parks, and yes, our seemingly endless quantity of shops. In the end, the realities of gun violence in the U.S. hurts everyone everywhere, with the possible exception of our enemies who desire to witness us defeated from within.
Rather than working to reduce the supply of firearms on our streets and in our homes, gun sales and ownership steadily increases. I often hear the joke that the state of Montana has more cows than people. I don’t know whether this is true, but I know for certain that in the United States, there are more firearms than people, and this is no joke.
The United States ranks number 1 of 178 countries with the highest rate of firearms, 120.5 for every 100 residents. The Falkland Islands ranks a far second with 62.1 and Yemen third with 52.8.
Before and up to 1996, Australia had relatively high rates of murder, but a tragic incident at Port Arthur, Tasmania, April 28, 1996, was the proverbial straw that broke the poor camel’s back. On that date, a man opened fire on a group of tourists killing 35 and wounding another 23. The massacre was the worst mass murder in Australia’s history.
Taking decisive action, newly-elected conservative Prime Minister, John Howard, negotiated a bipartisan deal between the national, state, and local governments in enacting comprehensive gun safety measures, which included a massive buyback of more than 600,000 semi-automatic rifles and shotguns, and laws prohibiting private firearms sales, mandatory registration by owners of all weapons, and the requirement that all potential buyers of guns at the time of purchase give a “genuine reason” other than general or overarching self-defense without documentation of necessity.
By 1996, polls showed overwhelming public support of approximately 90% for the new measures. And though firearms-related injuries and death have not totally come to an end, homicides by firearms fell by 59% between 1995 and 2006 with no corresponding increase in non-firearm-related homicides, and a 65% reduction in gun-related suicides.
In addition, there has been significant drops in robberies involving firearms, and contrary to fears by some, no increase in the overall number of home invasions. In the decade preceding the Port Arthur massacre, Australia recorded 11 mass shootings. No mass shootings as of 2016 have occurred in the 20+ years since the measures went into effect.
Just six days after the recent terrible hate-inspired gun murders of Muslims praying at two Mosques in Christchurch New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced sweeping new firearms regulations, which included banning semi-automatic rifles and large-capacity ammunition magazines, and a mandatory government buyback of such previously sold weapons.
The U.S. Congress enacted a brief federal ban on assault weapons, The Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act, in September 1994. The ban, which also included barring high-capacity magazines, expired in September 2004 as required in its 10-year sunset provision. The measure has not been reauthorized by Congress.
As a provision inserted as a rider into the 1996 federal government omnibus spending bill, the Dickey Amendment, named after Arkansas Republican Representative Jay Dickey and lobbied heavily by the National Rifle Association, passed the Congress into law. It mandated that “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”
Certain minor provisions, have recently passed Congress to fund some research on gun violence and investigate regulative controls.
Today, the rate of firearms-related homicides in the United States stands at 4.12 each year per 100,000 residents, while in Australia the rate is 0.18. A person is 23 times more likely to be killed by a gun or rifle in the U.S. than in Australia, 13 times more likely than in France, and 22 times more likely than in any other European peer nation.
And what is the reason for this vast difference? Statistically, there are no more people per capita with homicidal mental illnesses in the U.S. than in our peer nations. The difference is clearly that U.S. residents have a supposed “God-given” Constitutional right to bear arms, while most other nations do not.
So, what limits, on the national, state, and local levels should we as a nation consider and enact on the sale and ownership of firearms? Many people within the larger Gun Safety Movement have proposed “common sense” solutions. Unfortunately, what one person determines as “common sense,” another personal considers as “freedom killing.”
How free, though, are any of us as an estimated 11,000+ people are murdered annually, and another 22,000+ lose their lives by guns through accident or suicide? How free are we as the gun lobby purchases our politicians in the service of firearms manufacturers in their quest to acquire even more power and profits?
With the relatively easy access to firearms in the United States, few of us have not already been touched by the ravages of gun violence. Hardly a day goes by that we do not hear of yet another high visibility mass shooting, which does not even begin to reflect the seemingly countless number of lives taken in small towns and large cities throughout the nation that don’t make it to the national spotlight.
Approximately 321 people are shot per day in the U.S.A.
Insanity has been defined as “doing something over and over again and expecting different results.”
Well, I define firearms insanity as legislators doing nothing or not enough over and over again and expecting different results.
What will it take for us to cease fighting insanity with insanity? How many more of our precious people of all ages will have their lives cut short under the banner of “freedom to bear arms”? What will it take for us to reverse the unholy alliance between corporate America and powerful pressure groups controlling politicians in the service of firearms manufacturers? When is enough, enough?!
How many more Columbines and Auroras, Sandy; Charleston’s; Fort Hoods; Virginia Techs; Northern Illinois Universities; University of California’s at Santa Barbara; Seattle Pacific Universities; Phoenix, Arizona parking lots; Pennsylvania Amish school houses; Santana High Schools; Springfield Oregon high schools; Jonesboro, Arkansas middle schools; Sandy Hooks, Robb Elementaries, and Stoneman Douglass High Schools, Universities of Texas’s eases; Honolulu, Hawaii Xerox Corporations; Atlanta brokerage offices; US postal offices; movie theaters, Jewish community centers and schools; Muslim community centers and Mosques; Sikh temples; Christian churches; Monterey Park Dance Centers, outdoor music festivals; and U.S. highways?
How many more dead to urban and suburban violence? How many more firearms-induced killings in domestic violence? How many more accidental killings of small children and adults?
And how many more Gabby Giffords, Harvey Milks, George Tillers, Tupac Shakurs, The Notorious B.I.Gs., Trayvon Martins, Lawrence Kings, Michael Browns, Tamir Rices, Alison Parkers, Adam Wades, Molly Judith Olgins, Mary Christine Chapas, Katherine Coopers, Richard Michaels-Martinezes, elementary school students and teachers, the famous, and the not-so-famous will it take for this country and its politicians to wake up to the reality that, contrary to the NRA’s assertions, guns in the hands of anyone, in any and all stations of life, kill people?
Enough with “Sending best wishes and prayers.”
Enough with the worn-out and cliché excuses that “Now is not the time to talk about politics,” and “It about better securing our schools and workplaces,” and “Guns don’t kill people, but rather, people kill people,” and “It’s a mental health issue,” and “The causes are fatherless homes of boys and young men,” and on and on.
The cause is clear: the easy availability of firearms, and our legislatures and courts failing to take consistent and dramatic action to counter the culture of gun violence, injury, and death.
Rights come with responsibilities and overall, We the People obviously do not take our responsibilities for the Second Amendment of our Constitution seriously. Therefore, we should not and do not have the right to bear arms.