you know, i probably shouldn’t let myself get further drawn into the gun debate… but i will cos i feel so strongly about it.
i will try to debunk some commonly held beliefs about guns.
a: “”only bad people have to worry about gun violence””(to quote charlton heston, nra president). what about the tens of thousands of children who are killed or wounded accidentally by guns each year? is a 3 year old girl in a housing project a bad person because she was sitting by a window and got hit by a stray bullet?
b: “”we need guns to protect ourselves from the federal government””. ok, this is so patently absurd it’s almost laughable. 200 years ago this might’ve made sense when the citizenry and the military had similar weapons. but do you really believe that a few people with hunting rifles could pose much of a threat or counterbalance to a military that has every known weapon on the face of the earth? if we have the most powerful military in the history of the world, and if this military has the ability to destroy the earth a thousand times over, what sort of resistance could be waged by a few guys with some guns?
c: “”the right of an individual to bear arms”” is protected by the constitution. absolutely not. the “”gun”” amendment in the constitution provides for the right to bear arms specifically within the context of an individuals belonging to a militia. this is why the nra has never pursued their case in constitutional court. because they know, and any constitutional lawyer knows, that the constitution in no way protects an individuals right to bear arms outside of the context of a militia. based on everything i know, and i’ve tried to keep an open mind, guns cause a lot more harm than they prevent. which is why every country in the western world (except for the u.s) has very serious gun control legislation (and which is why more people die from gun related violence in the u.s in one week than die from gun related violence in all of europe and japan in a year).
if you disagree with me, fine, but you can’t disagree with the simple fact that guns, much more often than not, kill innocent people, especially children. and for that reason, in my opinion,it should be illegal for an individual to own a gun.
-moby