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Reading Into Gun Regulations
I'll give the gun-rights supporter on NPR this morning one bit of credit in his comparison of bookstores to gun stores: books can be dangerous.
Books force you to consider different perspectives from your own. They show you worlds you've never been to, create futures that don't exist, stretch and twist and test new ideas and make you consider the fact that you just might be wrong.
Books don't, of course, kill people. I suppose you could try if you dropped enough of them from enough of a height, but they normally don't. Guns are designed for killing. That's the point. And handguns and automatic weapons are designed for killing people. You don't take 'em on a hunt.
So when the Supreme Court upheld the right of individuals to bear arms, first in the Heller decision two years ago and again this week, where the Heller ruling was applied to state gun control laws in McDonald v. Chicago, they upheld an individual's right to own a killing tool.
Should anyone have that right? That's where the law suits probably go next. States and the federal government say no to the very young, or mentally disturbed. We regulate gun sellers. At least, that's currently how it works.
Why, said the source on NPR the day after the decision -- should gun sellers be singled out, when book sellers aren't?
Uh, Courts have taken up the case of books from time to time. How dangerous are parts of Ulysses, or Hustler? But really -- are we really going to argue there's no distinction between a gun and a book. Really? What next? Why guns are safer than swimming pools or gym clubs? The Illinois Rifle Association's already making that argument. Happy summer, everyone.
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10 Comments so far
Show AllWe are talking about the law, not practice matters.
If you don't like the law change it. Otherwise, try and figure out how to make it a better society, which is only tangentially connected to guns.
Don't you believe having rational drug laws, and a pro work force environment, and real universal single payer healthcare would be a good start?
But, you have to pick up on the distraction of guns.
Good Grief.
Your concern trolling has been noted. You may pick up your check now.
What part of "well regulated militia" do these people not understand. Keep it simple " last legal owner is responsible for damage caused by said gun unless it is reported lost or stolen to the local authorities" be that single citizen, gun shop owner or manufacturer,etc.
As far as books not killing, the Bible or Koran may be responsible for more deaths than Smith & Wesson.
And what percentage of those deaths were facilitated by guns?
Dafoe
Then again they may not. Do you mean to say that Adolph and Joe and Mao used those two books for their slaughter of the innocent, amazing?? They must have slaughtered close to 100,000,000 people between them. Its a fact that this nation and South Africa used the Bible for continuing respectively slavery and apartheid. All the people I know use the Bible quite differently, of course i don't follow Pat Robertson and all the other TV tub thumpers.
The gun issue is one of passionate disagreement. Guns make fatal home gun accidents possible, kids find guns and kill each other. Drunk and angry and mentally people shoot family members and themselves. Guns make people much more lethal than they would be if they had to kill with a knife or ball bat.
Police carry guns and are not about to give them up, they want more powerful guns because the bad guys they face have powerful weapons.
People who abide by the laws do not have handguns, but criminals have no problem acquiring them.
A hand gun makes a 98 lb woman as deadly as a 250 lb man, the power equation is more balanced. Possession of a gun in effect gives a person some of the protection that a personal police officer would provide. Possession of a gun places an extra level of responsibility upon the person, to exercise self restraint, to keep the gun out of the hands of others, to perhaps to use the gun to defend oneself or others.
A rational and responsible community would deal with drug use by treatment rather than prohibition, would provide medical and mental health treatment to people who need it regardless of means and many of the causes of criminal behavior would be eliminated. Illegal guns flood our streets because of prohibition of all but commercial drugs and intoxicants like liquor and wine.
If the personal energy directed at banning handguns was directed instead at the causes of violence in our society, perhaps gun owners could get behind nonviolent compassionate solutions too and real progress be made.
Guns are here to stay, so are the issues of drug and alcohol abuse, lets deal with these issues in a rational compassionate and nonviolent manner.
Elmer
The idiots who have been crying that they have a God given right to gun ownership have finally and officially won the argument in this sad country. Now that the Supreme Court is promoting gun ownership, I intend to buy a gun so that I'll be ready to defend myself against the Tea Baggers when they come knocking.
There is no doubt that guns are more dangerous than books. It is pure insanity for someone to disagree with that opinion. With that being said, I feel when guns are not being used they need to be placed in gun safes that way they can not get into the wrong hands. You hear too many stories about a kid playing with their father's gun and accidentally kills themselves. Please lock them up!