January 19th, 2013, has been designated as “Gun Appreciation Day.” Uh, no, not by the federal government; by a coalition of groups that all support the second amendment of the U. S. Constitution. Some of these groups I belong to or support; some I have only heard of; some I’ve never heard of; some I have heard of, but they seem a little too far over the top—or to the right—for my taste. But what’s interesting about this is that it appears to be the first ever (that I’m aware of) attempt to show legitimate, quasi-mainstream (to the extent the internet can be considered mainstream) support for gun ownership. Which brings us to the crux of the issue.
Chris Dorsey, CEO and President of Orion Entertainment, an outdoor television production company, once told me that when he was in high school in Wisconsin he and his best friend used to ride their bikes to school during hunting season with their shotguns on the handlebars. At school, they would give the guns to the principal, who would lean them up in the corner of his office, and after school Chris and his friend would pheasant hunt their way home. That was only about thirty years ago, but it seems now like such an old-fashioned, long ago and far away thing for boys to do, Huck Finn drifting down the Mississippi on his raft. And yet it was in most of the country, until recently, just as much a normal, quintessential American activity as playing baseball, the kind of scene Norman Rockwell might have painted.
How did the gun, any kind of gun, become demonized? Why have so many Americans, primarily white, liberal, affluent, urban and suburban Americans, become so virulently afraid of guns?
Gun control of any kind is, by definition, racist. The vast majority of violent crime occurs in impoverished, inner-city areas. The vast majority of residents of impoverished inner-city neighborhoods are minorities, primarily black and Hispanic. Should those residents not be allowed to protect themselves? Are so many white, liberal, affluent, urban and suburban Americans really so racist that they consider minority lives snuffed out in ghettoes a small price to pay for their own safety?
Gun control is, by definition, sexist. Women are usually smaller and less able to defend themselves than men. Rape and sexual assault are becoming “more common throughout the world” (Source: Wikipedia, quoting a United Nations survey), with approximately one out of every six (or seven, depending on your source) American college women reporting a rape, yet nine out of ten rape victims never tell anyone what was done to them. Those are college women. I have no reason to believe the situation is better for poorer women unable to afford a college education. Do white, liberal, affluent, urban and suburban Americans care so little about their wives and daughters that they would put their own safety first?
And the ugliest truth of all is that gun control is, by definition, elitist. Most victims of every type of crime, violent or non-violent, are those people who are least able to protect themselves, physically or financially. Politicians and celebrities and the wealthy or well-connected can afford armed bodyguards; they and the affluent can afford to live in neighborhoods with low rates of crime; they can afford to live in homes with alarm systems. Are white, liberal, affluent, urban and suburban Americans so arrogant and callous as to believe they are the only ones who deserve to be protected?
Ever since the first ape whacked another ape over the head with a bone and got more of the berries to eat, man the tool-using animal, has always been armed. It was only toward the end of the industrial revolution, when lifestyles and living patterns throughout most of the world were changed by industry, and more people became more affluent, that for the first time in history a man would or could go out without an armed retinue to protect him, or, if he were less wealthy, with a sword or a pistol on his belt to do the protecting himself. Is there any white, liberal, affluent, urban or suburban person out there so naïve as to believe that countless hundreds of thousands of years of evolution can be undone in a handful of generations? Or, more ridiculously, by the scribbling of a presidential pen? Focusing on the gun as a casual agent is completely inexplicable. If you follow that logic, the next time you go to a concert, wait until Yo Yo Ma leaves the stage and then applaud his cello.
Now, according to columnist Philip Rucker, writing for the Washington Post, “…the White House is working with its allies on a well-financed campaign in Washington and around the country to shift public opinion toward stricter gun laws and provide political cover to lawmakers who end up voting for an assault-weapons ban or other restrictions on firearms.” Is the current administration so elitist as to believe they are the only ones who deserve to be able to protect themselves? Are they so naïve that they really believe they can pass more laws to make crime more illegal? Are their own careers more important to them than reality?
I’m of the opinion that only a criminal would “need” or want an assault weapon (i.e., an AK-47 or other such weapon). You must admit, it’s hardly a hunting or home defense type of weapon.
That being said, I can understand a military or law enforcement veteran wanting to keep a weapon they used while in the service for perhaps sentimental reasons. (My father was in the Army, and he kept the M-16 that he used in Vietnam.) He had quite an extensive gun collection, and he taught us four kids how to use them. When he passed away, each of us kept one of his guns and sold the rest.
Why are orgs like the NRA so against running complete background checks on people? Aren’t they for “responsible” gun ownership? Just letting anyone come in from off the street and buy a gun doesn’t seem very responsible. You asked in a previous blog entry if law enforcement personnel should be allowed to check the medical history of prospective gun owners. I say yes. I don’t believe that a person “just” wakes up one day and decides to go blow away a bunch of school children, theater-goers (the shooting in Aurora, CO), or people praying at church (the shooting at the Sikh temple in WI last year). Dig deep enough, and I can pretty much guarantee you that people who would do that have been under the care of medical professionals (psychiatrists/psychologists) or have been in trouble with law enforcement before.
Perhaps we don’t need more gun control laws, but to enforce the ones we have now.
~ Ciana
Actually, Ciana, if you read the rarely printed preamble to the Bill of Rights, you will see that the semi-automatic military look-alikes that the press erroneously calls “assault weapons” are needed because the Founding Fathers specifically wanted private citizens to be able to resist any attempt by the government to take away any of the private citizens’ freedoms. The sentence in question reads: “The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers (emphasis mine), that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added…” “Its powers,” in this sentence obviously refers to the government. In fact, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, were never conceived as granting anything to anybody; they were both intended to spell out precisely very strict restrictions on the government, and to make sure the citizens had the means to enforce those restrictions if necessary. This is also borne out by the Federalist Papers; in fact, there is no single contemporary document that does not support this. Resistance to tyranny was the intent; hunting is never mentioned in the Constitution.
As for your statement that only a criminal would need or want an “assault weapon,” in fact, there are at a minimum roughly one and a half million military style semi-automatic rifles in private hands in America (the actual number may be much higher), so even if every homicide in America were committed with one of those rifles, it would still amount to a statistically tiny percentage. In actual fact, such weapons are so rarely used in crimes, that both the FBI statistics and the statistics given out by the Center for Disease Control show more people are killed by hammers than by rifles, and more people are killed by baseball bats than by “assault rifles.”
All of these mass killings are, as you pointed out, mental health issues. How that can be solved without encroaching on one’s privacy, I just don’t know. There is no right to privacy in the Constitution (as I said, that document was only intended to spell out what the government could not do), but I think we can all agree we should not allow the mentally ill to have access to firearms, but the freedoms of the rest of us should not sacrificed either. That issue is a conundrum.
JP
I should also say that the concept of a “Gun Appreciation Day” is a fine idea. Now there will always be people who hate and fear guns, but some may have their minds changed by gun enthusiasts who can explain the proper use of and respect for their weapons. I haven’t hunted or been to a gun range since my dad’s death, but I remember all that he taught me, and I can definitely appreciate the lethal beauty of any type of weapon (even assault weapons, although as I said, no one needs one of those unless you live in, say South Central L.A., which is pretty much a war zone from what I hear). (I’m kidding about that.)
~ Ciana
Hear, hear.
I live in a country where the choice to carry a gun for self defense – or to use a gun for self defense, ever, even if you happen to own one and somebody attacks you in your home you will get prosecuted if you as much as threaten him with it – has been made illegal. Yet there have been several school shootings and other murders done by people using guns during the last decade. Some obtained theirs legally, so there have been cries to ban all guns. But some got theirs illegally, and it doesn’t seem to be all that hard, here or anywhere else.
It’s impossible to get rid of guns, only ones you can disarm are the people who are willing to obey laws, why should the ones who break the ones already there – like the one not to murder anyone – care about a few more? And even if it was possible that would only mean that all the advantage would then be had by those who are big, strong and mean. Frankly, I don’t much fear that anyone would threaten me with a gun. I do fear the ones who are drunk, or addled by some other substance abuse, and aggressive, willing to start a fight with anyone they come across, since those are people I have seen a bit too often.
Yep, banning guns or their use just doesn’t work. I can sort of get those who want to get rid them, but I think they live in a fantasy world.
And I’m really, really angry over the fact that I’m mostly forced to rely on luck when it comes to my safety. I’m a small woman, at an age where my physical state is starting to deteriorate – for one things my knees ensure that there aren’t that many people I would be able to escape by running anymore – and I work nights. And the most effective way I could protect myself has been banned here.
Since I was kind of tired when I wrote my previous comments, I didn’t bother to go through your points. Now I think I will.
Gun control of any kind is, by definition, racist. The vast majority of violent crime occurs in impoverished, inner-city areas. The vast majority of residents of impoverished inner-city neighborhoods are minorities, primarily black and Hispanic. Should those residents not be allowed to protect themselves? Are so many white, liberal, affluent, urban and suburban Americans really so racist that they consider minority lives snuffed out in ghettoes a small price to pay for their own safety?
Law-abiding citizens of any neighborhood should definitely be allowed to protect themselves, by any means necessary. But where are the criminals getting their guns? I think we should try to figure out a way to halt the trafficking of guns, have stiffer penalties for gun crimes and for people who use illegally obtained guns to commit those crimes. Take the guns away from the criminals first!
Gun control is, by definition, sexist. Women are usually smaller and less able to defend themselves than men. Rape and sexual assault are becoming “more common throughout the world” (Source: Wikipedia, quoting a United Nations survey), with approximately one out of every six (or seven, depending on your source) American college women reporting a rape, yet nine out of ten rape victims never tell anyone what was done to them. Those are college women. I have no reason to believe the situation is better for poorer women unable to afford a college education. Do white, liberal, affluent, urban and suburban Americans care so little about their wives and daughters that they would put their own safety first?
That’s why all girls and women (and men, since men are also capable of being raped) should take self-defense classes. Yes, a gun can end an assault very quickly, but so can a kick or a knee to a rapist’s balls. So can a shot of pepper spray to the face. You can disarm someone with a gun.
And the ugliest truth of all is that gun control is, by definition, elitist. Most victims of every type of crime, violent or non-violent, are those people who are least able to protect themselves, physically or financially. Politicians and celebrities and the wealthy or well-connected can afford armed bodyguards; they and the affluent can afford to live in neighborhoods with low rates of crime; they can afford to live in homes with alarm systems. Are white, liberal, affluent, urban and suburban Americans so arrogant and callous as to believe they are the only ones who deserve to be protected?
Can’t really debate anything said here. I’m a single woman living in a bad neighborhood, and I should have the right to protect myself from the drug dealers, gang members, and other no-goods that also live here. But again, let’s do something to take guns away from the criminals, and we won’t need guns for protection.
I always enjoy reading your blogs, JP! They’re always very thoughtful, and they make people like me think about what we believe about guns and other things you write about. I’m very glad I found this site. Please keep writing!
~ Ciana
JP–
I entirely agree, of course.
You might cite the paragraph in my forthcoming book about the nuns who used to ask us to bring our .22s to school to shoot the marauding crows in the 1950s. That private school boys in their blazers and ties could be asked to bring guns to class in the 1950s must sound like science fiction to anyone younger than we are, rather than something so normal that it attracted no notice, even from my parents.
Steve Bodio
The paragraph Steve is referring to is the following:
I attended a peculiar private Catholic grammar school in the pre-Vatican II years, run by a French order of teaching nuns who still wore the traditional habit. One nun fashioned welded abstract sculpture wearing welder’s goggles over her wimple. Another, from Ireland, taught us altar boys to rappel 50 feet down a rope in the on-site quarry, by example. The principal once asked me (I was ten) to bring my .22 to reduce the population of crows swarming around the gables of the former mansion, and there was an equestrian statue of an armed Joan of Arc in every room.
Steve was kind enough to ask me to write the introduction, and in the course of doing that I made the following observation:
How could you not learn at such a school? How could you not be inspired by—and perhaps fall a little in love with—a rappelling nun?
The question now is: when does your book acutally hit the shelves, Steve?
Excellent positing on the purpose of gun ownership. It’s as simple as balancing the power to minimize abusive behavior.
My family and I are celebrating Gun Appreciation Day a week early as this is a free Saturday for us. Our Saturdays are usually spent at a ball park watching 2 of our 3 daughters 8 and 14 play softball
. Today however we took them to an outdoor gun range to teach the 8 year old how to shoot a .22 rifle and we taught the 14 year old how to use our recently purchased AR, too bad I can’t post pix on here they both are fabulous shots! I used the AR as well. I grew up in a home with an avid hunter and outdoorsman but had never been taught how to shoot using the excuse that I was too scared. Not until a couple of years ago did I ever pick up a gun. It took my neighbor getting broken in on one morning for me to be scared enough to learn how to shoot a gun. SAD I know, actually dumb on my part. Fortunately she was able to get out of her house unharmed. Anyway, my husband who is an avid shooter taught me well and now I”m hooked. I started with a .22 pistol, then a 9mm and now, today, the AR. I’m pumped to say the least 
We want our daughters to be comfortable around guns whether they use them for sporting or only for protection. I can’t imagine our second amendment right being taken away but with this administration we have now, who knows. I think it is absurd to blame all the senseless violence on the gun and punish responsible gun owners. Our family had a great day exercising our rights as free Americans and I pray that we can have many more Saturdays like today. By the way, there’s someone shooting behind our house as I type. I love it!! 
Shannon
Auburn, Ga
I must say, JP, that I never expected to get a civics lesson on your blog, but thank you. I never knew all that. I thought, as probably most Americans do, that the Constitution and more importantly the Bill of Rights did set out what the government could and could not do, and also the rights of citizens (beyond protecting ourselves from the government).
I’ve bookmarked this entry so that I can come back and read it over again if I want to. I’m going to link to it on my Facebook page (there has been a lot of discussion about gun control laws since the Newtown shooting, as you can imagine).
If I may ask, what is your opinion of people like the guy in TN (whose name escapes me at the moment) who made the video about “killing people” if President Obama used an executive order to make more gun control laws? You said that some of the groups supporting Gun Appreciation Day were a little too over the top/too far to the right for your taste. I imagine guys like that are among that number.
~ Ciana
Good numbers, JP.
The book (A Sportsman’s Library: 100 Essential, Engaging, Off-Beat, and Occasionally Odd Fishing and Hunting Books for the Adventurous Reader) should be out by April. It has gotten blurbs by people as diverse as climber and environmental activist Yvon Chouinard and Silvio Calabi, author of Hemingway’s Guns and The Gun Book for Boys.
En France, le port d’armes est très réglementé, ce qui n’empêche que certaines personnes mal intentionnées en détiennent. Il y a peu de temps, lorsque je faisais mes courses, 4 hommes armés ont braqué ce magasin. Ils m’ont obligé ainsi que les autres personnes présentes dans ce magasin, à me mettre allongée par terre, ce que j’ai fait tout de suite, j’avais trop peur……ils sont repartis les mains vides, sans utiliser leurs armes, mais j’ai quand même mis plusieurs jours à m’en remettre. Malheureusement, le braquage des magasins est devenu fréquent et tous les jours, on peut lire la même chose dans les journaux et parfois avec une issue dramatique.
M. Bodiot parle des religieuses françaises des années 50 encore en habit de nonne avec des lunettes de soudeur sur leur guimpe !!!! Je suis née en 1952 mais je n’ai pas connu de telles religieuses !!!!
Par contre, lors des dernières élections présidentielles, j’ai travaillé dans un bureau de vote avec une religieuse qui devait avoir à peu près 70 ans « armée » d’un stylo rouge. Elle s’amusait à dessiner des nez rouges sur les photos des candidats du parti politique adverse affichées dans la rue………. Elle m’a bien fait rire.
Anita
Anita,
I’m going to do this in English, partly because it’s been too long since I spoke or wrote French, and partly to include other readers.
In the great French “noir” gangster movie, Rififi, when Jean Servais finally agrees to do the jewelry heist, the first thing he does is pull a pistol out of the waistband of one of the other gangsters. He holds it up and says, “No guns. If we get caught with one of these, it’s a life sentence.” I don’t know how it is in France today (it’s been thirty years since I was last there, and I never ran afoul of the law there – or anywhere else, for that matter, boring old stick-in-the-mud that I am) but in America, part of the problem we have with firearms is directly attributable to the current laws not being enforced. If you include all federal, state, and local governments, there are already over twenty-two thousand laws on the books pertaining to firearms in this ocuntry, but all the laws in the world don’t amount to a hill of beans if they aren’t enforced. In the early sixties, when I lived in Germany and went to France often with my parents, a crime like the one you lived through simply would not have happened. “If we get caught with one of these, it’s a life sentence.” I’m certainly not advocating a return to the days of Les Miserables, but here in America, I am getting tired of the law-abiding gun owners being penalized because of the actions of criminals who know the odds are very small they will ever be caught, let alone be punished for their actions.
Another sad truth is that most criminals cope better in prison than they can in society. The rules in prison are few and simple, and most criminals have a lot of trouble navigating between the intricacies and temptations of modern urban life.
JP
Humans tend to get so fixated on images and reputations, and ignore the realities right in front of them. I am constantly reminded/reprimanded that the sheath knife I feel naked without and often forget I have on when I go from the woods into a “public” place is illegal to carry in public. I remember reading some murder statistics one time in a crime course in school, and was amazed that after guns, HAMMERS were the most common murder weapon–far and beyond even knives! But if I wear a hammer in my belt in public, nobody(not even cops) pay any attention. And I HAVE worn hammers in my belt in public frequently, as a construction worker in the past. Another very deadly item you can carry for protection that isn’t(yet) illegal, that makes an excellent self-defense weapon, is an ICE PICK! The thing about an ice pick is, if you have a good grip on it, it is virtually impossible for someone to take it from you. People never begged to differ with me many years ago when I had to do a brief(miserable) stint as a repo-man, and I carried a tomahawke in my belt–I don’t think axes of any kind are illegal either(I might be wrong about that…..)–so go figure! And it would probably be just fine to tote a chainsaw around with you in public. Someone I was recently discussing this issue with, that was somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of EVERYONE carrying guns around said “But, it would end up being just like the wild West!”, to which I replied,”Sooooooooooo?” As I remember it(yeah, I’m getting OLD!), lots of BAD GUYS got shot by citizens in the wild West of the U. S. !……L.B.
Dear Mr. Parker:
You are right on target concerning the racist, sexist, and elitist nature of the anti second amendment folks. The Jim Crow laws promulgated in the South during reconstruction effectively disarmed the black population. This resulted in untold deaths because they could not defend themselves against the KKK.
For woman it is obvious, look at the Indian woman who was recently gang raped and murdered, now the woman of India are rallying for the right to buy guns. Look at the Georgia mother who protected her children against a home invader just last week. As John Lott says MORE GUNS,LESS CRIME!
Mark Levin says, The Bill of Rights is not a bill of needs. If I want a semi-automatic handgun with a fifteen round clip to protect my family, that right is protected by the second amendment!
Dr. RLMandell
Merci pour tous ces éclaircissements M. Parker. J’admire toutes vos connaissances, vous êtes vraiment quelqu’un d’érudit.
En ce qui concerne les armes à feu en France, il est vrai qu’elles sont maintenant en possession de personnes dangereuses et lorsqu’il se passe des cambriolages ou des hold’up, nous, les petits citoyens français, ne pouvons pas nous défendre, ce qui arrange bien tous ces criminels.
Et malheureusement ou heureusement, lorsque la victime arrive à se défendre par un moyen ou par un autre, la plupart du temps, c’est cette personne qui se retrouve en prison ou avec les pires ennuis.
Les criminels en ont bien conscience et je crois que c’est pour cette raison que ces attaques sont devenues un vrai fléau dans notre pays.
On ne voyait pas ça il y a quelques années et on se à pose souvent la question de savoir jusqu’où ça pourra aller !!!
Anita
We all have our philosophies and positions, but you, Mr. Parker, have a story and a voice that speaks volumes on this subject. Thanks for spelling it out. By the way, I got a new shotgun for Christmas!
Gay G.
I found a very interesting opinion article in The Sunday Oakland Press. Any One who would like to read it can go to http://www.Oaklandpress.com and click on the opinion tab. Scroll down to Jan 13, 2013. Then scroll down to the tab that says Williams “Why the Second Amendment is still relevant today.” Also there is a link in the article for more Second Amendment quotes.
Just read a great quote from the ever irreverant Edward Abbey–”A good patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government”…L.B.
I see Lane and raise the stakes with an even more unusual quote: “Every time some maniac goes on a shooting spree, the government gets it together and arrests all the people who didn’t do it and takes their guns away.’
Steve B
I saw this in a comic Thursday Jan. 24, 2013 Mallard Filmore by Bruce Tinsely. “All you Rural people are against banning guns! Why can’t you be more sophisticated and cosmopolitan?! If you had strict gun control, like New York and DC… You’d be as safe as people in those places.”
I thought you’d be interested in \n Gun Laws and the Fools of Chelm? \n by David Mamet\nSubscribe on the iPad today \n \n
Belated addition, from away from home ( KC MO): the quote is unusual because of attribution: William Burroughs!
On Feb. 5, 2013 the O’Reilly factor talking points were about Obama trying to checkmate the Republican party. One way he is doing it is to use the gun control issue.. You can go to http://www.foxnews.com and look under O’Reilly Factory talking point “Trying to checkmate the Republican party”. Included in the talking point is a very interesting clip with conservative gun advocate and musician Ted Nugent. You can watch Ted Nugent “level ” a CNN commentator .
Working to try and pass more legislation on gun control is totally absurd in light of the already more than twenty thousand laws on the books that don’t get properly enforced. If our elected representatives want to do the most good right now, then they should focus on enforcing current laws and repairing the broken mental health system in this country.
Another thing they should focus on is improving the NICS background check system. I personally do not support universal background checks nor a gun registry. But here is in interesting fact: between 2004 and 2011 there were twenty-three States including the District of Columbia that submitted fewer than 100 mental health records to the NICS database. Seventeen States had submitted fewer than 10 mental health records. Four States had not submitted any mental health records at all. The Colorado movie theater shooter should have been reported to the NICS. The Tuscon shooter that shot Rep Giffords should have been reported to the NICS. The Virginia Tech shooter should have been reported to the NICS. All three of those mass shooters were well documented as mentally unstable, yet they purchased their guns legally and were not flagged in the NICS background check system because their States never reported them to the NICS.
Just so we are clear, you can be denied the rights to purchase and own a firearm if you are found to be mentally unbalanced with the potential to harm yourself or others, as all three of those shooters were found to be. That is one of the many laws on the books that is not being enforced.
So we do have a system in place that should work, but it doesn’t because the reporting measures are not maintained and enforced.
I wonder how many people out there are buying guns right now who are criminal drug users who have been previously caught but not reported to the NICS? Another interesting fact: In that same 2004 to 2011 timeframe there have been forty-four States that had submitted fewer than ten records to the NICS database for controlled substances. Think about that for a moment…in regards to those forty-four States between 2004 and 2011 only 440 reports were made to the NICS in regards to illegal drug use that would prohibit people from being able to buy a gun. To me that sounds like American has finally won the war on drugs! Absurd, isn’t it?
Don’t take my word for it, go and check the facts for yourself. An audit of the NICS was performed by the Government Accountability Office, an that is where my facts above come from.
Mr. Parker – I stumbled upon your blog today and must say I really enjoy it.
Tim B
Wisconsin
Tim,
Thank you for your comments.
During the Joe Biden commission hearing after the Newtown horror, James Baker (former head of the NRA-ILA) pointed out to the vice-president that the twenty-some thousand laws laws on the books were not being enforced and, specifically, that the federal government itself was not enforcing its own laws regarding the NICS. I forget the precise figures now, but of the countless millions of NICS background checks, and of the thousands upon thousands of people who had been prevented from purchasing a firearm, the number of people the government actually prosecuted was only in double digits. The vice-president’s response was, “Mr. Baker, we don’t have the money or the manpower to prosecute all those cases.” Given that it is a felony to lie on form 4473, and given that it is a felony for a convicted felon to own, possess, or receive a firearm, one wonders why the government would even waste their time and our money passing yet another law. They can’t make crime more illegal than it already is.
As to the mental health issue: Yes, there needs to be greater cooperation and coordination between mental health providers and law enforcement. HOWEVER, this is delicate territory here, partly because of privacy issues, and – more importantly – because whenever the government gets into the act on any issue, their approach is a bureaucratic one-size-fits-all approach that is, by definition, both draconian and inefficient. One of my best friends is in Texas right now for the funeral of his friend Chris Kyle, who was slain by a Marine suffering from PTSD. Already various news agencies are displaying headlines asking the question, “Should Vets with PTSD Have Access to Guns?” My friend suffers from depression, yet he has worked as the armed head of security for a nuclear power site, as a big game hunting guide, and currently works for a firearms manufacturer. I have been treated for PTSD and have written candidly about it (“An Accidental Cowboy”). Neither he nor I should be tarred with the same brush as the Marine who murdered Chris Kyle, but that’s not the impression a casual reader will get from glancing at the headlines that demonize and polarize. And more: statistically, people with PTSD are no more prone to homicide than the general population. If you weigh the number of firearms in private hands against the number of crimes committed by someone with a firearm, crime becomes statistically insignificant. The NRA is closing in five million members, but do they have higher rate of crime involving firearms than the general population? Let’s go even further: President Obama and others use the mantra that if one life can be saved by a (fill in the blank – ban, new law, action, restriction, whatever) it will be worth it. But roughly eleven thousand homicides were committed with firearms in the last year for which we have figures, while estimates of the use of firearms annually to deter violence number one-and-a-half million at the conservative end, and over two million at the high end. Someone should ask our public servants whether, if one life can be saved by encouraging responsible gun ownership, isn’t that too worth it?
Like you, I have reservations about background checks, primarily because there is evidence that the federal government is saving that data in violation of the law. I don’t know the truth of that allegation, but I do know that in California, where I live, the state does keep permanent records of any and all handgun purchases. Some of the boneheads in Sacramento have already entered bills that would violate the second amendment, and some of the same boneheads have bragged that they intend to pass laws even more stringent than the ones recently rammed into law in New York. This on the heels of the state releasing felons from over-crowded prisons with a concomitant statewide skyrocketing of burglary and home invasion. Remember your Mark Twain:
“Suppose you were an idiot. Suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”
“We will not hire a blacksmith who never lifted a sledge. We will not hire a school teacher who does not know the alphabet. We will not have a man about us in our business life – in any walk of life, low or high – unless he has served an apprenticeship and can prove he is capable of doing the work he offers to do. We even require a plumber to know something about his business so that he shall at least know which side of the pipe is the inside. But when you come to our civil service, we serenely fill great numbers of our public offices with ignoramuses…”
I would delete the qualifying phrase about great numbers and substitute the word “all.”
JP
Mr. Parker,
I’m certainly on the same page with everything you’ve written concerning this blog entry. I fear to continue this response because boring the hell out of you or your readers is not something I wish to do. We are certainly on the same page. I feel like when I read your last response that I was in fact talking to myself in the mirror. Well, all except the part about Mark Twain. While I do enjoy the classics and find most of the authors fascinating studies, I must admit I am somewhat remiss in regards to Twain but enjoyed being reminded of that quote. I will certainly keep that in mind when I write my representatives, which recently I have been doing at least twice a week.
Casual readers who just glance at a headline then move on, or people who hear a small portion of a conversation around the morning water-cooler before returning to their desk certain that gleaned information makes them an authority on the topic… well, they scare me. I fear that most of our representatives are this way on many topics.
My closest friend in this world served one tour in Iraq at the end of his enlistment as a combat medic. He has PTSD. He is a gun owner. He is a fellow outdoorsman whom I spend many hours hunting with be it field, forest, or wherever. He is also a concealed carry permit holder. I can say without any doubt that I trust my friend with his firearms and would not give even one second worth of my time worrying about him. Like you, he shouldn’t be labeled as such to not be allowed a firearm.
There is delicate territory regarding the mental health system in this country and gun owners. That territory is full of gray when you consider somebody without issues on one end of the spectrum and somebody like Charles Manson on the opposite. Where in between does somebody make the indication “okay, you’re officially insane enough not to be allowed guns”. That concerns me as it should everybody – mental issues or not. But further more it is an issue of privacy.
I purchased your book, “An Accidental Cowboy”, and downloaded it to my Kindle this afternoon. Looking forward to reading it this evening.
Recalling something from your initial blog post on this subject, there is some hope, at least here in Wisconsin: The local high school has a trap team once again. It sounds like there are a few other schools in the area doing the same.
Tim B
Wisconsin
I originally saw this on Facebook from hilaroutexts:]’s photo by dafuq-post.tumblr “If guns kill people, then pencils misspell words, cars make people drive drunk, and spoons make you fat.”
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety” Ben Franklin
There are laws regarding a patient’s right to privacy. A patient right to privacy is protected by a Federal Law called The Heath Insurance Portability Act of 1996 or HIPPA. In fact every time the doctor or hospital needs to share information they have the patient sign a release form.
As for the idea that some of these public servants have that the new laws might save a life, I believe they are being disingenuous. You can go to a web site called http://www.simpefactsargumentsblogspot.com entitled ” 6 things that kill more people then guns.”
Another thought provoking article can be found at http://WWW.theoaklandpress.com. Click on the opinion tab and scroll d own to the latest headlines section. Scroll down to Williams: “Blame cultural deviancy, not guns and click on the whole article by Walter E. Williams.
This not so much about guns as it is about Politicians. I think that the American people share a lot the blame in regards to their public servants. After all, they keep voting for the same politicians over and over again. I think that Albert Einstein once said “Insanity.: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results ” In Michigan we have John Dingell who is 86 years old and has been in the House of Representatives since 1955. That is 58 years. Maybe, we need term limits, but the chances of that are about zero. These politicians are not going to vote for term limits. According to ABC news 94 million people did not vote that included people who never bothered to register to vote. President Obama won by 61 million votes so if these same voters had voted for Romney we would have President Romney instead of President Obama. So unfortunately, we the American people have to take some of the blame for the sad state of affairs that we are in now.