Doing Something About Guns

Never mind all of the ginned-up media hysteria after any tragedy – set that aside for a moment. After an event like the shooting in the school in Connecticut we are moved to ask questions. Questions like, “How can we keep it from happening again?”

What if the answer is, “We can’t.” Would you feel frustrated? Would you be pissed?

“No, that cannot be, Bob. There must be something that can be done to prevent such acts.” And so everybody, from the President on down to the man-on-the-street wants to DO SOMETHING! right away. Or have the government DO SOMETHING! Knees are jerking! New gun laws are being crafted as we speak. Because it’s the gun that’s being demonized. If only there weren’t so many damn guns…

The sad truth is that if we look at this Newtown school shooting and events like them, there is NOTHING that could have been done to prevent them. Why is this so hard for some people to accept? Insane people will do insane things. And exactly NONE of the new laws being considered (or passed in the case of New York State) would have done anything to prevent Adam Lanza from shooting up that school. None of the thousands of gun laws already on the books kept Dylan Klebold and his buddy Eric Harris from obtaining guns illegally and shooting up their Colorado high school. Nor will any new gun law prevent these things from happening again.

Really.

Banning certain types of weapons only means that insane people will use other types of weapons. Limiting the size of the magazines (“clips”) only means that shooters will carry more magazines. This is not rocket science, folks.

New York’s Governor Cuomo finally defined an “assault weapon.” It is one, the state says, that has a “pistol grip.” That’s it, a pistol grip. What? Yep, you read that right. Basically, Governor Cuomo is banning the AR-15 from his state. Did I mention that Remington Arms, which has been manufacturing guns since, like…forever is located in New York State? And Remington makes a version of the AR-15?

I know, I know, sarcasm does not help my case…whatever “case” I’m trying to make.

Which I guess is that all these proposed new gun laws are just silly. Their official intent is to “reduce gun violence!” but they do nothing of the sort. Maybe they make you feel good. They should not. For you are just as likely to become a victim of “gun violence!” as you were before Governor Cuomo passed his stupid law. Oh, and there’s more to it than banning the AR-15. New York now has a limit on the number of bullets a rifle can hold. That number is seven.

In a former post, I showed you a weapon…the Ruger 10/22…a semi-automatic rifle that does not have a pistol grip and yet has a 10-round magazine that holds basically THE SAME ROUND as the AR-15 – just a lower-power version of it. (And yet this would not be an “assault weapon” in New York.) Astonishingly, owners of the larger, old-style magazines have one year to sell them out of state. (I wonder if some anti-gun governors of the other 49 states - like Connecticut, maybe? - are saying to themselves, “Thanks a lot, Governor Asshole!”) What If you do not get rid of your ten-round mags? Well, Governor Asshole is making you a criminal. Does this make ANY sense to you? To me it does not. You’re taking law-abiding citizens and turning them into criminals. Great.

I’d love to sit down with Governor Cuomo and ask him just exactly how his new bill will prevent a future Adam Lanza from doing what the last one did. I’m sure his answer would be, “Well Bob, you see, we had to…do…something…”