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A nobody; a nitwit; a pilot; a motorcyclist; a raconteur; a lover...of life - who loves to laugh, who tries to not take myself (or anything) too seriously...just a normal guy who knows his place in the universe by being in touch with my spiritual side. What more is there?

02 January 2013

Gun Control

In a recent Letter to the Editor of our local paper, a woman wrote, “I read with amazement that folks around here made a panicked rush on gun stores to buy assault weapons and ammo sufficient to blow people into several pieces with one spray of their gun.”

Okay, here’s the problem: 1) Apparently, many people still believe that assault weapon = automatic rifle = machine gun; and that 2) You can skip on down the road to any ol’ person who has one of these machine guns for sale, and then buy it and “spray” innocent people with them, blowing them into several pieces.

Exactly NONE of these things are true. An assault rifle still only fires ONE bullet when the trigger is pulled. Real “automatic weapons” have been banned since 1986.

But people believe what they want to believe.

I have challenged my anti-gun friends and relatives to come up with ONE practical new law that would have made a tiny bit of difference in any of the recent public shootings…from Columbine to Aurora, Colorado, to the Oregon mall shooting, to the Connecticut school shooting. Please tell me ONE law that, if enacted would have prevented a SINGLE death in any of those cases.

So far, I hear only crickets.

We “pro-gunners” have already shown that Adam Lanza could easily have killed just as many kids in that Connecticut school if he’d used the two pistols he was carrying – EVEN IF they were loaded with the smaller, 10-round magazines.

After horrible events such as those listed above, there is usually a great hue and cry for the government to DO SOMETHING! to “prevent” them from happening again. In the case of these public shootings, there is usually a loud cry for “GUN CONTROL!”

And so I ask…AGAIN…for suggestions as to laws which would have made a difference in any of the last shootings, and that would make any difference in any future shooting.

For me, “gun control” is a practiced, comfortable shooter with a steady hand.

I’m serious, all you gun control advocates: what would YOU suggest? Most of you apparently don’t even know what an “assault weapon” is.

4 comments:

Greybeard said...

But, like the demand for armored-up Humvees, we MUST DO SOMETHING.
Think of the children!
(Unless you are talking about the national debt.)

Bob Barbanes: said...

This post, which I replicated on my Facebook page, generated a lot feedback there. Unfortunately, nobody has stepped up with any viable suggestions as to how we should "curb gun violence." Everyone TALKS about the issue, but nobody has anything substantive to say about it, apparently.

Anonymous said...

OK,
Here we go with no holds barred,
1. Enforce the DAMN laws already on the books and make the SOB's serve the full sentence for the crime.

2. When credible witnesses/evidence of a capital crime that involve a gun are overwhelming, 12 months and you are DEAD. No drawn out bullshit in the courts.

3. Stop sales at gunshows without thorough background checks. Totally thorough.

4. Legalize recreational drugs so guns will not be involved in so many altercations.

Bob Barbanes: said...

Thanks, "Anonymous," I'm with you! And I appreciate that *somebody* finally stepped up to suggest something practical.