My deer hunting friends know guns and know
how to handle guns. Similarly, men, and now women, who have combat experience
(not just military experience), would also receive my respect. SWAT teams are
included as well. I would feel safe if they were to buy an assault weapon but
they never would because they know guns. The people who seem to be buying these
weapons are macho types that think they will gain respect if they are seen
toting a weapon designed to kill people or nut job anarchists or survivalists. When
I see one of these people at a political rally with an assault rife over their
shoulder, I see an idiot. I would invite any one of them to tell me the
difference between respect and fear. I fear them—in fact the terrorize me—but
do not respect them. I do not want them to have assault weapons in my town
because they are putting my family, if not my family then other families, in
danger just by having guns like that in our society.
The government is there to do what we cannot
do for ourselves as individuals, which is to find a solution to all the gun violence
and enforce it. To pass laws, which only they can do. The solution as I see it
is multifaceted and includes an assault weapon ban. The people who know how to
use these kinds of weapons would not miss them because, I just said, they would
not be the ones who buy them. Background checks will keep guns out of the hands
of convicted felons and mentally impaired people who are clinical, but also
bands on assault weapons and high capacity clips will help. As one of the comments
on a post dealing with guns, said education helps. That is true. It was
interesting the commenter pointed out the type of education he/she was talking
about dealt with morality; “Thou shall not kill” as opposed to gun handling and
gun safety for hunters. We know that this approach is not and never will be perfect.
As it is now, we have to depend on laws and the police, including SWAT teams who
rush to sites of mass murder, to enforce gross failures of the law; that is too
late. All we can ever hope to do is to decrease the incidence of gun violence. To
do that, we need more preemption not more liberation.
