Sensible Fools

We don’t need any gun control in this country.

You have to ask yourself what will it take to have sensible gun control in this country?  In the wake of the slaughter in Aurora, Colorado, everyone wants to talk about the tragedy but nobody will look at the reason behind the shooting. A young man, mentally falling apart is able to amass a small arsenal of weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition and nobody is to blame, nobody has any way of knowing what is going on.

We don’t need any gun control in this country.

We have shootings in schools, at stores, in offices, at post offices, on the street, in our homes and the number of guns continues to increase. The strictest laws have loopholes so big the laws may as well not exist. When given the opportunity, the laws that we do have regulating guns are in danger of being repealed. The sheriff deputies I ride with carry a small arsenal of guns and rifles because the bad guys on the streets are so heavily armed.  Ask  yourself, why is it possible in this country to purchase automatic and semi-automatic rifles? Why are these weapons not banned? They once were banned but  our Congress let the ban expire. Does that make sense?

We don’t need any gun control in this country.

Since the latest shooting in Colorado, gun sales in the state have jumped exponentially. I guess people don’t trust the police to arrive in time to save them from another shooter. It took six or seven minutes for the police to arrive at the movie theater in Aurora. It was enough time for 12 to die and 32 to be wounded. If someone in the theater would have had a gun, he could have shot the shooter within seconds and saved many lives. Let me ask you; would you feel safer if there were others in the theater carrying guns to the movies? Would you feel safer having a gun concealed on your person? Or just maybe, more people would get hurt with all the crossfire in the theater as they exchanged gunfire? Does that make sense to you?

We don’t need any gun control in this country.

Judaism puts safety issues like this under the law of the parapet. You have to have laws that protect the public from harm. You have to have a rail around the roof of your home so nobody can fall off. You have to put a fence around a pit so nobody falls in. By extension, you have to wear a seat belt to save your life in an accident. I think it also means sensible gun control. People who own guns have to take on the responsibility and the liability for them.  I may not be a fan of hunting but I can respect the rights of those who do. You just have to be responsible about how you transport guns, care for guns, and secure guns at the end of the day. Target shooters have the same responsibilities.  We need to be sensible about this. How many guns does one person and one family need to own? How much ammunition is enough? We regulate pain medication, we regulate explosives, why not bullets? What possible reason, other than defending the country, is there for automatic rifles? Why would any civilian need a working weapon like this? Why isn’t a gun license like a driver’s license since both can cause great bodily harm? But any mention of gun control drives many people crazy. It is too much government telling us what to do with our lives. 

 And people still are dying. 

 And people are wringing their hands over the killings. 

And nobody wants to talk about sensible gun control.

We don’t need any gun control in this country?                  I’m sorry, but I think we do.