Why Are We Still Just Talking About Gun Control?

Last week's deadly shooting in Aurora, Colorado at a midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises" is fresh in our minds. As we watch the media coverage of grieving families and shocked residents of a peaceful town, and as we begin to watch the legal fallout play out as the gunman faces criminal charges, inevitably, people start discussing gun control. What I want to know is, why do we even still have to discuss this?

Why don't we actually DO something about it??

Photo from saf.org/lawreviews

Yes, I've heard it all before. "It's our constitutional right."  "We need guns for our protection and for recreation."  And then there's my personal favorite: "Guns Don't Kill People, People Kill People."

Photo from icivics.org

Let's address each of these propositions in turn. First of all, the Second Amendment ought to actually be considered in its context, which was that the Revolutionary War had just ended and the security of the country was fragile. Our national defense was in its infancy. The Founding Fathers thought it important that militiamen be able to have weapons to use in case the Redcoats resurfaced, the new colonial government got too powerful, or any other new threats arose. The Amendment itself begins with this clause: "A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State..."

Thus, from this historical perspective, it does not appear that the right to own a firearm was intended to be an absolute right divorced from the context in which the Constitution was written. Like so many issues of constitutional interpretation, there are a number of different ways to look at this issue. But it's not as simple as gun rights advocates make it out to be. Besides, there were plenty of restrictions on gun ownership back then - slaves, free blacks, Catholics, non-Protestants and whites who were not property owners could not own guns.

I am not usually one for trying to predict what dead people would say....but I dare say that, when crafting this provision, the Founders were not thinking ahead to envisioning AK 47s and mass shootings. Especially when reloading muskets wasn't the quickest of tasks. We are long past the age of the musket, although, when I read about tragedies like the one in Aurora, I sure do wish people still had to stop to cram in another tiny little ball with a rod before shooting again. There is no reason at all why anyone other than a member of the military in a combat situation should possess weapons that have the ability to kill numerous people in a shockingly short period of time.

Photo from sonofthesouth.net

Simply put, the "right to bear arms" does not equate to "the right to own weapons which could obliterate large portions of the population in mere seconds."  Even if one supports the right to gun ownership, isn't it fair to say that one does not need a Bushmaster assault rifle (one of the guns used in the Aurora shooting) to protect oneself?  Seriously.

Some people even advocate for open carry laws. Let's imagine for a moment that someone at the movie had had a gun too. In the chaos and pandemonium that ensued after the violence began in a dark movie theater into which gas cans were released, what if that person had started shooting in an effort to stop the initial shooter? Isn't there a good chance the tragedy would have been compounded by that well-meaning but reckless person?

I confess that, as anti-gun as I am, even I have had moments when I think about protecting my family and wonder whether purchasing a handgun would be wise. But I just can't do it. I can't let go of the idea that fighting violence with violence is the answer. And really - why isn't it frightening to consider what would happen if every vigilante nutcase in the U.S. had a gun to carry around for his or her "protection"? What if a well-meaning individual killed someone else that he or she perceived as dangerous - and turned out to be wrong? If the majority of us had guns at the ready, you can bet that the annual death toll in this country as a result of firearms, high as it already is, would increase exponentially.

Just as important as protection to many gun ownership advocates is recreation. I will openly state that I am not a hunter and I dislike hunting. However, assuming that gun control regulations tightened restrictions on the purchase of assault weapons or - gasp - eliminated the possibility of purchasing them altogether, that would not affect people's ability to own rifles. Surely the laws could be crafted in such a way that people's right to hunt could be protected, while at the same time preventing certain types of weapons from hitting the streets as easily as they apparently do now.

C'mon, do we really need to kill him? (Photo from countryoutfittersandhunts.com)

Early investigation into the Aurora shooting reveals that the gunman had ordered a ridiculous amount of ammunition in the past two months. If there were tighter restrictions on the type and quantity of ammunition that could be purchased, perhaps that might have hindered his efforts. If there were some type of database that triggered an alert when someone purchased way too much ammunition to kill a couple of deer, perhaps authorities could've investigated this disturbed person before he killed 12 people and wounded 58. Nothing is certain. But anything that could've eliminated or reduced the risk, or reduced the amount of damage done, would be worth it in my book. Why hasn't this ever been seriously considered? Background checks and waiting periods are great, but a way to flag potential threats before they are carried out would be phenomenal.

Lastly, we come to one of the most annoying slogans I have ever heard. Yes, I understand that, practically speaking, people kill people, and guns could not be fired without crazy people to do it. I get it. I'm not dumb. But I hate this expression because it glosses over the important fact that, while guns may not kill people by themselves, they sure as hell make it easier for people to kill a LOT of people, a lot more easily. After all, the gunman's weapons had the capability of firing up to 50 shots per minute. Fifty.

The Bushmaster AR-15 assault rifle (photo from wikipedia.org)

If the idiot in Aurora had come into that theater with a knife, I'm willing to bet he would have quickly been neutralized and the scale of injury and horror would have been dramatically lessened. Even if he had just had a basic hunting rifle, his capacity to injure large numbers of people all at once would've paled in comparison to what he could do with the Bushmaster assault rifle - which, interestingly, was one of a number of types of firearms formerly outlawed by the Assault Weapons Ban that President George W. Bush allowed to expire in 2004.

Really. Why is this so hard for gun rights advocates to understand? Yes, there will always be crazy people. And yes, there probably will always be guns too. But we as a society should do everything we can to ensure that our laws protect us and our children, and that as few of those guns as possible find their way into the hands of crazy people.

Some people have made the point that criminals don't go through normal legal channels to purchase guns anyway. This is true. But unfortunately, so many of the perpetrators of mass firearm attacks have not been criminals. They have been disturbed people, like the Virginia Tech shooter....and like this guy, who by all accounts seems to have been the really intelligent (and, apparently, secretly crazy) "guy next door." If the Assault Weapons Ban were still in place, this guy never would've gotten a Bushmaster.

Besides, just because some people inevitably will attempt to circumvent the laws, does that mean we should just roll over and not bother trying to tighten the loopholes a bit?

I'm the first to admit I don't have all the answers. I don't have a concrete plan to remedy the situation, and it's probably just as well, because I predict nobody would listen anyway - not when the NRA is one of the most powerful lobbies in the country.

I'm just trying to present another perspective. I'm trying to encourage people to think about the fact that perhaps gun restrictions aren't something to be afraid of (see a related article here). Perhaps nobody is trying to encroach on your autonomy or civil liberties to an untenable degree. Perhaps we're just trying to save a few lives here. What's more important - our clinging to the freedom to exercise a "right" many of us don't even exercise, or preventing more tragedies with horribly widespread death and injury? Think about it.

Photo from themoderatevoice.com