Editor’s note: Much of the material contained herein can be credited to Michael Z. Williamson, creator of an ongoing and ever-lengthening list of gun truths.
Last week, I wrote, “Gun enthusiasts aggravated with liberal gun-control politicians in Washington and the states need to understand that they who seek to stifle your constitutional right to keep and bear arms are only interested in your safety.”
I’d like to revisit this topic again because, after a successful election last week, Republicans have another chance to revisit the “success” of more restrictive gun control.
Republican opposition generally believes most Americans can’t be trusted, so in light of that, of course they passed more laws against guns – which, they say, Americans will observe and obey because, you know, we can be trusted.
It’s a matter of rights, isn’t it? I mean, we can’t question the constitutionality of an Internet pornographer, because their protected right of free speech is listed in the Bill of Rights. But the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms for self defense – listed directly afterward in the same Bill of Rights – is not really protected.
After all, free speech entitles Americans to own newspapers, Internet websites, radio stations, television networks, typewriters and computers, but self-defense only pertains to bare hands – unless you’re a policeman, federal agent or soldier.
And it’s common knowledge that the American Civil Liberties Union should be heralded because it uncompromisingly defends certain portions of the Constitution, but Gun Owners of America and the National Rifle Association should be shunned for uncompromisingly defending certain parts of the Constitution.
Star power enters into the legitimacy of gun control, too. It’s true, isn’t it, that Charlton Heston, a movie actor who is head of the NRA, is a ridiculous lunatic who should be ignored, while Michael Douglas, a movie actor who represents Handgun Control, is a peace ambassador who is allowed to use guns in his movies and deserves an audience at United Nations arms-control summits.
Gun control must be strengthened because we know that guns – not people – cause crime, just like men cause rape and women cause prostitution. That’s why police officers must be given unlimited access to guns – it’s because they have mastered the use of firearms to a level ordinary citizens could never hope to achieve.
Private citizens don’t need guns to defend themselves because protecting our communities is the job of police officers, though the Supreme Court has ruled that law enforcement officers aren’t responsible for our protection. But then, maybe that’s why police need “assault weapons,” which are designed only to kill large numbers of people, but you do not.
There’s also nothing wrong with “reasonable” gun-control measures, right? Trigger locks, for example, are a good idea and do not interfere with the ability to use a firearm for immediate defensive purposes, which is why police and federal agents all have one on their duty weapons.
“Sensible gun laws save lives,” says Handgun Control, Inc., which is why Sen. Teddy Kennedy, at home in his virtual gun-free state of Massachusetts, needs armed bodyguards.
“Sensible” assault-weapon bans, after all, mean that the Bushmaster rifle used by the Washington-area snipers would be taken off the street – because law-abiding people, not attentive and compassionate criminals, flout gun laws with reckless abandon.
Indeed, that’s why there are more gun-control laws in America now than there have ever been, as well as more shootings – it’s because criminals pay heed to “gun-free zones” and would never attack someone residing in one.
The federal assault-weapons ban expires in 2004. You should decide now how you want your newly elected Republican lawmakers to respond, based on the wild success of the “responsible,” “sensible” gun-control legislation some of them helped create.
Don’t let the thousands of unarmed victims killed by gun violence since the ban was passed in 1994 sway you in any way.
