Its Time for Gun Control

It’s Time for Gun Control

If you knew me personally, you would have just fallen out of your chair and hit your head. You know I come from a long line of gun owners, competitive shooters, and outdoorsmen. In addition, you would know I spend a fair amount of time at the range, shooting 45ACP rounds that I load myself. How is it that I would advocate any kind of gun control?

The government, in my opinion, is an entity entrusted to represent is citizens internationally, and provide protection for those citizens. It is not supposed to provide or distribute wealth, although with its influence over the Federal Reserve there is a responsibility to keep the economy on a positive plane. As I have stated over and over and over, the most critical mistake we can make is to give the government more power over wealth and more money. The business processes within the government are not capable of managing money and being efficient. It is a sponge on the success of capitalism and the hard work of its citizens. I may be idealistic, but I believe the vast majority of us pay that gladly for its proper role.

So if that is my opinion, that the government provides protection, then the area of gun control would fall under its scope. The argument historically from me, and most of my friends, is that the government has no right to track its citizens and their ownership of anything, as that privilege will be abused and eventually used against them. Unfortunately, it is an earned reputation. If you actually look at what Ed Snowden the traitor actually was saying, was that the government was using technology to harvest data illegally without due process. You be the judge of that. Departments of government get weaponized by both sides as new cabinet members are appointed by each president. That is factual. We do trust the government with the worlds finest, most advanced, and most competent military, and you cannot deny its success there. Why not regulate guns?

I can clearly see both sides of this argument, and I know some out there will be violently opposed to this opinion. My background leads me to this. I have gone through multiple classes and range certifications for firearms, and in receiving a carry license, I submitted to a criminal background check. So right there they know all about me, and they know I own guns. In addition, I repeated a similar process for a global travel document, and was even interviewed by secret service agents. The majority of firearms I own were purchased retail with full documentation and paperwork sent to BATF. I also don’t own any automatic weapons and if I did it would be with a full license, and things like bump triggers just sound like ways to burn expensive ammo too quickly to me. I am already in the system, been checked over thoroughly, if they wanted me to carry a card that stated as such, so what?

Who don’t we want to own guns? The mentally unstable who think shooting up a school is a good idea, and the criminal. Here is the rub. Are we going to have the fortitude to ask uncomfortable questions in the screening of gun owners? More importantly are we going to have swift and uncompromising penalties for those using guns in commission of a pre meditated crime and those distributing guns illegally? Here is where I differ from the more liberal crowd. If you gun down someone on the street, or you sell unlicensed or undisclosed firearms to a known criminal without a background check you ought to hang. To make that crystal clear: 30 days, one appeal, do the Singapore Swing. Unfortunately if you look at the demographics of gun crime by numbers, you are going to be targeting thousands of minorities. In the current climate of political correctness and identity politics, it is guaranteed that tough decisions will not be made. Sides will be chosen, and soundbites from pollsters and analysts will fill the airwaves, explaining how someone is being wronged. This will be true on both sides of the aisle.

I propose this theory, and please comment below to straighten me out. The lawful gun owner collects guns, uses them in a sporting fashion, goes to the range to practice, spends hours on the web researching the physics of the next hot cartridge, and believes he or she has a right to self defense. Those people by an overwhelming majority, I speculate above 99%, would pass any screen and will not use the weapon in commission of a crime. The problem is the government. Read that one more time, slowly: The Problem is the Government. This law making entity of our government shows no ability to work as a team and generate reasonable solutions. Social reform happens when one party owns the presidency, house and senate, and is then dismantled as soon as that changes. They do nothing on a day to day basis to earn the trust of gun owners. They fight each other and spend more time worrying about their power bases.

For those non gun owners, let me give you a real world example. Let’s say you want to ban assault rifles. You take a Black Rifle, which is an AR style weapon developed for the military in the 60’s. You can get those weapons in a 223 and 308 caliber, both very popular sporting calibers, and in amazingly accurate configurations. They are great options for hunting. Ban it from the masses. Conversely, look at a Browning BAR in 308 caliber sold as a hunting rifle. This weapon was developed in 1918 as a fully automatic high volume man killer and is a favorite in the military’s around the world. The main difference here is that the AR style is typically black in color, and the sporting BAR is brown. So we ban the black ones and ramp production on the brown ones. Make any sense?

How about banning the weapon of pure evil, the AK47. This is military gun designed by a genius in Russia, Kalashnikov. It has cheap stamped, not forged parts, very loose tolerances, and is the opposite of accurate. It is a caliber with the same bullet as the above 308, but with less powder, so it is a lot like the 30-30, a very popular deer rifle. However, with its accuracy, it really holds little interest to sportsmen. Ban it. On the other side, take the Ruger mini 14 which is almost always sold in a sporting configuration. Its a semi automatic and has the same operating principle as the previously banned AR and operates identically. So we get rid of a junk gun, and get more Rugers out there.

These are classic activities, highlighted by the media as things that will save lives but really do nothing to fix the problem. The outcome we all want is less gun deaths. There is an unfortunate truism: stupid people try to ban things. They think objects can be evil and cause problems. It makes them feel good to get rid of those things, but rarely does it impact real problems. Intelligent people realize people cause the problems. They make the hard calls to find ways to deal with problem behavior.

The overwhelming majority of law abiding gun owners will not support any form of gun control. Until something is done to add sanity, oversight, and fiscal responsibility back to our elected leaders, there is not a snowballs chance in hell that any progress is made here.

Time to head to the range!