The Craziness Must Stop

Guns and US - part 5

Something is clearly wrong in this country. Too many people are dying from gunshot wounds.

In this series of brief essays, I am exploring some facets of the issue and pondering possible solutions. I don’t expect to make many friends with this venture.

This is the final part of the series.

I have circled long enough. Now it’s time for me to take a stand. If you’ve read previous installments in this series, you probably realize that I sympathize neither with gun nuts nor anti-gun nuts. A plague on both your houses!

Before I proceed, a query. Why am I, allegedly a faith-based commentator, even talking about this issue? Because it’s a faith issue. Every issue of human behavior at its heart is a faith issue. Maybe especially this one, because it deals with life and death. Maybe especially this one, given the claims by a few (nuts) that God gives them the right to carry a gun and to use it as they like.

Do you know what a brief burst of gunfire from a rapid-fire weapon such an AR-15 does to a human body? Do you know what it does to a child’s body? Some of the victims of school shootings had to be identified by their shoes because there was so little recognizable left of their bodies, beyond DNA.

This craziness has to stop. It cannot be defended on account of the “sacredness” of the Second Amendment.

America’s high rate of gun violence is not natural, and it can be better controlled. It won’t be controlled by one or two “magic bullet” solutions but by several partial solutions, pursued together.

It is often claimed that guns don’t kill people; people kill people. That is a clever non sequitur, an irrelevance. The best way to stop the mayhem is to take guns out of hands of shooters. Carefully. But firmly.

It has to be a national effort. Since the ratification of the Constitution in 1789, it has been obvious that states can’t be trusted to get much of anything right – and since 1861, it’s been obvious that some states don’t want to get much of anything right. (Look at Alabama today.)

National legislation should include:

Criminal background checks for purchases of guns and ammunition.

Mandatory training for purchasers (and maybe even gun safety training in schools).

Minimum age of purchase set at 21; gun use allowed for those younger only under adult supervision.

“Red flag” laws to keep guns from those likely to murder. (Gimme a break, gun nuts. It’s not that hard to safeguard against abuse of such laws.)

Limits on weapons that may be owned by individuals. I’m thinking mostly of tanks and bazookas and land mines and armed drones and “phantom” guns that can’t be traced. “Assault-style” weapons (let’s not play coy with definitions of what they are) might fall here, too. There have to be limits. Even in the “Wild West,” you had to check your guns with local law enforcement.

We also might consider registration of gun owners. Not guns, gun owners. A database of owners could simplify background checks. (I still have my ID card from Illinois when I owned a couple of black powder guns.)

Gun owner registration is no more a step toward a fascist state than auto and driver’s licensing. It’s a way to organize a sane society and guard against bad actors.

Do such proposals “infringe” upon “the right of the people to keep and bear arms”? Gun nuts say that any restrictions do. This is nonsense. Anti-gun nuts say that even more restrictive measures are necessary. Most likely more nonsense.

We can argue about specifics endlessly – and of course we will. Beyond them:

We need a national dedication to curbing the scourge of gun violence.

We must stop glorifying guns and selling them as a solution to our problems.

We must learn as a people that violence is a poor way to solve problems, and we must repudiate those who promote violence in word or deed.

Given the depth of our national division, as we work toward becoming a saner society, we must earnestly pray – because only God can lead us to real freedom. Amen.