Guns and Sadness

Guns and Sadness

I live in Pataskala.  It’s twenty miles east of Columbus, Ohio, and when I moved here forty years ago it was a little farming community, with a grain elevator and two small restaurants “downtown.”  Today, it’s a suburb; the grain elevator is left to equipment storage and rodents, and the restaurants downtown have been replaced by McDonalds, Wendys, Taco Bell and Subway, all lined up on the main highway.  Oh, and there’s a new “coffee house” trying to make it “downtown.”

And while rural Pataskala went away many years ago, there still remains the political views of folks who actually knew the difference between a John Deere and a Massey-Ferguson (for my “city” friends, those are two brands of tractors, like Chevy and Ford.)  The NRA (National Rifle Association) doesn’t publish statistics by community, but I’d bet Pataskala has a large group of card-carrying members.  Our friends and neighbors enjoy hunting and shooting, and don’t have far to go to get to the nearest gun shop (downtown) or shooting range (up the street.)

So I live in “gun country.”  And while I am often uncomfortable with the truly “open carry” guys with pistols on their hips, I don’t criticize their desire to go have “some fun” shooting.  They are responsible, and they are more aware than most about the dangers their guns represent.

I also believe in the Second Amendment.  That will surprise many, but my rationale stems from my hardcore belief in the First, Fourth, Fifth and Eighth Amendments (and the others.)  How can I demand respect for those, when I discount and disdain the Second?  It might be different if someday we reached a point where the Second itself was in question, but we aren’t there, and you ignore it at the peril of the rest.

I write this two days after the carnage in Las Vegas, where a man with multiple firearms was able to kill and maim hundreds at a concert.  This wasn’t Al Qaeda or Isis, it doesn’t even seem to be politically inspired, a Timothy McVeigh (Oklahoma City) moment.  No, this was truly the crazy guy with a gun.

Or more exactly, the crazy guy on the 32^nd floor, with twenty-three weapons, including two modified semi-automatic rifles.[1]  They were modified, legally, for rapid fire, so that each time the trigger was pulled the “kick” of the bullet leaving the gun would trigger the next pull.  This “bump stock” is a perfectly legal modification, even though fully automatic rifles (machine guns) have been outlawed to the public for many years.

He also had “high capacity” magazines, to reduce the number of times he would have to stop and reload.[2]  And he was firing bullets with an effective range of over 1000 yards, so the 500 to 600 yards to the stage with easy.  So at least fifty-nine were killed, and hundreds injured.  Undoubtedly some were trampled, but the crazy guy on the 32^nd floor was able to maintain a rain of fire for over ten minutes.  From the stories told by survivors, he was aiming at those who got up and ran.

And, for those who say how did a guy walk through the lobby of the Mandalay Bay hotel with that many firearms, keep in mind that there is a gun show is Las Vegas every week, and all of these firearms were legal.

So while I respect the Second Amendment, and I respect my friends and neighbors, can’t we draw some conclusions from what happened?  I know the excuses; “no one can stop a madman,” and “it takes a human to pull the trigger,” but can’t we do better than this?

Can’t we say, without infringing on the Second Amendment, that folks shouldn’t be able to go to the local store and buy a gun that can be converted to an automatic weapon?  Can’t we say that other than “it’s fun to do,” we don’t really have a use for high capacity magazines?  Can’t we look at what kind of bullets are being sold, and say that ones that resemble what the Army fires from their rifles shouldn’t be for public use?  Can’t we do these things, without threatening the deer hunter, and the target shooter, or the gun collector?

And can’t we say that a gun, like a car, should require licensing?  While my car can be a lethal weapon, that isn’t what it was designed for, and we still regulate every aspect of it. I can’t drive a race car on the streets.  We control who can, and who can’t drive.  Why can’t we do that for guns, assuming that we respect that it remains a Constitutional right?

Just raising these questions is a dangerous business.  In politics (at least in Ohio) stating what seems to be obvious will lose the state in a heartbeat.  But, unless you need assault weapons for when the “black helicopters” come to take away your freedom, is there any other use for these weapons of war? (And I need to point out, the “black helicopter” people are going be so outgunned if that really happens, they don’t stand a chance.)

I know it must be fun to fire a machine gun.  But is my ability to “have fun” enough to keep these weapons out there?  And for those who say: “it’s too late, there’s too many;” you have to begin.  Maybe not today, or tomorrow, or next year, but ten or twenty years from now we would have a safer country. It worked in Australia.[3] Crazy guys on the 32^nd floor could still get pistols, and knives, and axes.  And all of that is a hell of a lot better than what they can get now.

Listening to Tom Petty as I write.  His words are a part of many great memories in my life.  RIP

 

[1] http://www.tmz.com/2017/10/03/las-vegas-massacre-shooter-stephen-paddock-hotel-room-bullets-guns/

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/10/02/video-from-las-vegas-suggests-automatic-gunfire-heres-what-makes-machine-guns-different/?utm_term=.0e9ab6f867e4

[3] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/10/australia-gun-control/541710/