Do you think that there is any chance that the U.S. Congress will ever take decisive, bipartisan action to pass and enact nationwide common sense gun laws to try and stem the tide of mass shootings, or is the best that the American Congress will ever do is to send thoughts and prayers to the families of loved ones killed in mass shooting incidents?
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As leadingly biased (and overly simplified) as this question is, it brings up quite a good inquiry!
The question whether the vague concept of ‘common sense gun laws’ can be passed in Congress doesn’t tell us what the heck a ‘common sense’ law actually is and it assumes a federal law can be the most effective way of curbing any unwanted behavior. I ask you to refer to the laws against entering our country illegally, the laws about human trafficking, and the laws against many types of drugs. Not to mention the actual laws against murder, especially mass murder?
There are many, so many, layers to what the public ( and this question) has reduced to another either/or scenario of gun laws or gun violence. Pick one.
I could write all day and never express all the dynamics in play on the topic of guns in the U.S., so, I’ll just pick a few. Feel free to continue the discussion in my comments.
One size fits all and binary choices are hopelessly inefficient and unfair. In a country of over 330 million people, there are 330 million different situations. Oh, even when you place people in artificial ‘groups’ they always seep out where those groups overlap in all individual cases.
Nationwide gun laws won’t/can’t ‘stem the tide’ of mass shootings. We have gun laws already. Many aren’t even enforced and most are the first charges dropped in plea bargaining.
Imagine trying to stop speeding on the highways by lowering the speed limit every time there’s an uptick in that criminal act of speeding. Will that reduce the number of people who ignored the first limit or will it make more criminals out of already law abiding drivers who eventually get squeezed to a crawl?
Trying to stop gun violence by imposing new laws is the same useless method. The speeders obviously don’t follow laws in the first place and good luck snatching their licenses and fining them too. Those rules are up for grabs on the enforcement end in the courts. Tightening already existing laws with stiffer penalties and more thorough enforcement is the only reasonable way to proceed. ( Incidentally, speeding will NEVER stop happening altogether.)
So, NO, more gun laws is not a good idea especially because the ‘right’ to own a gun isn’t at all comparable to the ‘privilege’ of driving. Our Constitution guarantees it.
I could go on and on about the positives of an armed society of law abiding citizens but I don’t want to appear like I’m pleading a case, asking for permission, when infringing on our right to bear arms, under the pretense of helping anything in a common sense fashion, is already going too far.
As for the inept Congress, that problem can be solved with term limits. {period}
The entrenched and compromised have to go.
Finally, praying isn’t interfering with anything. To condescend about those of us who do, says more about the person who believes it’s at all a concern than those who hope it could help.
Yes, I think that prayers for stiffer local enforcement of gun laws IS the best Congress has to offer unless they want to turn their attention to efforts on dealing with mental illness, domestic terrorism, and gangs, instead of gun legislation. Those are the clearer culprits in mass murder and why I haven’t time to go in those directions.
Peace!
Fandango’s Provocative Question #114 – This, That, and The Other (fivedotoh.com)
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