Gun Laws, the 2nd Amendment and a Need For Change

I stand before you both chastened and ashamed.  I have lived with the assumption that my opinions about greater gun control were a matter of personal preference.  I did little to further gun control politically and simply assumed that right would win eventually.  My sins of omission became part of the problem.  I became part of the problem.  I choose not to follow that path any longer.  

Friends know that I am no gun lover.  I’m fine with hunting and have a grandmother’s pride in my grandson and granddaughter’s first deer kills.  But that is as far as my tolerance goes.  I don’t understand the preoccupation with hand guns and see absolutely no need for semi-automatic weapons.  If the only purpose of a gun is to murder human beings, I am quite certain that the world is better off without it. 

We have too many guns in this country.  Here are a few examples of how a few civilized, educated, culturally sophisticated countries stack up on gun ownership:

United States:       89 firearms per 100 citizens (!!!)

            Germany:               30 firearms per 100 citizens

            Australia:               15 firearms per 100 citizens

            United Kingdom:   7 firearms per 100 citizens

            Japan:                    >1 firearm per 100 citizens

            So what does all this fire power get us?  To begin with, 2/3 of all murders in this country are committed with a gun.  Over 17,000 suicides are likewise accomplished with a gun.  We have 15 x’s more homicides than other wealthy, industrialized, first world countries.  Why?  Because a gun increases a killers efficacy disproportionate to his will to murder.   A man that must kill with his hands, with a rock, even with a knife is limited by his strength, agility and emotional commitment to end another life.  A gun takes all but one of those requirements out of the equation. 

            An example of the difference strict gun laws make comes from Australia.  After a massacre in 1996 Australia, not wanting what they called the, “American disease” to come to their shores enacted even stricter gun laws than were already in place.  They have had not a single incident of mass shootings since.  I could site similar data from other countries.  They all point to the same thing.  If you take away the means of mass destruction, you don’t have as many incidents of mass destruction.  Japan has around 12 shootings per year; in the United States the number is 12,000!  To get a gun in Japan you have to attend a full day of classes and pass a written test; attend and pass another day of classes at a shooting range;  pass a mental and drug test at a hospital; and then pass a background check that includes criminal records, and association with criminal or extremist groups.  Does this work?  Obviously it must.  They have a high of 22 dead bodies in a year; we have more than that on one terrible day.     

            I have been distressed by the number of people promulgating the idea that teachers with guns would have solved Sandy Hook’s problems.  Somehow the idea of two people exchanging gun fire in the middle of an elementary school seems like the solution to a problem.  This and the anecdotal evidence they use to support their position ignore the fact that while two guns might be better than one, zero guns is better than two!  We have got to get rid of semi-automatic weapons, and their ammunition.  I will not support a single candidate for office who does not endorse this position.

            You’ve got to live your faith to keep the faith.