Gun control

We're a few months removed from the tragedy at Sandy Hook, and the politicians still can't seem to exert some testicular fortitude and do the right thing.  Lest anyone think I'm referring to banning semi-automatic weapons, allow me to disabuse you of that notion right away.

Statistics, of course, can be made to say whatever a person wants them to say.  But statistics prove that the overwhelming majority of deaths by firearm are caused by pistols.  The old saw that guns don't kill people, people kill people, is true, especially when you consider that things like hammers, knives, bottles, cars, gas, poisons, pillows and other inanimate objects are used to do away with people, but all of them must be used by a human in order to take that life.  No one is advocating that Congress bans those items.

The problem with semi-automatic weapons is fear.  Those rifles make a lot of noise and can do a lot of damage in a very short while.  For that matter, so can fertilizer in the wrong hands.  Again, there's no ban on fertilizer being argued.  The one constant in all of these discussions is the human element and, unfortunately, the sometimes warped and damaged nature of that human.

From Columbine to Virginia Tech to Aurora to Sandy Hook, the one constant that people want to overlook has been mental health.  Lip service is paid to it as the focus remains on the nature of the weapon.  When it's mentioned that criminals also get these weapons in violation of the regulations, mention is made again about making the penalties for crimes committed with guns stiffer, but the talk quickly circles back to the weapons themselves.  The weapons must be punished.

This is an outgrowth of the PC mentality that is all the rage in this country.  Excuses are made for bad behavior.  Rehabilitation is the watchword.  Take away the instrument and the person, with the state's help at taxpayer cost, will come out of his incarceration (as if using that term gussies up the fact that the person's in jail) a functioning member of society.  It happens, but the sad fact is that recidivism is a word little used and even less understood.  The PC sect believes with the belief of a soul-saving revivalist preacher that everyone can be turned away from evil.  That's patently untrue, as evidenced by such creatures as Hitler, Stalin, Gacy, Speck and Bundy. 

What's true for evil is also true for mental illness.  Again, people don't want to stigmatize these people.  Just use the word retarded and see what kind of a reaction you get.  My point isn't that we stigmatize or label them, just prevent them from getting weapons.  And there's only one way to do that.

Privacy Act laws are designed to keep citizens from being discriminated against for a variety of reasons:  Employment, insurance, medical assistance, etc.  Given the connection between the shooters in virtually every mass killing over the last ten years, it's an easy conclusion to make that people with ascertainable mental illnesses should not have access to guns.  Part of the problem is that state and federal agencies are not sharing information on mentally ill people such that there are loopholes in background checks.  Allegedly, something is being done about this.  But wait until the ACLU puts its foot down about the violation of these people's rights.

The First Amendment has time, place and manner restrictions such that free speech isn't truly unfettered.  There are reasonable controls placed on it that still allow citizens the enjoyment of unabridged speech with very narrow limitations.  The same could be done with health records to prevent mentally ill people to gain access to guns.  That would reduce the number of Sandy Hook incidents while at the same time permitting law abiding gunowners in full possession of their mental faculties enjoyment of their weapons.  Some of them are sportsmen, some hunters, but many have the rifles for protection.  When confronted with a drugged up intruder in possession of a knife or a semi-automatic of his own, having a pea-shooter is of little benefit.  You don't bring a knife to a gunfight, and you don't bring a revolver to a shootout against an AK47.

Adam Lanza was deranged.  His mother purportedly tried to get him committed.  We may never know how he was able to gain access to her guns, but she made a horrible mistake allowing him that access, and she paid for it with her life.  Unfortunately, so did a bunch of other innocent souls.

Even assuming background checks are tightened up and criminals receive stiffer penalties for using guns in the commission of crimes, there will still be the odd incident in which a seemingly normal gunowner becomes unhinged and shoots up an office or house.  It's going to happen regardless.  We can no more control that than we can control a person driving a car and having a heart attack.  But we can reduce the chances for tragedy that are within our control, and background checks sharing information about mental health is a start.  Pulling guns from law abiding gunowners is, as one wag put it, like not letting sober drivers buy a car.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles