There’s an old Texan saying. Never try to teach a pig how to dance. You’ll waste your time and just annoy the pig.
The hand-wringing about gun control started immediately after the horrific Connecticut slaying.
It was started by the media. The media who interviewed some of the surviving children. There is no better ratings driver than to follow the mantra, “if it bleeds, it leads”.
Never-mind the ethical issues about exposing traumatized children to the media glare less than an hour after their classmates were shot.
Never-mind that the next screwy individual may be watching and plotting to kill, for the notoriety that the media provide.
In my books, the media has more to be held accountable for than American gun policy.
And it’s useless to call for gun control measures in the U.S. Hence my reference to the saying above.
The Second Amendment (Bill of Rights) specifically states:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed
This prevents totalitarian state rule. It was included specifically the population at large could overthrow an oppressive government as the Americans did overthrow the oppressive British government to establish a self ruled nation,
It may sem highly removed 200 years later, but the fact is that if you did ban guns outright, you’d disempower civil society and disarm the largest army that can be called on to fight for the benefit of the population at large without a political agenda.
The army of Civil Society fights only for the three founding principles of all laws. To protect youth, protect property and protect the mass scale destruction of human life in the name of religion and culture.
An armed government (as opposed to the army of a government (militia) founded on democracy )Â only has it’s own preservation at the core of it’s modus operandi and that is why the politicizing of these tragedies and the cry for banning of private arms is so repugnant.
Unless you think China and fiji are models of freedom.
If not enough members of civil society are also equipped, you are sandwiched between the layers of criminals and the police force and at the mercy of either.
This is demonstrated by the Wikipedia link above where low private gun ownership is common in the most corrupt countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country
The NZ government isn’t totalitarian but we’re not so far removed from our more violent past. 200 years (since the declaration of American Independence) isn’t a long time by any measure. And you only have to return to some US/NZ townships to experience life where civil society is squeezed thin and criminals and police are at an uneasy impasse. Think Wairoa. Think Wanganui. the first thing I would get if moving to those towns is a gun license.
Hurricanes and earthquakes kill more people than guns do.
With regards to gun control, it takes a seriously defective brain to orchestrate such a horror. If any control is legislated it should be around the rights of mental health patients, And maybe there is a way to stop Crazies, sorry, ‘mental health patients’ from getting access to guns, maybe not. It would take a society who was willing to call a spade a spade and not care about hurting the feelings of a few nutters.
