Monday, July 27, 2015

Guns: They're their own solution!

When you find yourself on the same
side of an argument as Ted Nugent, 
it might be time to reevaluate.
Somebody had to say it. Well, ok, nobody had to say it, but it was inevitable that someone was going to open their big idiot mouth. Anyway, Wayne LaPierre, President of the NRA, said it after Sandy Hook, after the Boston Marathon bombings and after the Naval Yard shooting in Washington. Before him, Ted Nugent, President of Crazytown said it after the Aurora Colorado movie theater shooting. And now Rick Perry, would be President of Real America, just said it in the wake of Thursday's movie theater shooting in LaFayette, Louisiana.

So what do these guys all agree is the solution to the problem of gun violence in America?
"Why, more fucking guns. Obviously."
-Rick Perry, seen here recklessly 
firing off a pistol on a busy street
Ok, those are perhaps not Perry's exact words the sentiment's there. On CNN's State of the Union, Perry was asked what the government could do to prevent people with psychological issues from getting their hands on guns and while he admitted that poor gun law enforcement was part of the problem, he went on to say:

Because armed vigilantes would definitely
make dark, crowded movie theaters much safer...
"...these concepts of gun-free zones are a bad idea...I think that you allow the citizens of this country, who have been appropriately trained, appropriately backgrounded, know how to handle fire arms, to carry them. I believe that with all my heart that if you have citizens who are well trained, and particularly in these places that are considered to be gun-free zones that we can stop that kind of activity, or stop it before there's as many people impacted as what we saw in LaFayette." 


Maybe, but usually from other guns,
so I'd say it's kind of a wash...
Ok, couple of things. First, I don't think you can say 'backgrounded.' It's just not a verb. Neither is impacted, but I'm picking my battles. Secondly, he's suggesting that the problem isn't the guns, but gun-free zones. Like seriously? These horrific and now almost routine mass-shootings can't be traced back to our culture's unhealthy love of all things ballistic, but rather to the fact that the shooters unsportingly brought guns to a no-gun zone? So if only everyone else in the theatre was allowed to come armed, this wouldn't happen anymore?

Rather than try and limit where people can carry their assault rifles, his solution is to wait until someone goes bananas in a populated area and just hope to hell that some fine citizen happens to be packing? Couldn't we just tell people they can't have assault rifles in the first place? It just seems like a time saver.
I'm not sure I'm comfortable with a plan that
relies entirely on John McClane showing up.
Pictured: What James Madison had in mind
when he wrote the 2nd Amendment.
I know, I know, Second Amendment, but isn't the Second Amendment kind of ridiculous in the first place? Look, again, I'm not a constitutional scholar but interpretations of the Second Amendment are usually pretty murky. Like, it says the right to bear arms will not be infringed upon, and that's great, but it's also completely unreasonable. It doesn't make exceptions for limitations of any kind. It doesn't say some kinds of guns are legal and other aren't. It doesn't say gun owners have to be of sound mind, or that they can't have a criminal record.

We put limits on guns because it makes sense and because it's not the 18th century anymore. I don't mean to say that guns are necessarily the entire problem. I mean, obviously they are, I'm just not saying it. But can we at least all agree that it's kind of hard for something to be the solution to the problem it poses in the first place?
"Cold turkey? Nah, smoking's one of those
addictions you have to smoke your way out of."

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