The Gun Ownership Dilemma in America

It has been estimated that there are approximately 300 million firearms in the United States.  The vast majority of which are legally owned and registered to law abiding citizens. If you took every one of those firearms, and placed them in a location, and allowed them to remain there for 1 year, and not allow any interaction with a human, you would not have a single incident of an accidental discharge, suicide, wounding of a person or murder.  For one of these events to take place, it would require human 

involvement.  Even if you involved humans, it would not change the outcome 99% of the time.  Most gun owners in the United States are either hunters, or sport and target shooters, or want to have a firearm for the protection of their home, family or business. We constantly hear of the instances when a firearm is used by someone in an aggressive or inappropriate manner, resulting in injury or death.  However we seldom hear of the many times firearms are used to deter, or stop that behavior, preventing injury or death to the innocent person that was just protecting them self.  This happens thousands of times each year, to homeowners, 

business owners, rural residences, drivers of passenger cars and truck drivers.

In actually in the United States there are literally thousands of laws already on the books covering guns, their operation, purchase, sale, and use. Chicago is a glaring example of some of the strictest gun laws in the country. Handguns are literally banned in Chicago, but account for approximately 90% of their murders. Also this year as in the recent past years, Chicago is on course to set another record of over 500 murders. The reasons for this are many and varied.  From socioeconomic, to neighborhood "Rules or Policies," to just plain bad people. An absolutely astonishing thing is how over the years, the criminal element has convinced the people in the neighborhoods, that the Police are the bad-guys, and that no one should cooperate with them. This is used a lot to promote the "philosophy" that people should fear the Police, thus giving the "Bad-Guys" a freer hand in running their criminal activities.  However it is just a way for the criminals to convince the locals to be uncooperative with the "Cops," thus helping to protect the criminal activities they are engaged in.   I have strongly felt this way for many years, however,this strategy was born out for me, after watching a 60 year old movie, (On the Waterfront),which was based on a neighborhood being totally convinced, by the bad-guys, to be negative and uncooperative towards the cops. In certain areas drug dealers, gangs, and thugs control the local streets, and have residents in total fear of their safety, if anyone tries to change the system.  Irregardless of these facts, these are not people that are going to say "I can't shoot him, this gun ain't registered."  Their guns are acquired through theft, or bought from other thieves, or through "Straw Purchases" which are legal purchases  made by people who then give or sell the firearms to the persons who are unable to purchase them legally. Whichever way they are obtained, this type of person has no regard for any laws, negating the effectiveness of passing more laws. Ironically the average law abiding citizen, that lives in one of these neighborhoods is prevented from legally owning certain firearms for their personal protection. Thus they are forced to rely on 911, which may take from 3 minutes to never, for a response.  I have personally tried to contact 911 several times via cell phone, one time to report a car driving on the sidewalk and running red lights, only to hang up after 7-10 minutes without ever having had talked to a human. I cannot imagine how a person would feel to be in a life threatening situation, then to dial 911 and not get through.

Also what should be of major concern today, is the policy of persons with mental health problems that are not being monitored or institutionalized.  In almost every case of people involved in multiple shootings, there is a clear case of mental infirmities. Columbine shooters Harris and Klebold, who wrote in their journals about the Oklahoma City Bombing, Waco, Texas and the Viet Nam war, and how they wanted to outdo those events. They were unable to purchase weapons, and had one friend make a straw purchase of two weapons, and acquired other weapons illegally from two other persons. .  Also disturbing about the two, was the fact that they made a video of their actual intentions that was viewed by students and instructors, who made minor comments on the darkness of it. The Sandy Hook shooter had a long history of mental problems.  He attempted to purchase a firearm, but was denied.  So he killed his mother and stole her weapons.  Matricide is already illegal. A similar scenario was true of the Tucson shooter of Gabby Giffords, who was already banned from the campus that he had attended, due to erratic behavior.  The Aurora Colorado theater shooter, James Holmes was described by an instructor as "A little bit off," after he would participate in role-playing games on-line.  His ultimate role playing was to imitate the Dark Night in appearance and actions and murder six people and wound twelve more.  Major Nidal Hason was described as "Deeply Troubled,"  "paranoid,"  "Belligerent," and "Schizoid," by the medical staff at Walter Reed psychiatric residency program.  He had objected strongly to America's involvement in, and being deployed to the war in Afghanistan.  He yelled "Allah Ackbar" and then killed thirteen American servicemen.  I believe the glaring fact in all of these situations, is that no law was going to stop the carnage put upon their victims.  However a more observant parent, teacher,  Commanding Officer, or mental health worker could have.

Another major problem with gun violence in the United States is the lack of enforcement of the existing laws. The United States has thousands of existing laws of varying degrees in all 50 states.  Simply enforcing these current laws wold cover most any situation that arises.  I will say as a strong proponent of gun rights, that I do support background checks, even though they infringe on the vast majority of law abiding citizens.  And I do somewhat understand the objections to high capacity magazines, but similarly why does anyone need a 400 HP car?

   

To be continued.