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Is there such a thing as a responsible gun owner? Is there such a thing as an irresponsible gun owner? Sure, but the same can be said for non gun owners. Are there sensible gun laws to stem this irresponsibility? Are there bat-shit crazy laws on the other end of the spectrum? Yep. One of the issues that I see is that there are non-gun owning politicians who have no problem with sacrificing the rights of others in an effort to give the illusion that they are accomplishing something for their constituents. Another issue I see is that there are nut jobs on the other side of the fence that refuse to see the reason in sensible gun laws.
Plain and simple, there are good gun laws IMHO: Background checks on all firearms, the current attempt to close the gun show loophole and training requirements for CC licenses to name a few. But on the other end of the spectrum there are bad laws: National firearm registrations, limiting ammunition purchases, ammunition serialization and the assault weapon ban to name a few.
I was browsing the interwebs and found myself at the Brady campaign website to see how my state rated. I was surprised to find that my state ranked a 10 on their list. I thought that we would be much lower. Of course our score was only about 1/3 that of California. What I saw while on the website was of course very one sided when I was reading about how the score was determined. As I do with most things I took everything with a grain of salt. A big one.
The rating system was broken out into sections, with more weight given to certain topics of the report. I found some of it to be laughable. I especially enjoyed how the topics were worded. Under the topic of CCW Limits, according to the report “State Law FORCES police chiefs and state sheriffs to give concealed carry permits to anyone who can buy a handgun, allowing them to carry loaded, concealed handguns in public.” Ok, hang on a second. Where does this state law come from? Don’t “we the people” vote for our legislators to represent us, and to make the laws of the state? Don’t “we the people” determine what we want from our government? Should it be the discretion of law enforcement to determine who can carry a gun? Frankly I find the notion sickening of leaving certain aspects of our lives up to the whims of what may be one individual who was never elected by the people. What if it was up to the police to determine who could exercise other certain rights and privileges? What if we had to go to the police department before we bought a house in a certain neighborhood, or to obtain a drivers license, or simply write a column for a newspaper, or to go to church?
Thankfully, in our state both our legislators and sheriffs (administrators of the permits) are elected officials. In fact, when my wife and I were at the sheriff’s department doing the paperwork to change the address on our Licenses to Carry (we don’t call them CCW’s) after we moved to a new address. I was speaking with the deputies. In doing so, I found that the two I spoke to encourage the practice. One of the deputies even stated that he wished more people carried. He told me that they cannot be everywhere at once and that when enough people police themselves it keeps the criminals guessing.
On the other hand, there are the shall-issue states. In this case “we the people” elected officials who made it law that law enforcement will have the final say in who receives a permit. Whether I agree with that or not is a moot point. I have to respect that. The people have spoken and that is what they want. If I live there, and I don’t like it, I can petition my government, get out or live with it.
Back to the topic of politicians who have no issue sacrificing the rights of others in the name of safety, or in my opinion their reelection. I remember several years back, there was an attempt to make project housing neighborhoods safer. There were several laws and initiatives that that went into place to curb the levels of crime in these neighborhoods. The first thing they enacted was a no guns policy in the project housing developments. Meaning if you lived there, all guns, legal or not, were not allowed in the project housing units at all. So if you were a law abiding individual, who purchased a firearm to keep in your own home to protect yourself and family in some of the most violent neighborhoods in America, your government told you that you could not do that. Step two was unwarranted searches. Yep, in America it was for a short period of time completely legal for law enforcement officers without a warrant, gain entrance to your home and search for any and all firearms. They carefully worded it as a search for illegal firearms. There went the 2nd and the 4th.
Now I have several problems with that on top of the blatant disregard of basic rights, what does this tell the individual in the project housing? To me it seems to state:
“Your life and family’s life is not worth the same as the lives of someone else who has more money and can afford not to live in project housing. Others can own a firearm to protect their family, but you cannot. You are not worth enough. Others also have a right to privacy where you do not. Again, you are not worth it. Look, just make some more money and we will then consider you to be American and afforded the same rights and privileges. You truly are a second class citizen.
Signed,
Your Government”
Perhaps one day we will all meet in the middle. Until then I will stay in the bike lane.
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