{"id":50598,"date":"2022-06-12T10:03:34","date_gmt":"2022-06-12T14:03:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=50598"},"modified":"2022-06-12T10:03:35","modified_gmt":"2022-06-12T14:03:35","slug":"its-hard-to-feel-like-much-will-get-done-on-gun-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=50598","title":{"rendered":"It’s hard to feel like much will get done on gun safety"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, The Times<\/em> @mikemcgannpa<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"The mass shootings continue \u2014 so many it is hard to keep track.<\/p>\n

And we do nothing.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because the gun lobby has mobilized a fanatic minority of the population to think they have some holy right to own, carry and use guns with no restrictions. \u201cShall not be infringed\u201d they scream at the slightest suggestion of any common sense gun safety laws.<\/p>\n

We know that argument is a bunch of crap \u2014 there are clear limits on all Constitutional rights. Whether it is libel not being protected by the First Amendment or you having to take off your shoes at the airport, which would seem to violate the Fourth Amendment, all rights have limits and some intersect and conflict with each other.<\/p>\n

And I have to ask: isn\u2019t there some right not to be shot to death while shopping, learning long division or going to the movies? I\u2019d like to think so.<\/p>\n

And just to make it clear: it\u2019s not video games, porn, marijuana or lack of religion causing all this gun violence. It\u2019s too many guns. Dozens of other countries \u2014 Canada, the UK, Australia, etc. \u2014 have the same social issues, and yet not so many gun deaths.<\/p>\n

You know what those countries don\u2019t have? 1.2 (roughly) guns per person as we have in the U.S. So, yeah, it\u2019s the guns.<\/p>\n

So in the unlikely event something were to happen on gun safety, legislatively, what limits are reasonable?<\/p>\n

Although it is never going to happen, military semi-automatic rifles should be banned or at least restricted to highly trained and licensed users.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They have a rate of fire twice that of most other weapons and a muzzle velocity also twice that of most other weapons. They were designed to do one thing: kill people on the battlefield. They suck as hunting weapons. As they are accurate to 550 yards, they\u2019re not great target weapons (not much of a challenge at 50 feet).<\/p>\n

Some argue these weapons are needed to fight off a tyrannical government. This is just out and out fantasy gun porn. Were there some sort of real whack job uprising, alleged \u201cpatriots\u201d with their mighty AR15s would become just so much pink and gray mist when a drone pops up over the tree line and sends them to the great beyond.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So, to recap: useless for hunting (destroys the deer). Pointless for target\/sport shooting. Useless to fight \u201ctyranny.\u201d It\u2019s like driving an Indy Car up US 202 at 210 MPH \u2014 needlessly dangerous and not particularly useful in a real world situation. Except to slaughter the innocent.<\/p>\n

As a ban is all but impossible, I\u2019d like to see these weapons require licensing, training and insurance. And no, that does not violate the Second Amendment. .50 caliber machine guns are heavily regulated, among other weapons of war. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing in D.C. v. Heller<\/em> in 2008, made it clear there are some limits to the right to bear some arms and where they can be carried and by whom.<\/p>\n

A ban or any additional limits are not going to happen, of course \u2014 even a change to the minimum buying age from 18 to 21 seems doomed. Every Republican elected official is literally afraid of the growing crazy fringe of the party \u2014 maniacal fanboys stirred up by right-wing propaganda on Fox News and similar outlets.<\/p>\n

Red flag laws \u2014 already in force in 19 states and the District of Columbia \u2014 do not violate the Constitution, despite specious (and deceptive) claims elsewhere (such as those made by US House Republicans this past week) \u2014 as long as the law provides due process. The same is true with waiting periods.<\/p>\n

Still, I\u2019m not hopeful. There is too much money and too much fear of an activist minority that wants to cosplay as GI Joe.<\/p>\n

And while high-powered rifles get a lot of media attention, more people \u2014 including two women in Valley not long ago and a man in Coatesville, just this past Friday night \u2014 are killed by handguns.<\/p>\n

Again, without taking anyone\u2019s gun away, there are things we can do to cut down on gun deaths.<\/p>\n

Mandatory reporting of stolen weapons. I don\u2019t for the life me understand why people oppose this \u2014 shouldn\u2019t the police know the weapon you bought has been stolen? Wouldn\u2019t you want people to know \u2014 especially if it is used in the commission of a crime?<\/p>\n

We need storage rules, too. If you don\u2019t lock your gun up and someone else uses it and is wounded\/killed or wounds\/kills someone else, there should be consequences if the weapon wasn\u2019t secured. Rights mean responsibility, too.<\/p>\n

There should be background checks for all gun sales. These are routine and typically quick \u2014 we\u2019ve all gone through them to coach youth sports, to be hired in certain industries and for a number of public and medical professions.<\/p>\n

So called \u201cGhost\u201d guns should be illegal. If folks want to buy parts to build their own guns, fine, they should all have serial numbers and a way to trace ownership \u2014 making them just like all other guns sold in the U.S.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t expect any of this to happen, mind you. We\u2019ll forget about this most recent massacre and move on to something else until the next massacre happens. We\u2019ve been doing it for decades.<\/p>\n

How much longer?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times @mikemcgannpa The mass shootings continue \u2014 so many it is hard to keep track. And we do nothing. That\u2019s because the gun lobby has mobilized a fanatic minority of the population to think they have some holy right to own, carry and use guns with no restrictions. \u201cShall not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50597,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[320,7426,12367,10051,2383],"class_list":["post-50598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","tag-congress","tag-featured","tag-gun-safety-laws","tag-gun-violence","tag-shootings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50598"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50599,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50598\/revisions\/50599"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}