Details, Details...
The first Broadside from Old Ironsights...
----------------------------------------------------There is an old saw that claims that: "A Conservative is a Liberal who has been Mugged". However, I have found that is often not the case, particularly when it comes to "Ivory Tower" Liberal Utopians. Utopians are a strange lot. For them, impossibility is simply not a concern. Take, for example, the
recent article published on CNN.com by Tom Plate, former editor of the editorial pages of the Los Angeles Times, and current professor of communication and policy studies at UCLA, titled "
Let's lay down our right to bear arms".
Really? Lay down our RIGHT to bear arms and, by definition, get rid of our guns?
Sure Tom. Have you thought about this at all?
In the wake of the recent tragedies, many emotional people like yourself, as well as the regular political ideologues, have voiced that "We need to get rid of our guns."
What a magical quick fix to deep sociological problems that would be!
But, all 2nd Amendment questions aside, I have only one question to people like Tom... "How?"
How are you going to get rid of guns? With the “magic wand” of a Constitutional Amendment or a "War on Guns"?
The
Volstead Act created Bootleggers, built the Mob (and the Kennedy Clan...) and gave us toxic home-made bathtub gin.
The "
war on drugs" gave us "Mules", Gangbangers and Suburban Meth labs.
But, just as with Booze & Drugs, if criminals can't get
smuggled or stolen guns, they will make their own.
The simplest firearm in the world to make is a fully automatic 9mm submachinegun. Mr.
P.A. Luty, a British Subject, proved this can be done with hand tools, stock steel tubing and a few hours work.
Why try to steal a snubby when you can make a machinegun? They would both be just as illegal.
How are you going to get rid of guns?
What level of
Kim Jong Il style authoritarianism are you willing to impose on honest citizens to attempt this? How much are you willing to impose on yourself?
How are you going to get rid of guns?
With
Waco/
Ruby Ridge/
Elian Gonzalez style police raids on the homes of every American - in the off chance some of the MILLIONS of lawfully held firearms in this country aren’t turned in?
Even assuming you could legislate a nationwide turn-in, how are you going to take guns away from criminals and crazies?
They aren’t allowed to have them now, so they don't have to turn them in... that would violate their Right to eschew self incrimination (unless, of course, the turn-in is of the "no questions asked" variety - allowing criminals to turn in evidence for destruction...).
How are you going to get rid of guns?
You aren't. Ever.
You are only going to impose an authoritarian bureaucracy on the Law Abiding citizens of America... and criminals will still kill with "illegal" guns.
So much for Utopia.
(Note: This article was published in a slightly shorter & edited form as a Letter to the Editor in my local paper...)Labels: Politics
