Tragedy-fueled push for more gun control is based on a lie.
Charley Reese
The Orlando Sentinel
May 18, 1999.
The current push for more federal gun control is fueled by the Littleton, Colo., tragedy and based on a lie, which is repeated over and over not only by gun-control ideologues but by talk-show hosts and politicians.
The big lie is that guns are more accessible today.
This is factually false. It is demonstrably false. The truth is that, despite the Second Amendment, guns are less accessible today than at any time in American history. There are more than 20,000 gun-control laws and regulations already on the books.
Before 1968, there was no federal regulation at all of ordinary handguns and long guns. The only federal regulation was one passed in the 1930s that did not ban, but required a special license to purchase, fully automatic weapons, sawed-off shotguns and silencers. Before that legislation, anybody who wanted to could buy a sub-machine gun, fully automatic, at most any store, without filling out any paperwork at all.
Guns are to America what the sword is to Japan. We would not exist as a country today without guns. For the majority of America's history, guns were as common in an American household as a broom or cooking pot.
Today, most states will not allow children to own a BB gun or to shoot one unless an adult is present. I received my Daisy BB gun at age 5, and I shot it unsupervised. I received a .22 caliber rifle for my eighth birthday, and I already possessed my own pistol, a .380 semi-automatic, which had been given to me by my brother-in-law, who had fought at Normandy. It was among a duffel bag full of pistols he brought back from the war.
American soldiers brought home all kinds of enemy weapons --pistols, rifles, true-assault rifles, submachine guns. Today, even an admiral or a general is forbidden to bring back a rifle as a souvenir.
There have been changes, and one change is that guns are less accessible than before. Another is that more and more Americans have been born and reared in big cities where they had no opportunity to use a gun recreationally or for personal security. Another is that, with the end of the draft back in the 1970s, fewer and fewer Americans have an opportunity to be trained in
weapons use in the military. Another change, probably related to the others, is that more journalists and politicians are simply ignorant of firearms, though that never stops those people from talking about and wanting to regulate firearms' ownership and use.
What happened in Littleton had nothing to do with firearms. Every other kid at that high school had the same access to firearms as the two shooters, and that's true in all the other school shootings. If you're going to argue that all the other kids had the same access to culture and they didn't go berserk, therefore you can't blame culture, then you must acknowledge that the same argument applies to firearms.
What you are seeing all around you is the old Hegelian principle at work -- thesis, antithesis, synthesis. First you create or call attention to a problem; then you generate hysteria about it; and then, voila, you offer a solution. In this case you have two kids go berserk, you fan hysteria and then propose, as a solution, restrictions on the right of all Americans to acquire and own firearms.
The land of the free is gradually becoming the land of the unfree. There are Americans, you know, who don't believe in freedom --at least not for others. We should never forget that humans are humans regardless of their nationality. There are always some people who have a terrible lust to control the lives of other people.
Better to be free in a society with risks than a safe slave in a dictatorship.
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What part of "INFRINGED" don't they understand?
Charley Reese
The Orlando Sentinel
May 18, 1999.
The current push for more federal gun control is fueled by the Littleton, Colo., tragedy and based on a lie, which is repeated over and over not only by gun-control ideologues but by talk-show hosts and politicians.
The big lie is that guns are more accessible today.
This is factually false. It is demonstrably false. The truth is that, despite the Second Amendment, guns are less accessible today than at any time in American history. There are more than 20,000 gun-control laws and regulations already on the books.
Before 1968, there was no federal regulation at all of ordinary handguns and long guns. The only federal regulation was one passed in the 1930s that did not ban, but required a special license to purchase, fully automatic weapons, sawed-off shotguns and silencers. Before that legislation, anybody who wanted to could buy a sub-machine gun, fully automatic, at most any store, without filling out any paperwork at all.
Guns are to America what the sword is to Japan. We would not exist as a country today without guns. For the majority of America's history, guns were as common in an American household as a broom or cooking pot.
Today, most states will not allow children to own a BB gun or to shoot one unless an adult is present. I received my Daisy BB gun at age 5, and I shot it unsupervised. I received a .22 caliber rifle for my eighth birthday, and I already possessed my own pistol, a .380 semi-automatic, which had been given to me by my brother-in-law, who had fought at Normandy. It was among a duffel bag full of pistols he brought back from the war.
American soldiers brought home all kinds of enemy weapons --pistols, rifles, true-assault rifles, submachine guns. Today, even an admiral or a general is forbidden to bring back a rifle as a souvenir.
There have been changes, and one change is that guns are less accessible than before. Another is that more and more Americans have been born and reared in big cities where they had no opportunity to use a gun recreationally or for personal security. Another is that, with the end of the draft back in the 1970s, fewer and fewer Americans have an opportunity to be trained in
weapons use in the military. Another change, probably related to the others, is that more journalists and politicians are simply ignorant of firearms, though that never stops those people from talking about and wanting to regulate firearms' ownership and use.
What happened in Littleton had nothing to do with firearms. Every other kid at that high school had the same access to firearms as the two shooters, and that's true in all the other school shootings. If you're going to argue that all the other kids had the same access to culture and they didn't go berserk, therefore you can't blame culture, then you must acknowledge that the same argument applies to firearms.
What you are seeing all around you is the old Hegelian principle at work -- thesis, antithesis, synthesis. First you create or call attention to a problem; then you generate hysteria about it; and then, voila, you offer a solution. In this case you have two kids go berserk, you fan hysteria and then propose, as a solution, restrictions on the right of all Americans to acquire and own firearms.
The land of the free is gradually becoming the land of the unfree. There are Americans, you know, who don't believe in freedom --at least not for others. We should never forget that humans are humans regardless of their nationality. There are always some people who have a terrible lust to control the lives of other people.
Better to be free in a society with risks than a safe slave in a dictatorship.
------------------
What part of "INFRINGED" don't they understand?