Son of a Gun, 1

Don't take your guns to town son
Leave your guns at home Bill
Don't take your guns to town
--Don't Bring Your Guns to Town, 
Jerry Douglas

Walk away from trouble if you can
It won't mean you're weak if you turn the other cheek
I hope you're old enough to understand
Son, you don't have to fight to be a man
--Coward of the County,
Kenny Rogers

Come on people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another
Right now
--Get Together,
The Youngbloods
________________

[Note: some excellent related commentary has occurred in the previous RAW posting, It's Only a Game.]

What good are words in the discussion of gun violence and gun control in today's United States?

How can one be heard in a society where attitudes are sclerotic all-round? Events like the recent mass-shooting atrocity in Las Vegas only serve to tighten the cordon.

Ranger is a gunman and will remain so until death. I am not a threat to public safety and welfare. I am not an National Rifle Assocation (NRA) member, nor do I believe the members of that organization to be anything but honorable citizens.

Our society has been suffering a breech reaching back several decades between two sides who feel they are advocating for the same thing, namely: how does gun ownership comport with the safety of U.S. citizens. People draw their lines allying themselves with various movements and organizations, and like most such historical syndicates the high-minded ideology fails, the adherents left wallowing amidst a sea of partisanship. 

The factionalism displaces the urgent questions: "What is happening?", "Is this something new?", and "How can the threat be best removed and the safety of the largest number of potential future innocent victims be reasonably ensured?"

On one side are those who staunchly support the 2nd Amendment gun ownership rights. Theirs has been a love-hate alliance with the government since the nation's founding.

The role of citizens vis-a-vis guns has morphed wildly over the course of our nationhood. In the beginning, the armed citizen was not viewed as an adversary of the national project, but served as its linchpin, or at least, as a staunch pillar thereof.

Until 1840, the smoothbore muskets of the U.S. military were inferior to the rifles of the general public. Today, soldiers and police possess military automatic weapons far outstripping anything permitted to the citizens, weapons of war that they may use for any purpose.  

The Civilian Marksmanship Program brought citizens on-board as members in good-standing of their communities who would learn safe shooting skills. [Few discuss the conversion from gun owners as pillars of society to the suspects that they have often become today due to tragic events like the Las Vegas shooting. Ranger will discuss this in a future post.]

Opposing them are those who call for ever-stricter control over gun ownership rights. Their project, like those of the 2nd Amendment advocates, sees the primary issue of mass violence as the gun itself. For them, it is a simple equation: Limit the sorts of guns available and --voila -- the problem of gun violence goes away.

It is unlikely that these pro-control advocates even know that truly automatic rifles -- to include belt-fed and machine guns -- can be purchased simply by paying the $200 special tax required be the feds to own such a weapon. Do they know that no such weapon has ever been used in a violent crime?

Further, several elected leaders call for bans on M16 Black Rifle clones, mistakenly calling them "weapons of war". They are not, as civilian versions are neither fully automatic nor are they military grade.

Further, what if the citizens were permitted to have automatic rifles? Why may the police have them while the citizens they are sworn to protect may not? Check for yourself the photos of recent national disasters like the flooding in Houston or Puerto Rico: the soldiers passion out water have fully automatic rifles slung on their bodies. 

Why? Do the citizens exist for the safety of the police, or vice versa?

But if we are honest and answer the aforementioned urgent questions, we must define the problem and see what actual solutions are available.

Generally-speaking, the gun control rights activists are liberal West- and East-Coasters. Broad-brushing, they often belong to the middle- and upper social strata, their most privileged members are what might be called the Creative Class (versus the majority of those who inhabit the vast middle swath of the country).

Taking a flight of fancy for a moment, presumably, they believe in the infinite perfectability of the human being. Presumably to that end (or perhaps, to pervert or exploit it), they have created myriad outlets for your viewing pleasure and virtual participation.

A majority of these games, movies and programs involve extreme weapons violence of the most heinous sort. Hollywood and Silicon Valley is only too happy to exploit guns for fun (all virtual, mind you).

Following Hollywood's fashion, music and movie lead, see the omnipresence of violence and death being imprinted even upon the human body -- knives, guns and skull-and-crossbones on clothes and tattoos abound. To paraphrase Snoop Lion-nee-Dog on doggies and their bones, Hip Hop ain't hoppin' without guns, and Hollywood has brilliantly sold that decrepit bill of goods to all youth. (Their cover: they're just following the mode of the streets.)

But you can handle this incessant onslaught of blood and destruction and go back to your loved ones and merely tolerated ones unscathed, yes? And if you can handle technicolor gore, surely if one were a gun owner, one could show good trigger control in the face of a "Falling Down" type of morning, right?

Ah, but if you have the slightest doubt that the pressures of modern society might unhinge a vulnerable person, how could you in good faith partake in the creation and dissemination of said materials? 

And surely a gunman, say, a former military rifleman, might be capable of unleashing an onslaught of carnage with simply a good rifle and sight, no?

We love guns, until reality intervenes.

[To be continued ...]

Rational Thought

  We don’t need no truthless heroes 
--The Spy Hunter, Project 86   

Christ was crucified for preaching without a police permit 
--Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein 

___________________________

In 2011, out of 12,664 homicides, 6220 people were killed in the United States with handguns versus 323 killed with rifles (Obama's Potemkin Gun Plan); the 323 figure includes all rifles, including the so-called assault rifles. 

The proposed gun control aimed at these military look-alike rifles is pure theater, much like the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).  Neither address a significant threat or make us safer, while both serve to irritate law-abiding citizens. We accept the idea that limiting magazine capacity is reasonable and rational (A Rational Response to Sandy Hook), but lack statistics to verify the effect.

Since 1982 the U.S. has suffered at least 62 mass shootings, leaving 543 dead.  During the same period there were 564,452 homicides, which means that .01% of all murders in the US are due to mass or spree shootings.  We are reacting to the grand spectacle of the spree shooting event, when regular workaday homicide is the real problem. Why do we not have data on the types of weapons used in these murders?

George Gascon at Politico (Time to Ban Assault Magazines) notes that between 1984 and 2011, the killers used a magazine that carried more than 10 rounds.  He claims 1,500 rounds were used to kill 225 people and wound 242 others.  If true, this means that the killer in each episode fired approximately 70-75 rounds.

It is clear that neither the Gun Control Act of 1968, the George W. Bush assault weapon import ban, the Bill Clinton assault rifle ban nor the Brady bill has had any effect upon the criminally-minded shooter.  The laws only harass legal gun purchasers.

In addition, The New York Times reports that 80,000 people were caught lying about prior criminal records when attempting to buy a gun in 2010 ( Lie and Try), while only 44 were charged with a crime.  It makes one wonder why people lose their voting and gun rights after they have served their complete sentences, to include probationary time -- especially when their crimes are not violent?

Ranger is against gun control and believes that such laws are ineffective at best, and unconstitutional at worst.  Guys like me are not National Rifle Association weenies who have never seen military service, nor are we politicians who have no experience with violence. We who have served in the military have been acutely trained in all things weaponry, yet we are being told we may not own a weapon with more than rounds in the magazine (11 rounds, since I will have one up the snout).  And you think limiting our magazine capacity is all that it will take to keep you safe?  From us?!?

We used our skills to defend you, the citizens, and now Ranger takes offense that he will be told in what manner he may defend his body and his home.  If my government does not trust me now, then why did they trust me when I was a soldier?  Please, America, don't tell me that I may defend democracy with a real assault rifle but cannot defend my home with an ersatz version. 

Ranger finds himself a stranger in a strange land when he is barraged in the creative media by the ubiquitous terror threat wreaking mayhem and death, countered by well-outfitted Jack Bauers, yet is told to stand down by the same actors who peddle this brand of paranoia.  Does this hypocrisy gall anyone else? 

In a nation of limited economic resources, from where will the funds for enacting the new laws come?

--Who will pay for private gun sales background checks?

--Who will be tasked with the record-keeping?

--Doesn't requiring private background checks trun every private owner and seller of a firearm into a "federal firearms dealer"?

--If the buyer or seller must pay for this required back, does this mean that gun rights are subject to a form of taxation in order for the gunman to exercise his civil rights? If Poll Taxes are illegal, then would this constriction upon a civil right be commensurate?

The U.S. already has the largest prison population in the world, and the new gun laws will add a new category of criminal to that mix: A normal citizen selling a gun to another citizen sans background check.  This type of criminality is the basis of most totalitarian regimes, and will require secret police and agents to ferret out miscreants who disobey the new laws.  Along with the informants will arise a thriving new black market. 

There is nothing good to expect from the proposed laws, other than a temporary soothing of the madding populace which is now being treated to a constant news feed which keeps their collective mind in a Tourette's-like state.  The new proposals will be a feint and a ruse, but it will not address our high homicide rate.

 The gun control rules will not keep guns out of the hands of bad guys.