Guns, Guns, Guns

I like my guns, especially the black-powders I built by hand. I used to be a member of the NRA until the organization morphed from one benefiting gun enthusiasts to benefiting its own executives. I had just returned from a desert range outside Las Vegas where you fire large caliber automatic weapons when ANOTHER President was shot. Of our 45 Presidents, four were killed in office. Three more would have if the shooter had better aim. And Trump is not the only Presidential candidate to be shot, there are three others. Reflecting upon the .50 cal. sniper rifle that I had fired, I cringe at the thought that some drooling, rouge psycho would get a hold of one. While in Vegas it was hard not to recall their 2017 mass shooting resulting in 60 deaths, 413 wounded and the ensuing panic bringing the number of injured to 867. Over a thousand rounds were fired with the use of “bump stocks” to create a machine gun out of a legal weapon.

It doesn’t seem to matter if the targets are politicians or school kids. Even the efforts of linesmen trying to restore power to hurricane-hit Houston Texas were impacted by angry residents pulling guns on them. The U.S. had 261 mass shootings in the first half of this year and will have more than 500 mass shootings for the fifth year in a row. Chicago was bloodied during the Fourth of July weekend when 109 people were shot and 19 were killed.

We will have to live with this American violent history as long as any idiot can get a gun at will. Since the Supreme Court has effectively ruled that Americans have the right to walk around carrying concealed weapons, anyone might be armed. 40 percent of households have a gun and 16 million Americans own what are referred to as assault weapons.

I dutifully took the training and passed the exams to receive my concealed handgun license in Texas. Texas responded to the American “killing fields” by doing away with that requirement recently and aligned with Florida. Now at a store’s checkout line any brain-dead idiot could be standing behind you “packing.”

It is not the 1780’s; it is time to “man up” and consider minimal common sense gun regulation. There are plenty of examples worldwide we can look to, but the Supreme Court even ruled that “bump stocks” which allowed the 2017 Las Vegas carnage to occur cannot be banned with Justice Thomas leading the way. Interesting that Justice Thomas has also said that the Court needs to “revisit” the Griswold v. Connecticut ruling, which guarantees the right of married couples to use contraceptives. Apparently, Justice Thomas wishes to ensure that SWAT won’t kick down your door to come for your machine guns but has no problem with SWAT kicking down your door to come for your IUDs and condoms.

Our culture of guns combined with our trend towards political hate does not bode well to fixing the situation we find ourselves in, but just a smidgen of common sense gun control can help slow the insanity. One can only hope.