Bureaucratic Bullshit

The gun debate is raging among political parties.  What I find fascinating is that at the foundation of their efforts lies common ground.  Everyone wants to make the world a safer, better place.  That’s the heart of the people.  Somewhere along the line we get wrapped up and even trapped in the bureaucratic bullshit of it all, but I truly believe both sides want the same thing.  Safety.

 

How do we get there?

As I analyze the issue I find myself perplexed.  We cannot throw away the 2^nd Amendment, as we are a nation built on our freedoms, one of which is the right to bear arms.  I believe we deserve that right.  However… worldwide, we are the nation with the highest gun-related deaths, which means we have a problem that needs to be rectified.  It’s not okay for thousands of Americans to die every year at the hand of a trigger.

A greater issue on the table is the fear that if we alter something in the Constitution, where does that altering end?  Could it lead to us losing more of our rights and freedoms?

Tom Clemens was murdered on Tuesday night at his home.  He was the head of the Colorado Department of Corrections and said to be a decent, hardworking man of integrity.  He was 58 years old and had a wife and two daughters.  A gunman came to his front door and when Tom answered it, he shot and killed him. Full Story Here.

This is unacceptable.

If you’ve read my previous blogs, you know that I believe in an American’s right to bear arms.  I also believe in taking responsibility to protect lives, by instating procedures that will make purchasing a gun more difficult.  That being said, will all of these measures make our world a safer place?  Probably not…because the law-abiding citizens, the ones who will adhere to new policy, register their guns and follow the rules are not the ones taking innocent lives.

How to you separate the good seeds from the bad seeds?

I’m going to wager that when the Constitution was written there were fewer crazy people in the world.  Gang violence didn’t exist back then.  A huge percentage of people weren’t on anti-depressants and narcotics weren’t available to anyone who had the money to buy them.  Back then, Americans owned guns so they could hunt for food or fight what they deemed to be a collective enemy.  Every once in a while a bad seed would roll through town wreaking havoc, but for the most part people didn’t randomly kill individuals like they do today.

We can’t fix crazy.  The bigger problem is that we often can’t even identify crazy until it’s too late.

What is the answer?  Remove guns from the public?  No.  Only the law-abiding citizens would turn in their guns, leaving them defenseless against the criminals who will still have weapons.  Limit magazine size?  That might cut down on the number of people an insane shooter can kill at one time, but it won’t save the first 15 people. 

The only somewhat feasible solution I can think of is to institute the death penalty on anyone who intentionally kills or attempts to kill another person with a gun.  (Self-defense is obviously an exception.)  I'm talking about criminally insane individuals with intent, malice and premeditation to murder others.  As it stands today, prison isn’t a deterrent for the criminally insane because they have friends there…peers who understand them like no one else. 

What I mean by "insitute the death penalty"  (as it is already instituted in many states) is that in cases where guilt is obvious and the person is convicted, no appeals are allowed.  The day they are convicted is the day they meet with a firing squad.  It needs to happen that fast.  Right now, criminals don't fear the death penalty because, with all of the appeals, it literally takes years for their number to be called up; if ever.   

I don't like it...in fact, thinking about it makes me sick to my stomach; but these are desperate times and desperate times call for desperate measures.

When our forefathers wrote the 2^nd Amendment they had no idea how dark a place our world would become.  They didn’t foresee gang violence. They didn’t fathom mass shootings of school children.  How could they?  They were declaring freedom from government oppression and saw the Constitution as a means to protect the people as a whole.  They never intended it to be used as a weapon to arm crazy people who would then terrorize the population.  It is no doubt that our forefathers are weeping at what we have become.

The violence must end.  Our children deserve to feel safe.  How do we make that happen?  ~

 

 

Constitutional "Write"

As the gun control debate rages in Colorado, I find myself forced to take a stand.  During a chat room discussion with several of my readers, one asked me if I would consider taking guns out of my books.  My answer is a resounding no.  Guns will continue to play a big role in my novels despite those who oppose them. 

I believe in upholding my Constitutional right to bear arms in life and on paper.

As a murder mystery/suspense writer, guns are an integral part of my stories, especially the Just Call Me Angel mafia series.  I think there is a certain level of suspense that comes with the pulling of a trigger.  It is also a lot less gory in description than, say, stabbing. 

I don't just write about guns, I'm a gun owner and I enjoy going to the shooting range.  Before choosing guns for each of the characters in my Just Call Me Angel series, I went to a shooting range and handled several different guns of all shapes and sizes.  I sized up a .44, .38, .22, 9mm and a 357 magnum, which is my personal favorite.

Owning a gun doesn't make me a risk for shooting someone anymore than owning a car makes me a candidate to run someone over.  

That being said, I don't disagree with the idea of increasing background checks, having buyers pay for their own background checks, banning online certification for concealed-carry permits and banning certain assault weapons from public consumption; but let me be clear.  In the end, American citizens have a Constitutional right to bear arms and that should never change.

There is one Colorado bill on the table that I do not support and that is the bill proposing to limit magazine capacity.  If this is passed, companies, like Magpul, will leave Colorado and take hundreds of jobs with them.  I think this bill is ineffective and will cause more damage than good, especially in an economy that is already struggling.  I realize we live in the state that has suffered from two of the deadliest mass shootings in US history, the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School and the 2012 Aurora Theatre shooting.  We all want mass shootings to stop.  We all want to save lives, but unfortunately, no law is going to fix crazy. 

Radical anti-gun action isn't the solution.  Revoking a citizen’s right to own a gun will only stop law-abiding citizens from being able to defend themselves.  The reality is, despite the law, criminals will keep their weapons, just like they keep their drugs.  Instead of limiting magazines and chasing jobs out of Colorado, why don’t we create more jobs by placing armed guards in our schools state-wide?  Now THAT is a law I’d support.

 

If I could say anything to Governor Hickenlooper and House Representative Fields, it would be this.  Fixing the problem is simple, it’s the application that’s hard. Get rid of the crazy people because guns don’t kill anyone…people do.

One thing is certain, regardless of what laws are passed, I will be bearing arms in both the real and fictional world.  ~

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Armed Good Guys (at least) Have a Shot

I’ve read countless Facebook posts about gun control and how guns are to blame for the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy.

This statement is not entirely correct.

Yes, guns were used, but people are to blame.  In this case, a mentally disturbed individual is to blame. I can own one hundred guns, but if I never load one and fire it at someone, then those guns never kill. 

That being said…. Should we institute some form of gun control.  Yes.  But we need to make certain it is not in violation of our overall right to bear arms.  It’s a fine line, but it is an important line and should not be crossed.

People have quoted statistics about how the United States has the highest rate of gun-related deaths each year.  I would like to know how many of those deaths are due to genuine accidents and how many were caused by un-registered, un-licensed gang-type behavior. 

See, Americans who are licensed gun carriers are not the ones killing people.  Americans who own guns to protect themselves and their families are not the ones walking into schools and murdering children.

If we take away our right to bear arms as a nation, it only affects the law-abiding citizens and those aren’t the people who are killing others. The “bad” guys are still going to get guns, whether there is a law against it or not. 

Drugs are illegal, and yet look at the number of meth, crack, heroin and cocaine users in our nation.  It is the same with guns.  “Bad” people are going to do bad things no matter what laws we have in place.  What we CAN do is make it harder for them to do bad things…

Should we make it more difficult to purchase a gun?  Sure.  Should we institute harsher punishments on those caught with un-registered, un-licensed guns?  Sure.  But punishing legal gun owners who have not and most likely will never use their gun to commit a crime is only causing greater problems.

A greater debate is do we arm more “good” people in order to better be able to stop the “bad” people.  I don’t know.  But, had the Principal or the Counselor or one of those teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary been a concealed, licensed carrier, maybe they would have been able to get to their gun and maybe they would have been able to take the man down before he reached any classrooms.

I don’t know the answer… but I believe, in today’s world, arming teachers so they can at least have a fair shot at protecting our children is no longer an idea I would frown upon.  Having an armed guard at our schools is no longer unfathomable. 

Look at the two signs above.  Now, pretend you're a deranged individual who gets the idea to go into a school and kill people.  Which sign has a better chance at making you stop and re-think your plan?

Let’s face it, parents of all of the children in all of the schools across our nation watched the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in horror; and if one of us could have picked up a gun and ended the disaster by killing the shooter we’d have done it in a heartbeat.  Any one of us would have fired that shot and taken him out to protect our kids; but we can’t fire a shot with a gun we don’t own.

Unarmed good guys can’t stop an armed bad guy…. but armed good guys have a shot.  ~