I‘m starting to wonder if I should be writing a politics blog when I’m usually behind on writing anything timely about politics. It’s a good thing there are other writers around who are on it. Today’s quote of the day is about the NRA from O’ Tim at Much That Is Hidden:
The National Rifle Association is resembling more and more Glenn Close’s bunny-boiling character in Fatal Attraction. The bitch just won’t stay dead.
See also: Griftdrift channeling Hunter S. Thompson in Thugs and Aaron Karp’s Neal Boortz and the Wussification of America.
In more general terms, I don’t have any consistent ideas about how gun sales should be handled. It’s another one of those issues that makes me question the value of having opinions about anything. I can see both sides of that argument.
The government can be scary and I definitely believe in people’s rights to own guns generally in case we have to defend ourselves against it. And there’s some truth to the “if you outlaw guns, criminals will have them and law-abiding citizens won’t” argument. It’s kind of like trying to outlaw drugs or alcohol… people who want them badly enough will get them whether they’re legal or not, so the people being punished by such laws are the ones who enjoy those things responsibly, not the people who are likely to use them irresponsibly.
But then, I see mentally ill people like the Va. Tech shooter being able to purchase them legally, and it does make me wonder if a line on who can and can’t purchase them should be drawn somewhere that it’s not being drawn now.
Regardless, good for the state Senate on telling the NRA where they can stick their report cards.
But here’s the thing … The Va Tech shooter did not purchase his weapons legally. In 2005, he was involuntarily committed to a mental facility. When purchasing a firearm in Virginia, the buyer must declare on the appropriate form that they have not been so committed. Cho lied. In theory, the background check would’ve scored a hit on his history, but it did not.
Perhaps he knew that one great failing of pre-sale background checks lies in the lack of inter-connectivity regarding records of mental health.
The long and the short of it? Cho possessed his firearms illegally, having gamed the system to acquire them. The line of who can and who cannot own a firearm is drawn well enough, but we need a far more dependable means of confirming just who belongs on which side.
I agree totally with you Rusty, giving on opinion on this is hard. The minute you mention any type of gun control reform (in any context) it seems that immediately you get jumped all over by the gun
nutsenthusiasts claiming you are trying to take their guns away and make them illegal.Obviously something needs to be done to improve the system, better background checks in the very least.
WRT “mentally ill” - that could end up being a pretty broad brush. I mean technically, as a diagnosed clinical depressive, I’m mentally ill. It doesn’t mean I’m going to start shooting random people if I owned a gun.
On a more general note, I thought what Charles had to say was interesting and thought-provoking:
When even conservatives deplore our love of All Guns All The Time, you know we’ve got a bit of a problem. Our Great Avoidance let’s call it:
http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=9040170
The key here is involuntarily committed and also “danger to self/others.” Being depressed does not put you or anyone else in this category.
I know that. You know that. But I do start feeling nervous when “mentally ill” - a broad term - gets thrown around haphazardly as a justification to restrict rights.
Well, the fact is that it’s already against the law (as far as I know) to have been involuntarily committed and then to own a gun (or rather, you can’t buy one once you’ve been involuntarily committed). I think the law as it stands, whatever people who are not overly bright do/think/say, is already pretty narrowly tailored.
I know. I was just making a point about the semantics of it as used often in the blogosphere and other general discourse. Sorry to derail.