Guns again Oct 4^th

The discussion of what to do about gun deaths in this country has taken a curious turn; the right wing has decided that that laws don’t matter, gun laws that is; certainly private property laws and most other laws matter very much to them. Their logic, with which all of the right wing Presidential candidates agree, is that the current laws don’t seem to be helping so why bother adding to them.

But these aren’t the facts; the facts are that the current laws don’t stop all gun deaths, or even school massacres. Would the death rate from guns be even worse if we had fewer restrictions? We don’t know. That question doesn’t occur to these Presidential candidates. They are quick to point out that the last massacre happened in a gun free school; it wasn’t a gun free school. There are no gun free schools in Oregon because the holder of a concealed permit in that state can take his gun into any school if he wants to, In fact there were several permit holders in that little college when the shootings occurred. They claimed that they were afraid that if they drew their weapons and the SWAT teams arrived they would be taken for the shooter and immediately killed. They were probably right; so much for “the good guy with a gun.”

Most of the public are in favor of background checks although these are routinely bypassed. They will always be bypassed by people who know they can’t pass them and want a weapon anyway. This hardly means that a more rigorous application of the background check concept won’t help. We have laws against drunk driving and we have laws against speeding. We still have both drunk drivers and we have speeders. Many of these lawbreakers are guilty of multiple offenses. If we want to reduce these offenses we need more rigorous enforcement and stiffer penalties. There isn’t much argument about that.

Just because the murderer in Oregon could buy his guns legally is presented by some gun huggers as evidence that background checks aren’t the answer. The obviously won’t stop all such murders; but if we insist on background checks and a waiting period for all gun sales, how many lives will that action need to save before the right wing will believe it was worthwhile? The insanity is that whatever number you pick it won’t be large enough.