Guns Oct 2^nd

The question of the day is: How do we keep guns out of the hands of people who are intent on mass murder? For some, the NRA and other gun-huggers that is the wrong question; they believe that more guns are the solution. If those dead students had had weapons they would all be alive today; well, maybe not all of them, but many of them. What they recommend is every student have a weapon and the professor have an AK-47 slung across his back as he lectures. They claim that this would make everyone very polite…and insure that everyone gets an A+ in all courses.

There are several absurdities here: one is perpetuated by Fox News which points out that cities with strict gun control have the most murders, therefore gun control doesn’t work. The cities try to control guns because they have high murder rates; it’s not successful because it’s easy to import guns into any city even if the city shutters every gun store. How do you shutter the internet? Virginia, next to Washington D.C. has some of the most permissive gun laws in the country. Good luck with D.C.’s restrictive gun laws. Some states have even passed laws prohibiting communities from passing their own gun laws more restrictive than the state’s laws.

There is agreement that background checks should be enforced; the agreement about this approaches 90 percent. So what gets checked? If a person has visited a clinical psychologist, psychiatrist or clinical social worker he can’t buy a weapon? Will these clinicians be required to report a list of their patients to the authorities? Such a law will assure that many people who could benefit from such help will think several times before looking for it. The Oregon gunman had no record of seeking a mental health professional and would have passed a background check with no problem. He owned many guns all legally purchased.

How about an armed guard at the school; how would that work? This school had a guard but he wasn’t armed. Perhaps if he had been armed, things might have been different. If he had been in uniform and thus easily identified, why wouldn’t the potential mass murderer just walk up to him and kill him first. The only way to prevent that would be to insist the guard have his weapon in his hand at all times, or be sure the guard is not in uniform and identifiable. Anyone who is employed by the school or has been a student there for a semester or so will know who the armed guard is even if he isn’t wearing a uniform.

What are we left with? We are left with no very good answers which is where we started. Two things will help: two armed guards in every school. We can afford it because we have to. Background checks and a thirty day delay after the background check before the gun can be possessed. The checks will at least catch the previously hospitalized mentally ill and the delay will diffuse the purchaser whose purpose in acquiring a gun is to kill someone right now. The chance of these suggestions making it through any legislative body; It is about the same as winning the Powerball lottery!