Hope in the Center blog
The last post was in October, before the November 2012 elections… thus the need to speak up. I feel a desire to comment on the issue of gun controls and weapons safety. My comments come months after the tragedy of Newton , CT.
Here are a few thoughts for your consideration and reflection.
1) Gun registration is constitutional. The ‘right to bear arms’ associated with the Second Amendment was drafted in an era, and refers to the militias then constituted by States. Having weapons is part of hunting and I support that idea. I see no conflict between the two, and hunting and practice on a safely designed and controlled range is something I support. This is not to say that weapons owners, who register their vehicles to ensure public safety, should not be required to register their firearms. I support very limited ‘carry’ permitting, restricted to Police and Public Safety personnel.
2) I do not support personal ownership of assault weapons. These have no rationale for hunters. It doesn’t take a large brain to support the idea that hunting is a precision sport, not a lay waste the landscape with numerous rounds. There is no rationale in my mind that suggests anyone, other than controlled Police SWAT units or the military, should have assault style weapons.
3) I do not support the sale of ammo magazines larger than 10 rounds for any personal weapon.
4) I support complete background checks for all weapon purchases, and prohibition of all ‘straw’ purchases, as these defeat the idea of background checks to preclude loonies from getting weapons and decreasing public safety.
America must come to the realization that the public at large, the ‘village’ per se, has a right to be protected from the small minority whose weapons endanger us all. Subsequent to the very recent Boston Marathon bombing another thought came to mind … can the terrorists who carried out the Boston Marathon bombings purchase automatic weapons, assault weapons? If one doesn’t have to go through a background investigation can’t they “carry”?
In the very recent vote in the US Senate on background investigations a conservative senator, Senator Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., said most proposals were "predicated on one assumption that somehow we think that the criminal element will single out this one law to comply with." ……… It strikes me as reasonable that we shouldn’t care what criminals think … we should make laws that are prudent for a society, for public safety, and not based on what criminals will or won’t do. Maybe Senator Inhofe thinks we should do away with laws on human trafficking or slavery using the same rationale.
