As an author, I'm lucky to have many devoted readers. What I'm about to write now may well piss off a few of you. Maybe more than a few. How do I know that? Well, I used to have a very enthusiastic fan with the initials RF. He loved all my books right up until the time he read McGill #7, "The Good Guy with a Gun." Once RF read that book, he was through with me. He hated my take on gun laws so much he said he'd never read anything else I wrote.
So be it. Here comes more.
I still feel if someone wants to have a hunting rifle or two, that's fine. There are laws defining when, where and what animals you can shoot. If someone wants to use a rifle or handgun for marksmanship competitions, I'm okay with that. If, God help us, someone needs a firearm in their home because they live in a dangerous place, that's regrettable but also understandable.
What's completely wrong, though, is allowing the public sale of assault weapons. Their very name tells you that these weapons are meant to be used offensively not defensively. They are military weapons meant to be used in combat against hostile armed forces.
In our country, though, they are marketed to any civilian who has the money to purchase one. We've all seen what happens as a result. The most ordinary places from schools to movie theaters to nightclubs become combat zones. People die and are maimed by the dozens or even the hundreds.
Governments — local, state and federal — are given the responsibility of protecting us against such horrific losses of life. With rare exceptions, all levels of government have failed us. The horrific death tolls and the frequency of mass shootings are only increasing.
In the end, though, it's our own damn fault. We continue to elect people who refuse to end gun violence. We are told that more laws are not the solution. Bullshit. Other countries that we consider to be modern and democratic have strict gun laws and none of them have the scale of gun violence we do.
The problem with our country is money trumps everything else, at least up to a point. The money made from selling as many guns as possible is what funds the NRA, the gun-makers most powerful lobbying group. They, in turn, fund the election campaigns of politicians who will prevent any meaningful gun laws from being passed.
These cowards in Congress and state legislatures are also the first ones to tell us any time there is a mass killing that now is not the time to talk about it. That's crap. This is exactly the right time to talk about it.
More importantly, it's the right time to start planning to vote against it. That planning has to start with changing the terms of the debate. Don't talk about the gun lobby; protest against the murder lobby. Don't talk about gun-rights politicians, brand them the murder caucus. Don't tolerate a president who won't stand up to protect schoolchildren, label him the murder enabler in chief.
Some misguided people will say we can't do anything about this horrific situation because of the Second Amendment. Bullshit. Warren Burger, the late, Republican Chief Justice of the United States said: The idea that the Second Amendment guarantees the right of an individual to own a gun is a fraud.
The people of our country are still the ultimate power when it comes to deciding how we will live. If we want to live in peace we will have to stop the sale of assault weapons and outlaw the ones in private hands; buy them back from the willing and let the unwilling know they'll face long prison sentences if they're ever caught with them.
But never threaten to seize them from people's homes, unless there's a sign of imminent danger. After a buy-back deadline passes, allow people to turn in weapons anonymously.
So, it's up to us to seize the power from the murder lobby, the murder caucus in Congress and state legislatures. Don't vote for anyone who takes money from the NRA or other murder lobbyists.
If you do, you'll share in the guilt of the next mass murder at a school, a movie, a nightclub or anywhere else.
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