The conversation has begun.
The shooting deaths this week of two TVĀ journalists in Roanoke, Va., has prompted the call for greater gun regulation in America.
I do not oppose that idea.
But some folks are now looking Down Under, at Australia, where officials years ago confiscated guns throughout the country. The result was a plummeting of violent crimes committed by people using firearms.
OK, will that happen here? Are the feds going into every home in America and start taking guns away from Americans? Not in a gazillion years.
The Constitution says gun ownership shall not be abridged. There will be no amendment to the Constitution that repeals the Second Amendment. Period. End of that discussion.
However, I am not going to accept the argument that stricter laws that keep guns out of the hands of the people who should have them are somehow violating the rights of “law-abiding citizens” to “keep and bear arms.”
Alison Parker and Adam Ward died at the hands of someone who purchased a gun legally in Virginia. He put down his money and walked out with a firearm that he then used to cause untold grief to two people’s families.
I am not certain how a background check on this guy would have detected some mental or emotional distress that could have kept him from owning that firearm. It’s not altogether fitting to look at just one crime and then say, “Well, all we have to do is just enforce existing laws.”
But if we step back and examine all the incidents of gun violence and the backgrounds of all the individuals who have committed these crimes, then it’s fair to ask whether there is some mechanism that could be used to detect the potential for violence if they decide to purchaseĀ a firearm.
I don’t want my two rifles taken from me. They’re heirlooms. I’ve had ’em since I was a boy. My dad gave me a .22 when I was about 11; he then gave me a 30.06 — that he had owned for many years previously — when I was in my late teens. They rarely come out of the place where I store them.
A nationwide confiscation isn’t going to happen.
But why can’t we consider some measures that (a) honor the Second Amendment and (b) make it harder for fruitcakes to get their hands on deadly weapons?
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/australia-confiscated-650000-guns-murders-and-suicides-plummeted/ar-BBm9eak