In October of last year, I was living in the beautiful and busy city of Las Vegas. I put my sweet 3-month-old baby to bed and woke in the morning to find that tragedy had struck our beautiful city.
In the midst of the this tragedy I was honored to be part of a city that was filled with so many good Samaritans. So many people in the area pulled together to help. There was beauty in the tragedy.
Then gun control advocates struck with their shouts of "It's time for gun control!" and "We need stricter background checks!" and "No one needs to have a gun!" and my personal favorite "It's time for common sense gun control laws!"
Eventually all this ruckus calmed down and it seems Las Vegas' tragedy was forgotten except by those of us who lived there.
In the beginning of January, my little family and I moved from that bustling metropolis to Shelley. In February another tragedy struck, this time in Parkland, Florida.
I cried as I read I read about the heroics of the JROTC students. I cried as I read students accounts and I cried as I read about parents who would never see their babies again. Then I grew angry as I read about the failings of the resource office, the Broward County Sheriff's Department and the FBI. This, I thought, is something to be angry about. This was a preventable tragedy.
But to my surprise, no one is talking about that. The FBI literally got a tip with the shooters name on it, and did nothing. The Sheriff's Department was told multiple times by relatives that they feared the shooter and that his weapons should be taken away. The armed resource officer whose job is literally to protect the students stayed outside the building rather than face the shooter. Deaths could have been prevented if any one of these organizations had done their jobs. And you wan to talk about "common sense gun control"?
All right then. I'm willing to listen. What is this "common sense gun control" you think we should have? Is it the banning of all guns in the U.S.? Is it the banning of semi-automatic guns? Is it stricter background checks?
First, banning all guns is far from common sense. You can't ban guns in a nation whose Bill of Rights protects its citizens from having their weapons taken away. You try taking guns away and you will have 12 million gun toting Americans fighting back. No politician is going to take that kind of bloodshed onto their hands. It's political suicide.
Next is banning semi-automatic guns. At what level of gun are you going to start those bans? Handguns are semi-automatic, as are some rifles. Semi-automatic means that the gun loads the next round automatically. It does not mean that if I hold the trigger down the gun shoots all the rounds at once. One trigger pull means one bullet is shot.
My husband owns an AR-15 that we purchased in order to defend our large property in rural Nevada from coyotes. When we go camping in the mountains we bring it with us in case of bears, mountain lions or coyotes. It is a very useful weapon for self-defense, not to mention the most popular hunting rifle. Are you saying that you are going to take that protection away from law-abiding citizens? From hunters looking for meat for their family? From farmers protecting their property from wolves and coyotes? I can't really see the sense in that.
Finally we have stricter background checks. Have you ever purchased a gun? The amount of information they require from you is immense. It takes a great deal of time to purchase a gun. When my husband wanted to buy his AR-15, we realized as we were filling out the paperwork that he had failed to update the address on his license after our recent move. We asked the store if we could still purchase the rifle. No. He would not even let us finish filling out the paperwork. When we finally got his license corrected, the paperwork filled out, the background check complete, I almost blew the whole sale by trying to pay for the gun with my credit card. It's illegal to register the gun in one name and buy it under another. It's called a "straw man" purchase and it stops people who are not allowed a firearm from being able to pay someone else to get the firearm for them.
So what does "common sense gun laws" really mean then? Please educate me. I'll wait.
In the midst of the this tragedy I was honored to be part of a city that was filled with so many good Samaritans. So many people in the area pulled together to help. There was beauty in the tragedy.
Then gun control advocates struck with their shouts of "It's time for gun control!" and "We need stricter background checks!" and "No one needs to have a gun!" and my personal favorite "It's time for common sense gun control laws!"
Eventually all this ruckus calmed down and it seems Las Vegas' tragedy was forgotten except by those of us who lived there.
In the beginning of January, my little family and I moved from that bustling metropolis to Shelley. In February another tragedy struck, this time in Parkland, Florida.
I cried as I read I read about the heroics of the JROTC students. I cried as I read students accounts and I cried as I read about parents who would never see their babies again. Then I grew angry as I read about the failings of the resource office, the Broward County Sheriff's Department and the FBI. This, I thought, is something to be angry about. This was a preventable tragedy.
But to my surprise, no one is talking about that. The FBI literally got a tip with the shooters name on it, and did nothing. The Sheriff's Department was told multiple times by relatives that they feared the shooter and that his weapons should be taken away. The armed resource officer whose job is literally to protect the students stayed outside the building rather than face the shooter. Deaths could have been prevented if any one of these organizations had done their jobs. And you wan to talk about "common sense gun control"?
All right then. I'm willing to listen. What is this "common sense gun control" you think we should have? Is it the banning of all guns in the U.S.? Is it the banning of semi-automatic guns? Is it stricter background checks?
First, banning all guns is far from common sense. You can't ban guns in a nation whose Bill of Rights protects its citizens from having their weapons taken away. You try taking guns away and you will have 12 million gun toting Americans fighting back. No politician is going to take that kind of bloodshed onto their hands. It's political suicide.
Next is banning semi-automatic guns. At what level of gun are you going to start those bans? Handguns are semi-automatic, as are some rifles. Semi-automatic means that the gun loads the next round automatically. It does not mean that if I hold the trigger down the gun shoots all the rounds at once. One trigger pull means one bullet is shot.
My husband owns an AR-15 that we purchased in order to defend our large property in rural Nevada from coyotes. When we go camping in the mountains we bring it with us in case of bears, mountain lions or coyotes. It is a very useful weapon for self-defense, not to mention the most popular hunting rifle. Are you saying that you are going to take that protection away from law-abiding citizens? From hunters looking for meat for their family? From farmers protecting their property from wolves and coyotes? I can't really see the sense in that.
Finally we have stricter background checks. Have you ever purchased a gun? The amount of information they require from you is immense. It takes a great deal of time to purchase a gun. When my husband wanted to buy his AR-15, we realized as we were filling out the paperwork that he had failed to update the address on his license after our recent move. We asked the store if we could still purchase the rifle. No. He would not even let us finish filling out the paperwork. When we finally got his license corrected, the paperwork filled out, the background check complete, I almost blew the whole sale by trying to pay for the gun with my credit card. It's illegal to register the gun in one name and buy it under another. It's called a "straw man" purchase and it stops people who are not allowed a firearm from being able to pay someone else to get the firearm for them.
So what does "common sense gun laws" really mean then? Please educate me. I'll wait.
(This article was originally written for the Post Register's Commentary Page in April of 2018. Small changes have been made to enhance the quality of the article)
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