While doing the rounds of the blogs I read, I got to Cecily’s today and found a rant about gun control and the school shooting in the Amish school in Pennsylvania.

When the constitution was written, giving us all the right to bear arms, they could not have fathomed a world in which a gun had the capacity to shoot hundreds of bullets in rapid succession. Nor could they have predicted how inexpensive guns would become, or how tiny, or how dangerous.

I’d like to believe that if those who wrote the constition knew–if they had to look in the faces of the mothers of the children killed–they would have phrased it differently, and said, perhaps, that buying only one gun a month wasn’t that much of a fucking hardship for anyone.

From this post

Now, those of you who have read me for any amount of time, know my thoughts on gun control. But, I have to respond to Cecily.

We have enough gun control laws. There are thousands and thousands of them on the books. There are background checks, limitations on what you can buy, when you can buy, how many you can buy. These limitations only help if someone is law abiding to begin with.

I am law abiding. I do not do anything illegal with my firearms. I follow all the gun control laws to a tee. But, I’m not a criminal. The man who shoot the Amish children? He’s a criminal. Even if there were more gun control laws, he didn’t care, he would have still not have followed the laws.

And, that’s just one small example. The gangs that shoot one another? They could care less about the laws on the books. Making more laws for them won’t stop the violence.

Making guns illegal won’t stop it, either. Guns are here. Guns do show up in countries that have made them illegal. There are millions of guns in this country. The majority owned by law abiding citizens, just like me. People who lock their guns up, follow the laws when purchasing, do nothing illegal with them.

And, yes, the main reason I own firearms is selfdefense. See my post below for one example of why firearm ownership is part of my life.

What could we do? If you’re convicted of a firearm crime, make sure they get the maximum time in jail, the maximum fines, etc. The laws are on the books, enforce them. We already check for criminal records (and in VA, you are flagged if you have certain mental health issues, so you can’t purchase).

We need better help for those with mental illness. The man who shoot those girls, then himself, obviously had mental health issues. Maybe, just maybe if someone had realized it, he would have gotten help and not shot those children.

Don’t get me wrong, I feel horrible about those young girls, as well as all the children and teachers who have been hurt by firearms, recently. I wish I could go back and stop it. But, taking firearms from legal, good citizens, isn’t the answer. It just isn’t.

The Bill of Rights does guarentee the right to own firearms. Just alongside the right to freedom of speech, press, assembly, etc. The rights are the basis for our freedoms and rights in the USA. If you take away one, you might as well take them all away. Regardless of your personal feelings on firearms, it is a right, and one that should not be tossed away lightly..

Edited to add: As for the term “assault weapon” there is no such thing. It’s a term used by antigun people to scare you. They use it to describe (long guns mainly) who have features that they find frightening.

Which is just sad, as that piece of metal there? Can’t hurt you while it just lies there. It has to be picked up and used by a human being. Fear the people who are criminals, not the inanimate object.

And, adding more. Automatic weapons in the USA are highly regulated to the point that very few people can own them. And, the only case of one being used to kill someone in the United States? A police officer, who could legally own one, killed his wife with one. So, the thousands of bullets (which is wrong in the first place, no civilian weaponry shoots like that) is wrong as well.