Why Gun Control Won't Work

Anyone who has followed me knows I'm pretty liberal.  One issue where I differ from the typical liberal is gun control.  I just don't think it's possible with the number of firearms already in circulation to prevent the majority of shootings that happen.  Does that mean we shouldn't try?  No, not at all.  I believe in closing the loophole of private sales and treating guns the same way we treat vehicles when it comes to selling and transferring titles.  This will create a paper trail, at the very least.  In addition, I don't think someone should be allowed to own a weapon without taking a gun safety class, similar to the way we get driver's licenses.

Beyond that, I'm not sure there's much we can do.  I listen to the arguments, and I agree we should likely get the rapid-fire weapons such as AK-47's out of circulation.  They serve no purpose except to kill a lot of people in a short amount of time.  If you're that paranoid that you think we live in a world where you might have to actually use them, then I'm not sure you should have them.  ISIS is not going to come walking down your street brandishing weapons, contrary to what the nutjobs out there want to portray.

I never felt the need to own a gun when I lived just outside NYC.  Police response to a situation was generally very quick.  Living in a rural area, most of my concern is about the four-legged creatures.  We've had bears around the house.  Thankfully, they have not been aggressive.  Our small town also only had a few police officers and response times can be problematic if something happens.

Someone could argue I should not have access to a weapon.  I lost a daughter to suicide (not by gun), and my mental health in that regard isn't always that great.  One really bad night I had the cops at my house because someone renting nearby heard me crying.  He asked to take my guns with him.  I complied.  It was stupid.  If I was really going to kill myself, there were dozens of other ways to do it at my fingertips.  What was he going to do? Shut off my water so I didn't slit my wrists and drown myself in the bathtub?  Confiscate my yarn on the basement so I didn't use that?  For whatever reason, he felt good about taking my guns with him, and he brought them back the next day with no issue.

Mental health is a strange thing.  You're not crazy until you are.  You can be fine one day and not the next.  How would we judge who was okay to own a weapon versus who isn't?

Writers get their inspiration from many places.  Nowadays, you can just watch things pop up in your Facebook feed and be inspired.  Someone I'm acquainted with had that happen.  She wrote about it without saying who posted this photo that inspired her.  It was another acquaintance.  But for his actions afterward, though, no one would have known.  It wasn't anything terrible, just the usual sort of thing I've talked about before - something that had a grain of truth that was twisted and exaggerated to create a (funny to some) meme that was really a lie.

Since then, he's ranted about it on his own page.  His own page, might I add, that is loaded with pro-gun rantings.  He's been stalking her blog since then and has obviously pointed some of what she's posted out to some of his friends.  It could be considered pretty scary behavior; mentally unhinged even.  Should he have access to weapons?  The point is he does, and he has done nothing specific to have his weapons taken away.  Trying to do so, or complaining to his local police, would likely just make him become more unhinged.  Best to let him rant until something else sets him off and he changes focus.

At least, that's what the vast majority of the rest of this country does most of the time.  When we think about situations like this, we try to just "let it pass."  I said the main reason I had weapons was due to the four-legged creatures.  There was a point, after I'd taken all of the hunter safety and gun safety classes, that I kept a loaded weapon easily accessible to me.

The father of my two "bonus kids" was never the most stable person out there.  I kept my mouth shut about a lot of the things he did because I had no legal basis for keeping those kids with me.  In the end, just before his son turned 18, he went off the deep end due to the drugs he was taking and other things he was mixed up in.  He sealed his own fate when he stole my father's pain medication.  Both my parents and I had orders or protection against him.

Like people say, that's only a piece of paper.  He threatened me while we were trying to resolve getting all of his belongings out of my house.  He was out of the area, but not that far of a drive away.  Mentally I was prepared that if I ever came home and he was in my house, I would likely have to shoot him.  The same if he showed up at my doorstep.  One of the deals he made when he pled out his case was that he wouldn't live in this town again.  It said nothing about showing up on my doorstep.  And like I said, the police could take 20 minutes or more to show up, if I managed to contact them without him realizing it.

And there was nothing on his record, despite numerous incidents over the years, that prevented him from owning weapons.  That was his thing: he'd plead guilty to anything, as long as it didn't mean he couldn't own weapons.  Repeat this over and over again across the country.

Unfortunately, short of an outright ban on all weapons, you can never get guns out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them.  Realistically, I don't see how an outright ban could ever happen and I don't think I would be for it, if asked.  Right now I just don't think it's a realistic expectation.

By the way, when you think liberals aren't armed and won't pull the trigger, you are likely wrong, too.