Tuesday, February 5, 2013

The Reality of Chicago and Gun Control

Well, the wingnuts are at it again--pointing at Chicago and squealing that, see, gun control doesn't work!

Read this carefully, huh?  It's important.

Gun control (or the regulation of any dangerous thing) cannot work in a bubble.  You cannot regulate in one municipality without regulating in ALL.  Why?  Because if guns are illegal in, say, ILLINOIS, but legal just a few miles down the road in Indiana or Missouri, what's to stop folks from crossing that intangible political boundary and stocking up on weapons?

Nothing.  Nothing stops them, as is painfully clear.  Since there are no roadblocks, no checkpoints, no searches, folks wanting firearms in Chicago can just drive a little while, buy to their hearts' content, then drive back.  THAT is why gun control doesn't work in Chicago.  It's like when the drinking age varied from state to state--kids from Pennsylvania would drive to New York, kids from Utah would drive to Wyoming.  Stock up, then drive back across that political boundary with none the wiser.

Only a nation-wide plan can make a difference.  Nothing short of that will work because it can't--not unless we want checkpoints at our state borders, and I sure don't want that.

Read this story this morning.  Don't tell me we don't need to do something.  Don't.

Chicago Woman Looses Four Children to Gun Violence

I'm not talking a nation-wide "gun grab" (NOBODY is, despite what Wayne LaPierre would have you believe).  But if you're crazy, you're violent, you're a criminal, you have a history of violence or drug offenses?  I want to KNOW that, and I want you to be prevented from buying a gun.  Don't say we already have those laws--the states themselves admit those laws are half-assed and rarely enforced.  I want something stringent and strenuously enforced.  I want those ARs back off the street--the NRA and the right didn't whine when it was a republican calling for those things, so I'm left assuming it has more to do with WHO is President than with what he wants.  Shame.  I want high capacity clips gone--if you need 30 or 100 rounds to take out Bambi, YOU are the person who likely shouldn't be hunting.

I own guns.  I believe sane, law-abiding Americans have a right to that, provided those weapons are, as the Constitution says, regulated.  The Second Amendment does not guarantee that we all get to have as many of whatever weapons or ammo we want without regulation.  If that's how you're reading it, you're not reading it.

More later--the doggy calls.

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