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I
decided to read this story not from the point of view of the American
press but rather from an article written by the BBC in London,
England. You know about England, don't you? England is one of those
terrible countries that have those strict and evil gun laws preventing
God-fearing British from owning arsenals, and, so it seems, preventing
crimes like this from happening over there.
Mr.
McDermott is pleading not guilty by reason of mental defect. All the
more reason he should have an AK-47 in his myriad of kitchen utensils.
The
American press, as well as many of you, have lamented how the recent
presidential election has caused us to be a laughingstock amidst
others in the free world. Let me tell you what another
"civilized" country thinks of this latest armed catastrophe
in our country.
The
BBC quotes Washington correspondent Stephen Sakur as saying,
"Workplace shootings have become depressingly familiar in
America." That, I believe, is a real admonition by another
country of what in America seems to be "funny."
Now
before any of you send me NRA stickers saying something as quaint and
charming as, "You can pry this gun from my cold, dead
hands," let me finish what I am saying.
America
is based on many traditions. One of the most popular is the sport of
hunting. Another is the sport of competition shooting. Another
"sport" in America, unfortunately, is protecting one's home
from burglary, larceny and vandalism. I would not for a moment wish to
deprive any of these Americans from their choice to own firearms. I am
interested in preventing maniacs like Michael McDermott from owning an
AK-47. Mr. McDermott’s right to bear arms should not supersede the
right to life that seven of his co-workers so needlessly were forced
to give up this past week.
The
NRA states that there are 20,000 current gun laws in the United States
that are not being enforced. They are correct. The laws carry little
practicality, not only because they are not enforced but also because
they have too many loopholes and have been watered down to the point
of being useless. They have been watered down because our legislators,
in an effort to make everyone happy, have placed sharks in the legal
code that have no teeth when it comes to punishing those who profess
that their right to own deadly and inappropriate weapons supersedes
the rights of others to live.
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The
murders in Massachusetts are just the latest tale in a country gone
mad. A gun has never killed anyone that didn't have another human
being pressing the trigger, either through error, callousness or
animosity.
A
gun used for sport or protection doesn't have to have a 30-round clip
and be semiautomatic or fully automatic. We don't have to continue to
kill each other, all the while professing we have the right to
proliferate the country with the kind of weapons that have no other
purpose in their creation but the taking of human lives.
The
NRA is an important force in this country. They are the ones who will
prevent our legislators from going too far with gun laws that hurt the
rights of the law-abiding citizen to keep and bear arms. They also are
the ones who won't allow sensible gun laws such as registration and
the removal of weapons that have no purpose other than the
extermination of our fellow man.
So
where do we go as a country from here? We don't have to overreact as
Canada and Great Britain and Australia have done regarding the
ownership of firearms. We don’t need to take everyone’s guns away
from them. We only need to all sit down and form one simple basic set
of laws that punish without remorse those who illegally use firearms
in the commission of a crime, while protecting the rights of honest
citizens to keep and bear arms.
The
law should be based on two simple yet basic principles. Those who care
to and are law-abiding should have the right to own firearms. Those
who also are law-abiding should have the right not to NEED to bear
arms if they so desire.
[Mike
Fak]
This article is re-published
courtesy of www.fakmachine.com.
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here to comment on this article.
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