My thoughts on gun control

Over the last few months, there has been intense debate about gun control. Normally my blog posts are quite frivolous, but once in a while I feel like saying something.

I always try to understand both sides of the issue, so here are my observations for why people take the side they do.

Those who are for gun control are usually liberals and democrats. They say that the average American doesn't need a gun, and that ready access to guns puts guns in the wrong hands. When the Bill of Rights was constructed, the social and martial climate of America was different and the Second Amendment was intended for that climate but not today's.

Those who are against gun control are usually conservatives and republicans. They say that we need to uphold the Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. They say that murderers and criminals obviously don't care about laws about not killing people, so they certainly won't obey laws about not having guns. If guns were prohibited, only the bad guys would be the ones with guns, and the common people wouldn't be able to defend themselves. Guns don't kill people; people kill people.

I refuse to wear the glasses associated with a particular party, which means that my vision is not obscured by party biases or senseless allegiances. So I think I understand the arguments on both sides.

Those who know me know that I don't like bad guys. At all. When I hear about rapists, murderers, bank robbers, and drunk drivers, I start thinking things. Like how they should be dipped in boiling oil, or be thrown off a cliff, or have their fingernails ripped off, or be dragged down a gravel road, or be stretched out on a rack, or be beaten with a two-by-four with nails sticking out, or be run over by a semi. By all means, shoot them! (Although that might not be painful enough.)

Occasionally you hear stories in which people defend themselves from bad guys with their guns. Like the old man who started shooting at two young bank robbers, or the mom who shot and injured the home intruder, or the gas station clerk who scared off a knife-wielding robber by pointing his gun. To me, these people are heroes.

Unfortunately, I feel like these instances of people defending themselves with guns are rare, and most incidents you hear about have the bad guys having guns but not the good ones. The right to bear arms didn't help the victims in Aurora or Newtown.

Following the Connecticut tragedy, some people said that teachers should carry guns. Usually I like to be tactful, but I can't here. That's just stupid. Plain stupid. Would teachers having guns have minimized the Newtown incident? Perhaps, although that is still highly debatable. But I think teachers carrying guns would cause more problems than it would solve. What if some particularly unpleasant teacher was having a particularly unpleasant day at the same time the students are being particularly unpleasant, and the teacher pulls out their gun? Or, more seriously, what if some curious elementary-school kids or hormonal high-school teenagers manage to get a hold of the teacher's gun? Talk about a catastrophe!

Nevertheless, I understand where people are coming from on both sides of the gun issue, and I can't say which is right.

But what really irks me is all the opposition to Obama's gun plan. I think most people oppose it because it was Obama who proposed it. If they actually think it's a bad idea, they think so because Fox News and their ultraconservative Facebook friends have told them so.

According to the Washington Post, Obama's plan includes requiring background checks for gun purchases, banning the sale of assault weapons, promoting gun violence research, and encouraging mental health treatment. Why would you oppose that? It sounds pretty neutral to me.

The anti-gun-control people criticize the plan and go off on their arguments about the right to bear arms and the need for self defense. But I feel this is a straw man argument. Obama isn't saying you can't have guns. He's simply saying you shouldn't be able to access certain kinds and that you should have background checks.

The fact that they are proposing background checks indicates that you presently don't need a background check. This terrifies me! I don't feel safe knowing that the crazies can go out and buy a gun. Why would you oppose background checks? If you're an upstanding, law-abiding citizen, why should you object? I wouldn't mind having a background check because I know I have nothing to hide.

People say that bad guys will still get a hold on the illegal guns. I think this is true, and I think most people recognize that. However, if it is harder to get them, I think fewer criminals will have them. We will always have tragedies; that's part of life. But we can do our best to minimize them.

People bring up the old argument that guns don't kill people, people kill people. (To which I say, people use guns to kill people. Guns are more efficient weapons. The anti-gun-control folks attest to this by the very fact that they want guns and not knives.) Obama's plan accounts for this by promoting violence research and mental health treatment.

Now, I'm not an Obama supporter. I voted for neither him nor Romney, but I privately hoped Romney would win. Nevertheless, I respect Obama as the president, and I can see clearly enough to know that he's not the antichrist and that he has America's interests at heart.

Something has got to change; the present system isn't working. I think most people recognize this, but if you don't, you're cold and soulless. You should start negotiating with the real devil (i.e., not Obama) to get your soul back.

So why don't we just try Obama's plan? If it works, great! If it doesn't, then we will know it doesn't work and we will be able to try something else. Doing nothing is the truly diabolical approach.

Don't be so arrogant as to think that your idea is the only one that can possibly be right.