Whenever I buy allergy or cold medicine in the pharmacy or the grocery store, I have to show ID and at the pharmacy, I have to give my signature, so that how much cold medicine I am purchasing can be tracked. There is also a limit on how much I can purchase. That is thanks to some people using them ingredients in cold medicine to produce methamphetamine and it's a bit of red tape that is annoying, but understandable because of circumstance. But, if I chose to purchase a gun, I would be given as many as I wanted with no questions asked and with no loss of anonymity. There was a story awhile back about a grandmother in Indiana who was arrested because she bought too much cold medicine, even though she had a house full of sick family members. Something about that just doesn't add up right.
It takes a test, a licensing fee, plus a registration fee and insurance to drive a car, which is necessary for most people to get to work, school and all sorts of other necessary destinations. These days, it's hard to live without a car and I know this well, since I don't have one. But, right now, a person can purchase a gun with no licensing or registration and no test of competency. Something about that just doesn't add up right.
I'm not a huge gun control advocate by any means and I do think that deranged people will act on their deadly compulsions regardless of rather or not guns are legal. I don't have a problem with law abiding citizens having guns, many have guns for hunting and for personal protection. In the case of personal protection, a lot of owners never even have to fire their guns. But, the system is flawed because it does not protect against compulsion. Anyone with a grudge or a complete lack of sanity can purchase a gun quickly and easily, possibly being able to carry out a crime within minutes. Rage can know no bounds and it's repercussions can engulf people who are nowhere close to the personal situation that sparked that rage. Sometimes, it's not even personal situations, some shootings occur at random.
What happened in Connecticut isn't entirely clear, but what is clear is that children were murdered. Their futures are gone forever, because someone who shouldn't have had a gun was able to get access. Now, we'll hear arguments that guns aren't the only weapons out there, which is true, but guns give a deranged individual the power to harm a large amount of people within a short period of time. Another notion that we will hear is that if the faculty was armed, this never would have happened. Not so, because in a school, any guns would be locked up and by the time a faculty member could get to one, it's likely that there would have already been many causalities. That sort of logic misses the point that it only takes a split second to destroy lives with a gun and because we don't live on the silver screen, the chances of a hero coming to the rescue are slim to none, closest to being none.
Shooters like this are cowards, which is why they select guns as their weapon, because they know that their targets cannot fight back. In most instances, you could be dead before you could even scream or attempt to run to safety. Or, you may never even see it coming. I support the Second Amendment, even though I don't own a gun and have no desire to ever own one. Guns are going to exist regardless of rather or not they are legal, so banning them all wouldn't fully mitigate the situation we have.
I don't want to trample on anyone's rights, but I also think that we all have the right to know that ourselves and our families will at least have some semblance of protection from being murdered while working, being educated or shopping. Tragedy will happen, there is no doubt about that, but we must have all the protections that we possibly can to mitigate the possibilities. We have a system of laws for a reason and it's time that we start tailoring them to work better for us. The NRA cannot continue to hold hostage a reasonable debate on keeping guns out of the wrong hands.
If I can be put through red tape and put on a list to be tracked whenever I buy allergy or cold medication, which is necessary from time to time, then anyone who wants a gun should at least be made to follow that sort of procedure. Facts are facts and the facts are that it is far too easy to get access to guns. Now, it's true that a law abiding citizen who purchases a gun can turn nefarious, it has happened, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't put in stronger precautions. It's also true that some deranged individuals cannot be stopped from obtaining guns, through means other than purchase from an authorized dealer, but we still have to work to remove any legal means that can allow guns to fall into the wrong hands. Frankly, I am sick and tired of having the NRA and conservatives frame every attempt at a discussion on reasonable gun laws as some sort of plot to take away guns. That is the ignorant, biased logic that they have created to instill fear in many gun owners and get them to support their causes, some of which have nothing to do with gun control, but that is another diary.
I would like to be a legislator someday, but I am not one yet, so it is up to the legislators that we have right now to stand up and find solutions. We already have some gun control, if a person commits a felony, then they lose the right to possess a gun and that is a sensible, fair regulation. I don't know what the solution is, but I believe that we can find a way to keep guns out of the wrong hands and not take away gun owners rights. But, perhaps that requires more mental fortitude and work that our elected officials are capable of.