Thursday, January 13, 2011

Is It Time for Gun Control?

Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Please note that the amendment spoke to a "well regulated militia". This was written when states and even towns had their own militia since there was no standing army and there was fear of the Native Americans.

After a terrible experience in England with an incident such as what we have suffered here in America, guns came under control. Their violence rate fell dramatically.

Is this something we should consider as a nation?

No individual needs an assault weapon. Perhaps those who hunt and eat what they kill, could have rifles and shotguns for that.

This was a brave move:

At 9:35 a.m. on a March day in 1996, a disgruntled former scout leader walked into a primary school gym in Dunblane, Scotland, with four guns and killed 16 children and their teacher in Britain's worst mass shooting. The crime still causes Britons to recoil when they recall the victims, many of them only 5 years old.

That rampage, with guns purchased legally -- as were those used in the killings at Virginia Tech and even Saturday's mass killings -- led to a near-total ban on handguns, and Britain's current laws are considered among the most restrictive in the world. Days after the shooting, hundreds of thousands of people signed petitions demanding tougher gun control, and weeks later more than 22,000 illegal or unwanted guns, and nearly 700,000 rounds of ammunition, were turned in to authorities under a special amnesty.

Although England already had tough restrictions in place, champions of the gun control laws say the new limits have been vital in keeping fatal shootings relatively rare.

Why don't we consider such a move? Look at the horrible mass killings we have endured the last ten to fifteen years yet we allow the NRA to control our response.

2 comments:

Betty said...

Why don't we consider such a move? Because the NRA owns too many Congressmen and Senators. Unfortunately.

Margie's Musings said...

You are so right, Betty!