Guns Back In The News

After today's shooting at V.T., the call for banning guns was bound to happen. One of the blogs I read daily took a firm, but slightly over the top, stance on guns. And the comments to the post are very interesting. The only problem with this approach is that it addresses the end result and not the problem. Instead of addressing why these things happen, we tend to only address the the final point. If people were to look deeper into things, maybe we could address these problems before they lead to a shooting rampage, without new laws while maintaining our rights.

As someone who has owned guns and is liberal, I tend to be in a small group. While I tend to believe that the 2nd Amendment is outdated, since no one is really forming a militia, I am not for changing it. The cost and time wasted in that battle might be okay in a different time, but Congress and the President have their plates full at the moment with more important issues. Plus, the Amendment wouldn't change in the long run. I do tend to lean left when we talk about what kind of guns should be legal. While I find the M-4 quite interesting and would probably enjoy shooting it at the range, it really is a weapon of offense not defense, regardless if it is semi-auto or full auto.

While many anti-gun people hate when pro-gun people say, "Guns don't kill people, people do", there is some truth to it. There is also some truth when anti-gun people say, "less people die of guns in Europe than America". So where is the common ground? Would today's killer still have been able to get a gun if they were banned? Before you say no, think about how easy it is to get illegal drugs. Would he used an ax, knife, crowbar or baseball bat instead? And would we then ban those too?

I am not disputing the fact that guns are dangerous, they are. But trying to capitalize on this killing spree seems vaguely similar to how many Democrats feel that Republicans use 9/11 to take away other rights protected by the Constitution. People need to take a deep breath before they advocate changing the Constitution, for liberal or conservative beliefs.