What’s the Answer?

Twenty-seven school mass shootings in 2022, so far. That would be a horrible number if we were talking about the entire history of the world, but that is just the first half of 2022. When is enough going to be enough and when do we address the issue head on with substantial legislation? Is legislation the answer? Is gun control or gun banning the answer? Are increased background checks with mental health flags raised the answer? Does reducing gun magazine capacity accomplish anything? Is there actually anything that can stop this?

In 2021, for the first time, more children died by a gun than vehicle. We’re not halfway through 2022 and we already have twenty-seven school mass shootings. Did you know three years before the Columbine shooting in Colorado, there was a school mass shooting in Dunblane Scotland where a lone gunman, armed with several handguns, fired 105 rounds and killed 16 children and injured 17 before killing himself? What was interesting is what happened following this and is largely attributed to why there are no further reported mass school shootings in England to date. Prior to that day in 1996, there was another mass shooting in Britain in 1987 and within a year Parliament passed a law banning assault style rifles. Although they tried to also ban handguns, that legislation didn’t pass allowing for the tragedy in 1996 to occur. But in 1997, they did, amidst a lot of controversy, pass legislation to ban all handguns that went further in scope than then Conservative Prime Minister John Major had proposed. Interesting, a conservative lead law change that banned assault rifles and all handguns in a country. The expectation was that 160,000 handguns would have to be turned in. That number seems strangely low as I would assume that number to be in the millions for Americans. The resistance was at very high levels for these laws to include Prince Phillip who had used an analogy of someone going into a school with a cricket bat and killing 17 people. Then asking if they’d be banning cricket bats? This analogy is something we are all familiar with as the NRA sponsored and endorsed number one answer in response to bans in America.  

I am a gun owner, a responsible gun owner, but what does that mean? I keep my guns and ammunition locked in a big gun safe that actually sees more time as a document storage than me utilizing any of my guns. In fact, I think the last time I shot any of my guns or shotguns, was at least four years ago. I love my guns! They represent a freedom not shared by many countries. But I also think our founding fathers never considered that weapons of today would have been possible. Guns were a source for hunting and fending for yourself during a time when matters had to be handled personally. We were an expanding nation taking lands away from current residents that put up resistance to losing something we wanted to take from them. My guns represent a legacy passed down with pride from a grandfather to son to grandson. A tradition I would still like to see occur. But will it, or should it? I don’t have any assault style weapons and frankly, I’m not an advocate of ownership. I find little purpose for them and am an advocate for their removal. However, I’ve never seen any proposals that were inclusive of all rifles that have the same capability and therefore have some reluctance to the effectiveness. For instance, I’ve never seen a Ruger Ranch Rifle included on a list of a ban gun proposal. Why? It’s a .223 round, same as the AR-15, is semi-automatic and can be bump fired and altered for automatic. But because it doesn’t look like an assault rifle it is never included. Instead, it looks like something you’d see hanging in the back window of grandpa’s ranch truck used for killing coyotes or any other wild animal that would kill and eat livestock. I would struggle with the idea of losing my handguns unless we were only talking about the clip or magazine feed handguns. There is also a banter about revolvers versus pistols, but they are both handguns. To me, they are one and the same and I suppose in Britain it included both. Some people get pretty fast at reloading a revolver with pre-loaded speed loaders. Although bulky, I would suspect for someone well practiced, there could be as much destruction violated onto others. Auto loaders, double-action, single-action are all different and capacity of rounds is certainly a differing factor. Most revolvers are six round capacity or maybe seven in some older .22 revolvers. But for semi-automatic pistols the capacity seems to be only controlled by the imagination and weight. I have one that came with a seventeen-round magazine. That’s not aftermarket, that was the factory supplied clip. I suspect, other than the loss of the money paid for these weapons, as a law-abiding citizen, I would relinquish my handgun ownership. Being allowed to keep my hunting style rifles and shotguns mean the most to me and frankly as far as sporting goes, I really have only been a bird hunter most of my life and would be what I would do in the future. Going to a gun range has become less appealing and unless Jen let me buy ten to twenty acres where I could take the camper, relax, set up berms, and enjoy sport shooting for a few hours at a time, I would find it hard to go to a place I have to pay to shoot.

Another thing in the more recent mass shootings is the body armor being worn. Why are we selling body armor on the open market? There is only one purpose for it and it should be reserved for professional law enforcement or military. It serves no relevant need for the common citizen and just allows the intensification of the gunman, allowing them to kill more rampant and harder to stop when the police arrive. Something needs to be done about this problem too.

Mental health is obviously something that has been gaining attention in America. It is almost becoming fashionable to identify yourself as someone that has issues. This dilutes the real problem of course and only provides ammunition to the gun rights advocates. I have one family member that receives a disability from the military for the rest of their life for a military related mental health issue. This person is an avid gun owner. I’ve never seen any reason to question their ownership, but I’m sure it would raise some eyebrows based on the issues they have. Because of the widely accepted practice and the fad-of-the-week attitude toward mental health, this will be a huge challenge to hone in on any legislation that will be legitimate and affectual. In fact, I suspect it would drive mental health back into the closet and we would lose years of positive work to make it ok to come forward and get help without recourse. Gun laws directed at those with mental health and the identification of it in some background check would be recourse.

So, what is the answer? We’ve seen places like Australia and New Zealand that have banned all firearms. Many say the crime as not been deterred, but I’m not sure what website or fact-checking sites they are going too. Everything I can find has surely been a reduction in crime and in Britain’s case, by only targeting assault rifles and handguns, they at least stopped the crime that most of us are extremely appalled by, the mass shooting. Britain, hasn’t stopped armed crime, but it was reduced and they have not had a mass shooting, or at least a school mass shooting since 1996. Now they have had more bombings for sure.  I suppose I would have to lean towards results over the last twenty-six years and side with the gun control advocates. But with reservations and with keen interest of not losing the sport shooting aspect in America. Even if not for me, this is a huge industry involved around sporting, hunting, and conservation. There just needs to be affectual change in implementation of laws that removes the weapons that have become more extreme in this growing extremist societal America. We need to red flag those with mental health issues, but somehow be sensitive to the patient-doctor relationship laws. A huge hurdle! With the grassroots worries of give an inch, give up a mile attitude towards gun laws and the screaming for injustice by the parents that are now victims, along with their dead child, it is very hard to find where the middle ground would be and where the common-sense approach is. Surely, it is somewhere there in all the minutiae? We first have to look at the common good to us all. There will be give and take on both sides, something that has been lost in the last twenty years of our ever-increasing polarized society. We have to stop caring more about what I’m going to lose personally instead of what I will gain in my graciousness. We have to understand that the original 10 Bill of Rights Amendments to the Constitution have an additional 17 that came about due to an evolving society. We have adapted over time based on needs of the country and what prevents us from utilizing the same arguments or changing any amendment? A woman’s right to choose is protected by the 14^th Amendment. Yet we are facing a change to that. So why can’t we amend the 2^nd Amendment to more clearly define what it truly means and protects once and for all? It’s because this country is illogical. We can stand on a soap box and say that a previously decided protection to one amendment can be changed and with the same breath and a straight face say there is no way possible to change an amendment that I want to protect. What’s the old saying about having your cake and eating it too? You can’t. Well maybe you can if you are on the right side and by the right side, I don’t mean the side of justice, I mean it politically.