Gun Control Advocates Fail to Attack the Problem

Murder takes place in the United States daily. This is nothing new and often times, unless it happens in your neighborhood, it goes unnoticed. There is an endless list of weapons of choice or whatever the murderer can get their hands on, to commit the crime. What might that list look like?

Automobile – continually we here about an angry person driving their car into a crowd or through a store window front. One of the more prominent cases was the woman who ran her husband over in their driveway – more than once.

Golf club – This is not a new instrument used to inflict harm and death on an individual. Often the news is filled with stories of death caused by blunt force trauma from a golf club. Which brings us to:

Baseball bat – Another weapon of choice for the murderer.

Butcher knife – A popular weapon that litters the kitchen counter tops of every kitchen in America. There are blocks that hold a variety of knives – big and small. Many cabinet drawers are filled with a huge assortment of knives. Add to this list very similar items like, hunting knives, machettes, axes, chainsaws, etc.

Wine bottle – We see this one on TV all the time, where the perp busts a bottle on the head of the victim or they break the bottle and then use the sharp edges of the broken glass to slice and dice their opponent to death.

These are but only a few of the creative ways a would-be murderer may choose to dispatch a victim. More times than not anger is the root of the problem not the weapon they grab. The most heinous of murders is the premeditated ones.

It is easy in our attempt to grasp the meaning of senseless murder, to blame anything and everything. One thing Americans do best is blame the weapon. In response to a murder that can reach deep into the emotions of many, we often run to the lawmakers and demand that they “pass a law”. This makes us feel better and we begin a process in our minds that helps us to deal with the grief by convincing ourselves that a new law will stop the senseless violence. If only it did.

I pulled this bit of information from an article I found this morning in the Epoch Times. The article is about another politician’s attempt at controlling guns to stop violence instead of addressing the real issue. Here’s what was written.

City Council Member David Yassky and gun control advocates say the shootings are just further evidence that gun dealers and gun manufacturers, who are often out of state, need to be held accountable for selling guns that end up being used to injure or kill innocent people.

“Whenever there’s a shooting, there’s almost always two people who are responsible, the one with the gun and the one who sold him the gun,” said Yassky, a Democrat representing Brooklyn, at a City Hall press conference on April 9.

Yassky has authored a bill that would direct the city to fine any member of the gun industry—in New York City or out of state—$100,000 for each violation of a code of conduct designed to protect New Yorkers from illegal firearms.

In all honesty, what will this accomplish? Yes, it is easy to get your hands on a gun whether you are a law abiding good person or a slithering, madman convicted felon. If a gun dealer is illegally selling guns, they need to be stopped. People like Yassky and Mayor Bloomberg think that the way to stop the illegal sale of guns by gun dealers is to go after the gun manufacturer. Think about this for a moment.

Let’s use the same reasoning and apply it to my list of murder weapons above. A man walks into a local pro shop and buys a set of Calloway golf clubs. Two years later, for whatever the reasons, he either in rage or premeditation, uses his pitching wedge to murder his next door neighbor. Do we blame and put half of the responsibility back on the owner of the pro shop or cleck who sold him the clubs? Or, do we go after Calloway for manufacturing something that could potentially kill somebody? Of course we don’t.

What about kitchen knives, baseball bats, automobiles, wine bottles, axes, chainsaws, machettes? These have been used to kill people. The automobile has been used more in the causes of death than perhaps anything else but do we hold the dealership or the maker of the car responsible?

So why are people picking on guns? There are several reasons, some of which are driven by fear and misunderstanding and let’s not forget the psychology behind those who just want to control everything. This is too complex to cover in one editorial.

Murder in this country isn’t a gun rights issue. When someone decides they are going to kill someone, there’s not much any of us are going to be able to do to stop them. We can’t systematically remove all potential weapons from our society. It would be impossible to do. The impulse murderer will grab whatever is in front of them.

Punishing people for things we have no control over is foolishness. These same types who insist that everyone else in the world is wrong and they are right are the same ones who want to blame fast food restaurants for being fat, they blame the manufacturers of cigarettes because they have lung cancer, the list goes on.

Americans have for a long time approached social problems by avoiding going after the root of the problem and attempting to somehow resolve issues by making laws and/or blaming someone else. We need to stop this senselessness, get criminals off the street, enforce the laws we have and stop blaming others.

Tom Remington