Tags
alcohol, Chicago, common sense, criminals, drunk driving, gun control, gun rights, gun violence, intelligence, law abiding
Gun ownership is a balance of being responsible and using common sense. As with all groups though, there are those that will practice neither. Even still, that is not a sufficient enough excuse to punish those that do. Besides, in areas that have illegally banned guns, the evidence is quite clear that taking away legal guns only creates more violent crime with often deadlier consequences.
Common sense and what is considered legal do not always walk hand-in-hand. It may be legal to sling an AR-15 over your shoulder and walk through a public venue, but the question you need to answer is, should you do it? Given the events of the last several years it is probably not the brightest of ideas. When you walk into a public place with an AR-15 on, everyone else is seeing you as a nut coming in to shoot the place up. No one but you knows the intent you have. Something to consider.
One question that anti-gunners repeatedly fail to address is, why are the few cities with the strongest gun control laws leading the country in firearm related deaths? Chicago is a prime example. The answer is surprising simple. Criminals do not care if they break laws, hence why they are criminals. If they are already breaking existing laws, then what magical law will force them to obey new ones? Enforcing gun control does two things: 1) it creates a new class of criminal of otherwise law-abiding people, and 2) it emboldens the criminals who now have less to fear.
One comparison that many anti-gunners love to ignore and dismiss is the apparently accepted deaths directly related to consumption of alcohol. Then again, no blames alcohol when its use causes someone’s death. The person that was drinking is the one that is held responsible.
Let’s imagine for a moment, that alcohol was looked upon the same as guns are. John Doe had a little too much to drink at his office party. Knowing it was illegal to do so, he chose to drive himself home. Along the way John speeds through a red light and plows into another vehicle. Inside the second vehicle was a husband and wife on their way home. The wife is killed instantly and the husband has suffered multiple broken bones and is otherwise badly injured.
Within hours, the news reports are broadcasting what had happened. Within days there are activists and political groups calling for a complete ban on alcohol. Anyone that has ignored the hype and went to have a drink are looked upon as deviants and murderers, despite not having drank and drive or even hurt anyone. Even the poor guy who sips on a glass of wine is branded a criminal. Stores are boycotted and threatened to force them to remove all alcohol. In the few places that still allow alcohol must enter their patron’s names into a database and force them to submit to a background check. Anyone with a mental illness diagnosis, regardless of what it is, is now banned from alcohol.
The reality is far different. The drunk driver is blamed and he alone is punished by law. No one calls for a ban or seeks to remove it from our society. This is one of those societal hypocrisies that are being forced upon us under the guise of political correctness.
Every death is tragic, yet we pick and choose what will be blamed for them. If it is a gun, it is the gun’s fault. Any other cause is typically blamed how it should be. Blaming an inanimate object and punishing millions of people that have committed no crime is illegal, immoral, without principle, and not what this once great country was built on. Instead of blaming the millions that have committed no crime, and never will, focus on the reality that it is people that decide to kill people.
It is understood that people want to stand for something, but when the feel-good cause is killing far more people than it saves, what are you really accomplishing? Any weekend in Chicago can and will prove you wrong.