Sunday, September 10, 2017

SHELL GAMES AND LIES


One excuse after another is all you get when you ask why can’t something be done to stop the gun violence; why something cannot be done to prevent our schools from being turned into shooting galleries.
As noted in the previous postings, the most common excuse for inaction is we need to enforce the laws we have. That is true, we do need to enforce existing laws. But the gun advocates stop there; they don’t want any laws with a bite in them. They won’t agree to enforcing laws that hold people accountable. The bottom line is, when it comes to guns, the Second Amendment people want absolutely no restrictions on gun ownership, and laws with little or no accountability.

Some gun advocates are so extreme in their laissez-faire attitudes that if you follow their line of reasoning to its ultimate conclusion, they would end up defending Adam Lanza’s right to own as many guns as he wanted.

Second Amendment

Second Amendment advocates engage in a variety of word and phrase shell games. The most common game centers on the argument that guns don’t kill, people do. Of course guns don’t kill; they are inanimate objects. Inanimate objects only kill in people’s hands—that is the point. 


Keeping guns out of the hands of convicted felons, terrorists, people who are a threat to themselves, and others, is critical to keeping all of us safe. Yet when you suggest some sort of background check to identify these people, the gun advocates cry foul. They claim such a check would violate people’s civil rights. I never hear them talk about the civil rights of students and theatergoers who have been killed or wounded. (To be continued)

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