Happy Valentines Day my fellow Observers. With the holiday in mind, I've decided to address a subject to keep within the spirit of the day. Something that Americans have had a love affair with since the mid 19th century. Something that used to be looked upon as a necessary tool for everyday survival and has been transformed in the modern day as a hobby of infatuation more or less. Something that even if you don't love it, you love to hate it. Something that some Americans love almost as much as their money. Of course, I'm talking about guns.
Now I know some of you are asking why I've chosen to write about guns on Valentines Day. Well, I'm simply keeping up with the true tradition of the holiday. This day that we celebrate with flowers, candy, red hearts, notes of love and romance is actually a day that was set aside by the Catholics to remember the three part execution (beating, stoning and decapitation) of a roman priest named Valentine. Arrested by emperor Claudius in 269 AD for performing illegal marriages in the name of god and love. He was judged, tortured and eventually executed. OK, so I get the love and romance.... where does the flower part fit in? Even though this should be quite enough for the average person to question why they are pledging their admiration for another on such a day, lets not forget Lovers Lane, the infamous St. Valentines Day Massacre, My Bloody Valentine and Lovers Leap. Such wonderful stories of love and romance. How about that heart shaped box of candy now, huh? Keeping all this in mind I'm sure you'll agree that the subject of guns is really not that far of a stretch. And since someone else set the groundwork for me almost 1800 years ago, I just couldn't resist filling in the rose colored blanks. (No pun intended..... well, maybe a little one.)
To start us off, my loyal reader, I have to tell you that even though I do not own one or for that matter want to own one I am not, repeat, AM NOT, against owning guns. If you want a gun, want to collect guns or amass a small arsenal that's fine by me. If taking a loaded pistol into the shower with you fills your magazine, who am I to question or deny anyone's happiness? On the other hand I do believe that some laws must be in place in order to maintain a certain amount of protection for all those involved. Which is by the way.... everyone, gun owner or not. However, these laws also have to be within the boundaries of what can realistically be controlled. Here in lies what appears to be a perfect argument with plenty of ammunition on both sides. (couldn't resist) Gun enthusiasts claim there are too many laws and restrictions. Gun control activists claim there are not enough. I have to say truthfully that I do not agree with either sides position. What is clear, is that both sides have taken their arguments so far off point that they can't look at them in a rational light. Two extreme points of view with reality lying probably somewhere in the middle. So lets take a good look at both arguments and try to rationalize the actual facts. In respect to fairness, I'll flip a coin to see who will go first. Heads pro guns, tails con guns....... and it's..... Heads.... Gun nuts go first.
I think my biggest problem with the pro gun philosophy is that for some reason most of them think that the government is trying to take away their guns. Pssst.... I'll let you in on a little secret, Sergeant Fury. The government is not going to take away your guns and the reason is very simple. They don't want them. Not only do they not want them, they don't need them. They have plenty of their own if you haven't noticed and they are a lot bigger than yours. Now you can drag out the Second Amendment argument, if you really want to and I'll concede the point that you indeed have the right to own a gun, but the reason behind this amendment in the first place has been outdated by say..... 175 years or so. The Second Amendment was implemented so that the citizens of this nation would have the means to protect themselves from a tyrannical government. Since democracy was a great experiment, no one knew if it could be achieved without corruption. Hence the Second Amendment. Made sense in 1791, not so much in 2015. It was written in a time of ball and musket weapons and that was all the citizens and the military had. Has any one noticed the new toys our military has now? Can any one honestly believe that any type of civilian uprising would have any remote chance of victory over today's modern military? On that note, I've constantly heard the argument that our own military would have some reservations firing on it's own citizens. Fair enough. I'll be generous and say that 80% of our military might not fight us and that's optimistic at best. The problem is that the remaining 20% that will engage their own countrymen have tanks, planes, ships, bombs, missiles and no moral conscience. Unless the 80% that do join us against the government bring along some of those goodies with them, we're pretty much constitutional toast. And if you actually believe that our government or military would not fire on it's citizens just ask the students at Kent University, The Weavers at Ruby Ridge or the Branch Davidians at Waco to chime in.... Oh wait... They can't..... They're dead. This whole point of argument is horse and buggy thinking and is well beyond the issue of the right as it was written and intended for the time. Just admit to yourselves and others that you simply just want a gun and lets move on, shall we?
Next up, home protection. I hear this one over and over again. I need a gun and or guns and or a small cache of weapons buried in a bunker under my floorboards to protect what's mine. Why? In reality, what good are they? Statistics vary but my research averages out to almost 85% of all burglaries in this country happen when people are not at home. It's so easy for the bad guys now a days with social media, don't you think? Look at our new 60" plasma TV everybody and by the way, we'll be out of town till next Wednesday. TTYL:) #Stupididiot. And if they do break in while your home and your gun is upstairs, in a safe or a lockbox, the chances of you getting to it in time are nominal at best. More often than not when burglaries happen while someone is home it's usually because 1. You have something they want (like a lot of guns) and 2. They need you to be there (like to open a safe that has a lot of guns inside it.). Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to post pictures of your entire collection on Facebook last Tuesday after all.
We could get into other issues about assault weapon bans, armor piercing bullets, limited magazines, full automatic weapon conversion kits, bazookas, anti-aircraft guns or the mentality that *"a man is only as big as the piece that he carries" but we'd just be rehashing the first two subjects using different sub categories. I will make a point about people who are against waiting periods though. If your the type of person that can't wait 7 days to purchase a handgun, your exactly the kind of person that should wait at least that long before you get one. Oh, and if you'll allow me to make one more Observation before I move on, as far as I'm concerned, any adult that hands a child under the age of 13 any weapon larger than an Official Red Ryder Carbine Action Two Hundred Shot Range Air Rifle deserves to get shot. Mr. or Mrs. "I'm teaching my child respect for the weapon." Great idea, genius! I suppose your children can keep telling themselves that while your taking your dirt nap for the rest of their lives or at best case scenario, refilling your feeding tube. By and large the point is if you want a gun, buy a gun and or guns, join the NRA, start a militia, pray to Charlton Heston, Chris Kyle or Clint Eastwood till your full rapid fire hearts content and stop spouting off on every tweet, post, picture and editorial your right to have one. Pack up your soapbox and put it away, please. It's getting old, I'm tired of hearing about it and seeing it all over the internet.
Now that the marksmen of this country have me in their proverbial sites, lets roll out the next batch of nutter butters, gun control advocates. I think the first thing these people need to understand, in order to make the goals of they're cause a little more realistic, is the fact that the government is not going to take away anyone's guns. Sounds a little familiar, doesn't it? Maybe these two groups have more in common than they think.
For the sake of argument, I'm sure that we all can agree that the primary reason for all the outcries for gun law reform has to be the recent mass shootings. Incidents like the ones in Aurora, CO and Sandy Hook, CT defiantly sparked the gun control flame as of late. What everyone seems to be forgetting is that these occurrences are nothing new. As callous as that may sound, it's the cold, hard truth. This type of violence has not just ensued in recent history and they are by no means rare.
April 16th 2007 Virgina Tech, Seung-Hui Cho kills 32
March 21st 2005 Red Lake High School, Jeff Wiese kills 9
April 20th 1999 Columbine High School, Eric Harris and Dylan Kiebold kill 13
September 25th 1982 Wilkes-Barr, PA, George Banks kills 13
August 1st 1966 University of Texas, Charles Whitman kills 18
September 5th 1949 Camden, NJ, Howard Unruh kills 13
The list unfortunately goes on and on and on. Incidents of mass shootings have been traced back to the late 1800's. And lets not forget the massacres of Native Americans as the people of this country and their government were stretching their legs and moving west. Guns had a little something to do with those acts too. Please don't misunderstand me. I feel for each and every person who has lost someone to this type of violence. But as you can see by the list above (and these are just a few of many) these kinds of acts have been going on for a long, long time. Interestingly enough, in the last century after each and every one of the fore mentioned incidents activists called upon local and federal governments for gun law reform and after every call to action the lawmakers complied to the wishes of the people and implemented new or reformed laws. Every single time. As far as I'm concerned, all this did was show us that time and time again laws are only effective when people uphold them and do absolutely no good against people who would break them. No gun law to date has ever been directly responsible for the prevention of one of these types of incidents. So why do we want them so bad? At best, laws that result from the rage against gun violence are instated to make us feel better about the situation. Make us feel like we've accomplished change for the better when in reality we've changed nothing. They give us a reason not to seek vengeance or private justice because we are better than the people who broke our laws to begin with. Exercises in futility along with the little lies we continually tell ourselves to keep us from screaming into our pillows at night. For those of you that still believe that new gun laws or reform are effective courses of action, consider this: From 1982 through 2012 out of the 143 weapons that were used in mass shootings, nearly 80% of them were obtained legally. Results for the last two years is still uncertain, but judging by the history above, I'm pretty confident in stating that little to no change will be the end result.
In my opinion some, of these initiatives actually create crime. The police offering gift cards in exchange for guns with no questions asked comes to mind. Are these people serious? Who thought this was a good idea? All over the news showing what good these programs are doing. Yeah, right. Hey Jimmy! Lets go steal some guns and turn them in to our local police (no questions asked) so we can shop at Walmart. And the cops on TV showing us how many guns they've taken off the streets. Problem is, you morons, is that they were never on the streets in the first place. They came from that tricky break in at the Johnson's last week that you just can't seem to solve, Sherlock. In the meantime you just gave the perpetrators a shopping spree at Walgreens. Nice going you mental giants, keep up the good work.
On a side note, another thing that puzzles me is that after every single one of these mass shootings I hear the question "Why?" repeatedly asked in Nancy Kerrigan record skipping fashion. "Why did he or she do it?" "Why would someone do that?" Let me tell you something...I could care less "Why" they did what they did. Knowing why some whack job murdered twenty children will not bring them back, give the rest of us any "closure" (I hate that word) or make any sense to a rational thinking person anyway. So why do we want to know? Outside of morbid curiosity, the information would be useless. The only "Why?" that I want answered is "Why" these fruitcakes weren't corralled early on when they were out in the backyard killing the neighbor's cat. "Why" can't someone answer that "Why" for me?
The reality is that these mass shootings occurred in spite of laws that were created and put in place to prevent them. I further submit that creating new laws or the modification of any current law will not prevent them in the future either. They are a part of our society as much as the guns are. It's a sad morbid reality that we all have to accept like it or not.
No matter which side your on pro, con or neutral the fact remains that guns exist. They are an integrated part of our society. How we choose to use them is the key to understanding the problems we face with them. It's not the weapons that we need to fear, it's the people who wield them. The cause of most gun related deaths is irresponsibility and we as a society, where guns are common place, have become complacent in their use. Within the arguments of ownership and control we've lost respect for the weapons themselves. We create rules to make it harder for people to buy weapons and some continually find ways to circumvent those rules to acquire them. Like children who have been said "no" to by their parents the guns or the laws themselves are no longer the issues. The desire to have something we are told we can't have overrides common sense and we will go to whatever lengths necessary to obtain it while not having the proper discipline in it's use. Strictly an Observation. If you'll excuse me, I have some Valentines to fill out.
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*Joseph Celello III, 2015
