Gun Control

I started hearing about the President’s gun control Executive Actions and I think a number of them are good.  F’instance, #11 sounds reasonable: “Hire an ATF director.”  It really would be nice to have one over at ATF. If nothing else, he could hand out desk calendars and make sure the coffee is made.  Making a DOJ report on stolen guns to local police would also be a good idea.  Why hasn’t anyone thought of that before?  But then there are some others that don’t make a lot of sense.  He wants the Center for Disease Control to study video games.  Why not FCC?  Maybe you can catch bubonic plague from a video game. At any rate, I wouldn’t be expecting anything too serious about video games—perhaps that is on purpose. I am hearing the experts on mass killings say that they are consistently the work of disturbed individuals who practice their atrocity with very violent video games and then use weaponry.  If so, why wouldn’t we consider the same thing for video games as we do for guns.  We could require registration, background checks, hefty fees and safety courses for purchase of violent video games. Actually, a realistic strategy might be to restrict certain violent video games and not let them be sold to people under 21.

            Okay, so I don’t know much about guns.  Is a potato gun a gun?  What about Obama’s #16 where Obamacare doctors will have to ask about what guns you possess?  I suppose I could tell the doc that I have several unregistered nail guns.  And the biggest one is an automatic one.  Set it on bump-fire and you can shoot nails like heck. Are you dubious that it can be used as a weapon?  My sons told about one summer they were both working on a carpenter crew and some scoundrel was sneaking between the pickup trucks at the jobsite seeing if there were any loose tools he could steal.  The boys were up on a roof and spotted him.  They had a piece of Styrofoam on the roof, used it compress the nose of the gun, then fired a series of 16d nails at the jerk.  He fled.

            But, you scoff, that doesn’t comprise a “gun” that Obama is talking about.  He means one that shoots bullets.  So then I have to ask what is the definition of an assault rifle?  When I first heard about them I thought it was A Salt Rifle, and I thought how painful to get shot with salt.  That stuff under your skin would burn for days.  No, they told me, an assault rifle has no clear definition except that it looks like a military weapon.  And some might try to define it as a weapon with a magazine larger than some size which is semi-automatic. This is what Obama wants Congress to ban.  “Then what if it’s not a rifle?  What if the barrel is smooth and it is a semi-automatic musket?”  They couldn’t answer that one but thought that would probably be outlawed too.  Or what if it’s not a gun at all but say, a semi-automatic crossbow.  I could see using an electric device to make it draw the bow again after each shot.  Well, no one could tell me how that might be covered.  Apparently, since there is no definition of assault weapons, specific marketed guns have to be outlawed and others allowed.  But what if I have a gunmaker make a custom gun which isn’t on any list?

            Am I the only one that thinks this Obama Gun Control might be hard to enforce?

            And why are we limiting ourselves to guns.  Didn’t Timothy McVeigh do more damage than some nut with a rifle?  He used fertilizer and diesel fuel.  So should we require licensing and permitting of diesel and fertilizer?  Worse, some government crime group noted this week that there were more deaths by hammers and clubs than guns.  Should we walk up to that carpenter and demand to see whether his Estwing framing hammer has an appropriate permit? (Is there open carry for  roofing hatchets?  Sledge hammers?)

            I know you think I  am being facetious.  I’m not very knowlegable about guns.  But I know some history.  I think if you will check, the reason for a 2^nd Amendment right to bear arms is not to aid deer hunters or let you protect yourself from a mugging.  It is clearly about protection against tyrants.  Why doesn’t anyone say this on TV?  Which brings me to the reason I don’t own a gun.  I have no need for a hunting rifle since I don’t hunt.  I have no need for protection because I live in a safe area.  If you ever see me purchasing a gun, start worrying about revolts.

            And since the Constitution is about limits on the federal government, what if there is a part of said Constitution that forbids the federal government from something?  Doesn’t that then make that issue the exclusive jurisdiction of the states and the people while the federal government should butt out?  So if the right to keep and bear arms is not to be infringed, doesn’t that make it entirely a matter for the states and the people?  If the federal government somehow inserts itself, isn’t that borderline tyranny? Do I need to go shopping?