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WORD COUNT
599
MAY 28, 2008
GUNS ARE US – by William A. Collins
Love my gun,
I feel secure;
What a shame,
I’m immature.
Don’t worry…if the
Redcoats ever take another crack at recovering their lost colonies,
we’ll be ready. Some 35 percent of our households sport guns, more than
the total number of Brits –man, woman or child. Doesn’t that make you
feel safe? Unfortunately, though, that ancient violent era left us with
an ambiguous constitutional provision that maybe allows any
brain-disordered citizen to own a gun. And with this crazy Supreme
Court, Lord knows the odds are good for that troubling rule to stick.
Surely today’s high
security lifestyle poses special hazards for all of us, and not just
no-fly lists, false arrests, extraordinary renditions, phone-taps,
Guantanamo and the like. Our archaic gun rules allowing citizens to feel
secure also led to 29,000 deaths nationally in 2004, 173 of them in
Connecticut. We shoot each other at a world-record rate, with minorities
bearing the brunt. Some young black males feel safer in jail than on the
street, and of course as a society, we are happy to oblige.
Other nations lack
our history of musket-based uprisings, gun-toting frontier life, and
preoccupation with violent home invasions. Consequently, they permit far
fewer guns, thus vastly reducing tragedies like Columbine, Virginia
Tech, other famous massacres, and our fabled day-to-day firearm mayhem.
Sort of makes you wonder what those countries show on TV.
Anyway, in this
country ambivalence rules. Not only is the Constitution coy about the
right to own, but owners are supremely organized. And makers and dealers
in turn, support these owners financially. They advertise openly in the
paper and lobby militantly in Hartford. Meanwhile innocent folks get
shot while law-abiding gun-toters provide political cover for the crooks
and drug dealers who cruise in their wake.
Luckily, mitigating
solutions are not hard to devise. They’re just hard to pass. Even today,
a bunch of afflicted mayors is on the case of Congress, legislatures and
police departments to tighten their rules. Speedy reporting of guns
“stolen” from dealers would be a good start. So would background checks
on buyers and employees, especially at gun shows. No Ph.D. is required
to think up rules like that – just gumption. How brainy does a lawmaker
need to be to prohibit sales to buyers with a history of mental illness?
Just now, the talk
within the trade is of a high-tech proposal to make guns leave behind an
imprint on the cartridges they fire. Another gambit would require all
bullets to carry a code number to help out with tracing. Such ideas
would surely carry a big price tag and further strain police manpower.
Still, if the Big Court rules that anyone can own a gun, expensive steps
may be necessary.
But setting aside the
hardware for a moment, we ought to take a closer look at our complicit
culture. We’re a violence-prone society. Consider our movies, or video
games, or rap lyrics. Contemplate our military invasion of other
countries, or our mindless war on drugs. Remember too our
corporate–ruled economic system that is busily driving more and more
Americans into poverty.
With such fertile
soil to nurture them, young toughs may be less alien to firearms than in
other lands. Congress’ new statute outlawing sales to the mentally ill
is a reasonable response to one tragic symptom of this social
dysfunction, but it’s only a tiny start.
Battles over drug
turf are probably the biggest cause of shootings while video games help
make them more socially acceptable. Now, those are a couple of real
issues into which Congress could sink its teeth.
--
Columnist William A.
Collins is a former state representative and a former mayor of Norwalk,
Connecticut. A photo of Bill Collins is available
CLICK HERE
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