By Dan Wilson
Being a Canadian and living in Canada, I’m not very familiar with American gun laws. And either by ignorance influence or just plain stereotyping, I’ve always thought of members of the National Rifle Association as gun nuts, rednecks and weekend warriors.
Guns, guns, guns. Do they look like hunting rifiles to you or military-style mass killing machines?
Basically, I’ve thought of NRA members as people who love to kill others (including animals) but can’t because of the law (except animals). This is probably wrong on my part.
I’m also a peace advocate, and live my life by a simple rule: Do whatever you want, as long as it doesn’t harm others. I devote my life to ahimsa, which means kindness and non-violence to all living things (including animals), unless my life, or the lives of those around me are in mortal danger.
Pacifism, I admit, isn’t always practical, despite what Gandhi said, especially when we live in a world where people are willing to blow themselves to bits in the middle of a crowded marketplace for their god and children are mowing down other children with assault weapons. Sometimes we need to use violence to stop violence, or else, as Sam Harris so eloquently writes in his book, The End of Faith, “… a single sociopath, armed with nothing more than a knife, could exterminate a city full of pacifists.”
But I don’t think MORE guns in the hands of the public is the answer. Some have argued that deranged, would-be killers won’t go to places where there is armed opposition. But Virginia Tech (a heavily populated university campus in Blacksburg, Virginia) HAD armed guards, yet it remains the site of U.S.A.’s worst mass shooting.
Let’s say that it’s true though that armed security guards in schools would deter mass shootings. Wouldn’t potential killers just seek out other places to do maximum harm, like buses, trains, libraries, movie theaters, day-care centers, churches, water parks, summer camps, funeral homes, shopping malls, grocery stores, etc.? Is the solution to have armed guards on every street corner and in every public building in America?
If someone is sick enough to want to end their life and take as many others as they can with them, they’ll find a way to do it. The NRA’s solution to these tragedies is for all citizens to possess firearms all the time. I think that will only lead to more blood-letting – more gunfights at the O.K. Corral.
And what if the founding fathers were wrong about the Second Amendment? They were, after all, just men, and not infallible. Could they have foreseen AR-15 assault rifles in the hands of children? And is it just a coincidence that the United States has the highest rate of gun-related deaths and injuries of all developed countries?
Here are just a few of the gun-related incidents that took place this Christmas:
The two firefighters mowed down by gunfire near Rochester, New York this Christmas Eve.
- 12/24 – In town near Rochester, New York, a deranged, ex-convict kills his sister then sets fire to the house they both lived in, using a military-style rifle similar to the one used in the massacre of children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut to murder two firefighters responding to the fire, and wounding two others before apparently killing himself during a shootout with police
- 12/24 – Christmas Eve gunfire wounded a 17-year-old male outside a church in Oakland, California. Inside the church, a 38-year-old woman was struck by a stray bullet while shielding her 7-year-old twins. Gunfire elsewhere in Oakland killed a man on Christmas Day
- 12/25 – Pasadena, California sports youth leader fatally shot in drive-by shooting. Police believe he was an innocent by-stander caught between a gunman and another person who was the target
- 12/25 – Billings, Montana shooting leaves one man dead
- 12/25 – Man shot and killed by a woman while three children were in the upstairs apartment of a Grand Rapids, Michigan house
- 12/25 – 25-year-old man shot and seriously wounded in Chicago, Illinois’ northwest side
- 12/25 – Memphis, Tennessee police say a 10-year-old boy died after being accidentally shot by his father and 12-year-old brother
- 12/25 – Pregnant woman and boyfriend injured in drive-by shooting in Boynton Beach, Florida
- 12/25 – Woman killed, boyfriend shot in face in Westwood, Cincinnati shooting. Two other shootings took place earlier that day
- 12/25 – Fatal shooting Christmas night in Norristown, Pennsylvania
- 12/25 – Amarillo, Texas police are investigating a shooting that left one man dead
Should the right to bear arms come at the cost of children being slaughtered at schools and everyday citizens living in fear?
With all due respect, perhaps our neighbors to the south need to learn how to solve their problems with words instead of weapons. If not, the United States of America will continue to look and sound more like a Third World country war zone rather than the Land of the Free.
I doubt this is what the founding fathers had in mind. There has to be a better way.
Dan Wilson is a Niagara resident and longtime community activist and advocate for animals. He is also a contributor of news and commentary, including some wonderful photography, to Niagara At Large.
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The NRA contributes PAC money to both the Democrat and Republican parties however there is a big difference of where they donate their major campaign donations.
The NRA by far, donates to the republican party, in 2012 the total percentage that went to the GOP is 88%. By far the NRA -National Rifle Association is giving more donations to the republican party and are winning the battle against gun control legislation.
NRA donates more money to Republican campaigns than to the Democrat Party
There can be a time when due to public pressure the Republicans just have to say “NO” to the NRA, for the protection of innocent people, and for the own profile of being pro-gun though the work of the NRA’s lobbyists.
Republican Senator David Vitter set about to protect concealed weapon permits that allows guns across the country for those gun owners that can’t be without their guns at any time. Vitter and his co sponsor of the Respecting States Rights and Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, proposes to equalize the watering down of states rights to determine their own gun laws, and would induce states that have stricter laws to lessen restrictions.
The same law as in Florida, which gave George Zimmerman the right to carry a concealed weapon, a gun even though he had two charges of violence against him from his wife/girlfriend and a charge of violence against a police officer. George Zimmerman is charged with second degree murder of an innocent, unarmed teen, Trayvon Martin in Feburary 2012. He is released on bail awaiting a trial that will be assisted by members of the NRA to ensure he wins his case.
In Zimmerman’s case, here is a man with three formal legal charges of violence that was still allowed to carry a gun even though he was not permitted to under the Neighborhood Watch Program. Zimmerman’s case is one of where he should have been restricted to not be able to carry a gun, due to his violent background and his file that recorded these incidents in the past which were ignored.
There were also other quirky signs with George Zimmerman that should have alerted the police by the number of emergency calls he made about black persons in his neighborhood. In this instance a co-ordination between state gun licensing authorities and the police would have exposed his previous record but there is no such legal requirement and co-ordination of law enforcement.
Most of the PAC money of the NRA money going to Congress
of the $576,751 total,
88% or $509,201 went to the republicans,
12% or $67,550 went to Democrats.
Figures from Open Secrets. org
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I grew up in the States until I was 21, when I got married and moved to Canada. My U.S. was nothing like what it is today. We never locked our door…..I don’t think we even had a key. My dad had a 22 rifle, but he used it only for scaring off Starlings from attacking his garden. Schools were wide open and NO-ONE was afraid of some lunatic entering the school armed with assault weapons to mow down everyone in sight.
What has happened to my country?
I realize mental illness is a lot more prevalent than when I was a kid, and we really don’t understand the cause, nor are we making a serious effort to address and deal adequately with the serious epidemic of mental illness.
No doubt the mentally deranged contribute enormously to our staggering number of mass shootings……but until we solve our problems with mental illness, we need to restrict the numbers of firearms available….and most particularly the semi-automatic guns currently available.
Adding more guns to the mix, arming our teachers, will just intensify the problem. It won’t be long before parents will feel it necessary to arm their children (just in case) and you will have children shooting each other. God help us.
My solution is complex:
Implement gun control laws that drastically reduce the number of guns owned by citizens.
Completely outlaw citizens owning assault weapons.
Pour resources into studying and addressing mental health issues.
Debating and discouraging violent video games.
Can we bring back a kinder and gentler United States of America.
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Pat
In “OUR” Canada The Federal Conservatives repealed the Gun Registry even as “ALL” or most of the Police Chiefs and their association Canada wide stated categorically that the Registry was a valuable tool in the prevention and Yes the solving of gun related acts
It seems Julian Fantino, former Chief of the Toronto Police Force then Head honcho of the Ontario Provincial Police must have thought differently for rather recently as a Federal Conservative MP he voted for the elimination of the Registry???????
It is amazing how political aspirations takes presidence over moral values and human decency.
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Dan, what you think means nothing. What matters is evidence.
And the evidence is that gun control merely disarms the law-abiding.
Look to Mexico, Jamaica, and the UK, where private firearms ownership is banned or at least legislatively discouraged.
WHO stats indicate one is more likely to be shot in Mexico or Jamaica, where private firearms ownership is outlawed.
After the UK banned private firearms ownership, violent crime trebled, as the Brits say, and then proved to have quadrupled when it was discovered that Home Office bureaucrats had fudged the numbers.
I admit to being confounded by those who think disarming the law-abiding will not embolden criminals. The emotional-logical disconnect remains unapparent to them, as does the considerable volume of evidence.
Ask yourself Dan, why Israeli airliners aren’t hijacked?
Why are there no school shootings in Israel?
Why are island nations like Jamaica and UK so damn violent? It ought to be easy to keep guns off an island.
To change inanimate objects for a moment, why are there so many illegal drugs in maximum security prisons?
Please research Dan, like I did. If you open your brain — which requires closing emotions — you’ll discover that gun control is one of those counter-intuitive subjects… one in which what at first sounds reasonable turns out to be — thanx to human nature — TOTALLY WRONG.
Joseph, anyone who supports the former Canadian long gun registry is directly supporting crime. The Registry caused crime by providing a shopping list of stored firearms that criminals accessed hundreds of times that the RCMP knows about.
Why a handgun registry still exists is a mystery to me, except to spare the political wailing from women and wanna-be women who imagine — and I do mean imagine — carnage resulting from destruction of the database… as if a database of automobiles has ever stopped anyone from doing anything illegal, careless, or stupid with a car.
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