Gun Violence: What Can We Do?

One of the most frustrating aspects of living in our world today is the rise of gun violence.  Over the course of the past few years, we've seen rising incidents of the use of guns in every crime from common burglaries to gang wars to mass shootings and everything in between.  Guns are everywhere be they hand guns, rifles, or shotguns.

Of course, the mass shootings get most of the publicity.  It's usually some nutcase who snaps and takes out a bunch of people, and in the worst case kids, at a place that is a vulnerable target.  When this happens the outcries for taking some action against guns reaches a fever pitch.  And almost everyone can relate.  I mean, no one wants to see innocent people gunned down for no reason.

As is usually the case, there are other issues we're not being told about.  Even though the media doesn't cover it very much there is a crises in our inner cities regarding people being killed by hand guns.  Chicago gets some attention but it is happening all over.  But a hand gun is a harder target and are not as ominous looking as a rifle that, especially an AR-15.  So that is low hanging fruit and what the nut cases use, so that is what they are targeting.  And that is what this post is all about.

I've been thinking about all the solutions that have been put forth.  You've seen them.  Confiscate "assault rifles" (even though an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle) is not an assault rifle.  Tighten background checks and make them more comprehensive.  Apply background checks to every gun sale, not just commercial ones.  Require gun safes or trigger locks across the board.  Pass "red flag" laws that will try to identify the nut cases who might commit a mass killing, make sure they don't have guns and get them help. I'm sure there are others but those are the most prominent that you hear the most about.

I really thought that this time there might be some movement on implementing some of these things.  For me, I think there are probably some good ideas amongst all that have been put forward.  I believe in the 2nd Amendment, but I also think we could do some common sense things that would make it either more difficult or less likely that the crazies would commit mass murder.  There are zealots on both sides that will fight against it but I sensed that there was some wiggle room to have conversations that would result in something that we at least point to that our government was doing to try and attack the problem.

That was until Beto came out as an unhinged asshole.  I sorta always knew he was an asshole, but his latest rant against the AR-15 is beyond belief.  Have you heard him.  He has said over and over since the El Paso shootings, that the government should confiscate people's AR-15s.  And just like that...Beto the golden boy single-handedly torpedoed any chance at reasonable gun regulations that have been discussed at the highest levels. They just flew out the window.  Simply put, gun owners are very suspicious of liberals who want to work on gun control.  They think it's a smoke screen for gun confiscation.  And Beto just came out and proved them right.  I don't see any way that any significant faction of the gun rights groups would remotely agree to compromise while this guy is running around threatening AR-15 confiscation.  Now you might just say what's the big deal, he's just one guy.  No.  He's a candidate for the Presidency.  No matter how small the chance that he'll prevail is, they won't take a chance.  Neither will Trump.  Neither will McConnell.  Neither will a growing list of Republicans.  So if you want to blame someone, blame Beto.  So it's dead.  Sorry.  We'll just have to wait until he either fades back to a bartender job where he belongs or the next mass shooting whips up more outrage.  Of course, the next liberal genius who rants about gun confiscation can do an equally good job of torpedoing it.

For me, it's pretty simple.  First, it's not about the guns.  It's about the people.  So I was thinking about the model we have right in front of us regarding what to do if there is a threat.  How do we handle it?  If you go back to the early days of this country (and really it has been applied since civilization began) and look at how to protect decent, law abiding people from nut cases, it's really pretty simple.  Ready?  Here it is.  Create a safe haven and eliminate the threat.  Let me say that again.  Create a safe haven and eliminate the threat.  So what did we do back in the days of westward expansion.  When Americans were pushing west they faced a threat.  What did they do?  They created safe havens, otherwise known as forts.  They used forts as a place to organize and provide for settlers and people moving West.  The other thing they did was went after the threat.  There are some really ugly stories of what some Americans did to eliminate the threat of Indians.  One argument is that it was overdone, that it was genocide.   The purpose of this post is not to delve into treatment of Indians in the 19th Century but rather to identify a methodology needed to protect people.  Eliminate the threat.

So how does this have to do with today.  First, we must bite the bullet and fund the hardening of our schools, churches, malls and other targets of interest for the nut cases.  It's not cheap.  It's not easy.  But we have to do it.  There are a lot of technologies out there that would significantly decrease the chances of success of some crazy dude (and most of them are guys) with a rifle who wants to do harm to others.  Second, we need to eliminate the threat.  Here's where I'm in agreement with "red flag laws".  We need to identify mentally ill people and get them off the street.  We need to have a concerted effort to make sure someone who shouldn't have a gun, doesn't have a gun.  So we need education, the will to do it, and infrastructure to accommodate it.

All this would be expensive.  But it seems to me that it's a fundamental duty of government to protect the populace.  Or at least try to.  I know that protecting targets is happening in a lot of places and it is effective.  But we need much, much more attention to it.  The place we fall down is in eliminating the threat.  If we weren't failing at this, we wouldn't keep seeing these horrific incidents.  So this requires a lot more attention.  I know there will be rights activists who will scream bloody murder.  But we've got to figure out how to push through that.  And it can be done.  We just need to have the will to do it.