Since, according to Mike Huckabee (former Republican Governor of Arkansas, 2008 Republican Presidential hopeful, and current Fox News Channel talk show host), we don’t have a gun problem in this country, but a “sin problem”, I wanted to report on a few sins that have happened recently.
On December 14, 2012, a 20-year-old male killed 6 adults and 20 children at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. Before driving to the school, the male shot and killed his mother at their home. After killing the adults and children at the school, the male shot and killed himself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_shooting
Three days prior to this, an adult male went to the food court in a Portland, OR mall and opened fire, killing two people and seriously injuring another. He then shot and killed himself.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/11/15849093-two-people-shot-to-death-at-mall-in-suburban-portland-oregon-gunman-also-dies?lite
Less than one month after the shootings in Newtown, on January 10, 2013, two people were injured in a shooting at Taft High School in Taft, California. The shooter is in custody.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/10/taft-high-school-shooting_n_2449261.html
The Affordable Healthcare Act, aka Obamacare, has a provision in it protecting 2nd amendment rights. Title X, starting on page 2,037, line 23, outlines that wellness and prevention programs may not require the disclosure or collection of information relating to the presence or storage of a lawfully possessed firearm or the use of a firearm. In other words, if I’m depressed and homicidal with intent to kill people with my guns, and my wife is concerned about me and takes me to the hospital, the nurse can ask me if I’m depressed, and when I say yes, the nurse can ask me if I’m homicidal, and I can say yes, but at that point the nurse or doctor cannot ask me if I have the means to harm anyone, including myself, with a firearm or any weapon. If I decide to volunteer that information to the nurse or doctor, the next provision of Obamacare states that the nurse or doctor cannot record or collect the data related to owning or using a firearm. If I’m successfully treated at the hospital, and I seek therapy, the next provision of the Protection of 2nd Amendment Rights detailed in Obamacare says that my counselor cannot write down that I have guns or ammunition, even though that might be helpful to know for my treatment, as my arsenal is pretty big. The fourth provision limits the ability to determine rates or eligibility for health insurance based on gun ownership, even though insurance will be guaranteed. Just so you understand what that means: your insurance rates go down if you have automatic seatbelts in your car, your insurance rates go down if you have a history of safe driving without tickets—your insurance company, essentially, rewards you for being safe… and does nothing if you own a weapon. And the last provision of Obamacare related to guns states that I don’t have to tell any medical professional that I own a gun even if asked.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolynmcclanahan/2012/07/23/gun-owner-rights-and-obamacare-yes-it-is-in-the-law/
I mention all of that to mention this. Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the NRA, blamed the news media for focusing on the wrong issue—guns—rather than violent video games and the nation’s mental health care programs following the shootings in Newtown, CT. LaPierre states that there is no “active national database of the mentally ill.” LaPierre is also known to say “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/12/21/167785169/live-blog-nra-news-conference
If we are to believe Wayne, he’s suggesting that gun violence is the product of poor mental health, and those with mental health problems are “bad guys” who need to be stopped by being shot by people without any mental health problems. It’s a shame that individuals who are currently trying to get treatment for mental health issues would be painted as “bad guys” simply because they have issues, diseases, sicknesses, and other health concerns. Personally, I think the simple act of wanting to shoot a human would be a strong indicator of a mental health problem. So let’s focus on mental health, then, and say that the only people who will be allowed to have access to firearms are people without mental health problems. I’m pretty okay with that, seeing as the folks who want assault weapons and large capacity magazines because the government is going to come and take away their freedoms are currently suffering from paranoid psychoses and probable schizophrenia. And, as we’ve seen, the NRA doesn’t really want to provide helpful solutions to our healthcare system, and certainly doesn’t want to be mentioned in any way to any healthcare professional. So we can add Not Caring About Your Mental Health to the ever growing list of things the NRA doesn’t want you to think about. So, ultimately, the NRA doesn’t want to help you with your mental health concerns, doesn’t want to limit access to guns, and, in fact, wants to put more guns in the world… without regulations of any kind.
And then you get those who talk about how there are more fatal car accidents every year than there are gun accidents, but you don’t see people getting rid of all the cars. No, you don’t see people getting rid of all the cars. But you do see people being strictly licensed to use cars, a huge, often prohibitive, price on owning a car, regulations about how cars are made and used, laws about the way in which you can use cars around others and in private, and an entire industry built around maintaining a quantitative standard of safety about those cars. So that industry has lots and lots of controls on it. And that industry is not making a weapon. It’s making a vehicle. The purpose of a vehicle is to transport an individual or cargo from one place to another. The purpose of a weapon is to harm individuals. So being harmed by a vehicle is an accident. Being harmed by a weapon is its job.
Or maybe we should focus on the individuals that insist that our government will take away our freedom and liberty, just like Stalin and Hitler, if they are allowed to regulate our guns. What isn’t said in this argument is that, individuals who believe this, believe the only reason their government—sworn into contract through a constitution created to build a more perfect union—hasn’t imprisoned all of is because some of us have pistols. And, therefore, the government is powerless to make us all prisoners of war in some kind of hostile takeover. There is no evidence that our government has any desire to do this. And to not trust the institutions and individuals tasked with our protection requires a level of paranoia that would prohibit gun ownership, if Wayne LaPierre gets what he’s asking for (which he doesn’t really want).
And so, to return to Mike Huckabee’s “sin problem”, I believe the sin we are committing is that we currently have legal and easy access to guns of all kinds, almost without restriction, in a nation where the people who are most outspoken about how we cannot put any restrictions on guns or ammunition are also the most outspoken about preventing medical help for those who might have access to these weapons, putting all of us in danger, and then try to sideline productive conversation about the issues with smoke screens.
Sounds like the New Big Tobacco.
A man walks into a school with a gun. He then uses that gun to kill children.
A man walks into a school with Grand Theft Auto and a Marilyn Manson CD. Nobody gets shot with a gun.
Simple.
It’s time to do something more than nothing.
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