From My Cold Dead Hands!

How dare some politician or a government bureaucrat tell me I can't have a surface to air missle!  You know, for duck hunting... 

Of course I'm kidding.  I don't duck hunt.

I see on the news that the gun control legislation in the U.S. Senate has passed cloiture so now our illustrious politicians can do their job:  vote and debate a bill before the body.  It still chaps my ass that it takes 60 votes to get anything moving in the Senate, you know, just as the Constitution lays out.

So finally after a lot of back and forth since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting on December 14th of last year, something is going to be done about gun violence in our country!  If anything meaningful comes out of the tragedy it'll hairlip the Pope.  It looks like the best liberals can hope for is some kind of universal background checks on the purchase of firearms.  And that's about it, unfortunately.  I guess it's a brave start considering that only a paltry 90% of American agree with such legislation.  How brave our elected leaders in the Senate are!  I do, however, agree with some conservatives that there should be limits to background checks.  If you're put on a list for mental reasons, are you on that list for the rest of your life?  Is it really necessary to do a background check on your uncle Fred when selling him your shotgun?  These are issues that should and probably will be addressed and I'm okay with that.

So universal background checks are probably going to pass, at least in the Senate.  There's not telling what the House will do.  So what else do gun control advocates want?  A limit to the capacity of bullets that can be held in a firearm you say?  Unfortunately, it looks like that sort of legislation is DOA, at least, according the all the talking heads on FOX, FOX LITE (CNN), and MSNBC.  Why?  Why would a law abiding citizen, hunter, whatever, be opposed to how many bullets they can queeze off from their firearm within a given amount of time?  Is it possible that if the shooter in Connecticut or Colorado had to reload his magazine that maybe a few extra lives would have been saved?  Again, I believe this kind of restriction is supported by a majority in our country.  I guess it just hasn't hit that magical 90% approval rate yet.

A ban on assult type weapons?  Most assuredly DOA, if it even gets a vote.  In all honesty I don't really have a dog in this fight.  But I'm so tired of hearing redneck goobers bitch about the government wanting to take away their guns.  I think everyone is debating gun CONTROL not gun CONFISCATION.  My understanding is that a ban on assult type weapons would mean you couldn't buy them, not that you couldn't already own them.  Still I would like the Senate to at least vote on this issue.  You know, once again, just aking them to to their job:  debate and vote.

I have a couple more ideas that Congress should consider when talking about gun control:

 I like Chris Rock's thoughts on the price of bullets.  Tax the hell out of them.  If a bullet costs 500 dollars people may think twice about what they use them for or some nut job may be priced out of the market.  Of course nothing like this would ever happen, nor should it probably happen; however, maybe a modest tax on ammunition could help fund all these armed guards that the NRA wants to install into places of learning.

An Oklahoma legislator proposed that if Oklahoma teachers are required to carry firearms in public schools then the state should offer a voucher program so citizens could afford to send their children to private schools that are gun free.  I love it!  Liberals get to be a little snarky and conservatives finally get a school voucher program that they've been harping on since time immemorial in Oklahoma.

Finally just limiting who can own a firearm will not eliminate gun violence in this country.  Will it help?  I think so but there is a bigger problem to consider.  America is a violent culture in general.  How do we curb this?  I have no fucking clue.  Maybe the video game and entertainment industies could be more responsible.  But what more could be done legislatively besides a rating system, which is in place, to help parents make resonable choices for their children?  I literally have no clue but a discussion on all aspect of our culture should be had.  And liberals and conservatives should engage in this conversation instead of drawing a line in the sand and then burying their heads in the same sand, or up their asses.  It's a sad democracy when no one is heard over the yelling or through the echo chamber.

I don't like guns.  I don't want to be around them.  I know that being around a firearm increases my chances of being killed by one dramatically.  Recently I was eating at a restaurant where a d-bag in the table next to me was wearing a sidearm, and he wasn't wearing blue or brown with a little badge affixed to his chest.  I don't want to call out the restaurant but it rhymes with Old Chicago and their most popular dish rhymes with pizza.  I should have spoken to the manager about what I saw to get a clarification on their carry policy within their place of business.  I didn't.  I guess my punking out probably just adds to the overall problem...

I apologize for the winding unruliness of this posting but I would genuinely be curious what others think, even if it's something with which I don't necessarily agree.