Yeah, and nuclear bombs don’t kill people either, governments do that. By the logic of the NRA, Americans and Russians and the Chinese and anyone else interested in protecting their own should be building more and more nuclear bombs, not talking about disarmament, and this would include countries like Iran and North Korea, seeing as the NRA opposes background checks at gun shows (why should we limit gun ownership to only some?), which, by extension, means that Iran and North Korea should get bombs any way they can, without pesky international “background checks.”
Some of the strictest gun control laws are in countries like England and Japan. The United Kingdom has one of the lowest rates of gun homicides in the world with 0.07 recorded intentional firearm homicides committed per 100,000 inhabitants in 2009. The United States, by comparison, had a rate of intentional firearm deaths over the same period that was over 40 times higher. And Japan, where owning a gun is next to impossible? Number of deaths related to guns in 2011: 0.
It never ceases to amaze me how the NRA and so many of their Capitol Hill cronies manage to bamboozle so much of the American public into believing something that is so directly contradicted by the facts. How can anyone with a straight face argue for the necessity of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in the hands of the general public? But then again, we’re talking about the American electorate, who is getting stupider by the minute. We’re all a bunch of cows sent out to pasture to chew our mental cuds, believing anything that our higher-ups and our own prejudices tell us, even when those things have been proven to be patently false. The facts no longer matter, and when the facts no longer matter, chaos and insurrection are not far behind. The NRA will tell you (as will the wackier JPFO and GOA) that the Weimar Republic instituted gun control measures, which led to the Nazi regime. Yeah, right, and that’s why the very countries that suffered under the Nazis have some of the strictest gun control laws in the world, and have some of the lowest gun violence in the world as a result.
The Second Amendment is not sacrosanct, nor is the Constitution. Think about it: it’s called an “amendment,” defined as “a change made to a basic law or constitution.” Heard of the 18th Amendment? It was repealed by the 23rd, just like the Second Amendment should be repealed. I’m not saying that people can’t own guns. I’m just saying it should be a lot harder to do so, since you can do a lot more damage with a gun than with, say, a box cutter. Yes, yes, I know the other NRA raw about box cutters being the deadliest weapon ever used on American soil, resulting in the deaths of over 3,000 people. Last time I checked, box cutters on 9/11 were used to kill a couple of people, and what led to the deaths of so many others was metal fatigue due to high temperatures from the fuel of jet airliners that had crashed into a couple of really tall, well-populated buildings. But details, details. The fact is, we’re stricter about who can smoke cigarettes than who can own guns.
But who am I kidding? Americans are so jacked up about their rights, from the right to bear arms to the right get high, that to expect a serious national conversation anymore about the virtue of restraint is to engage in some serious wishful thinking. I know there are still some sane people left who believe as I do, but we are the minority. How many more Sandy Hooks are we going to have to suffer before this country wakes up from the nightmare of rampant and unregulated gun ownership and sees this for the travesty that it is? It’s not a whole lot different, really, from the rampant and unregulated abuse of power on Wall Street that led to our financial crisis, or the unregulated factories that spill toxins into our water for the sake of the bottom line. We are a broken people who too often act out of our own self-interests or out of the interest of our "tribe." We need restraint, which is another word for regulations, which is another word for laws. Give us enough rope and, sooner or later, we’ll either hang ourselves or hang someone else. It’s really that simple.