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Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

I Shoot, I Support Gun Control

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Yep, that’s right. Just like the Title says… “I Shoot” AND “I support Gun Control”. Not Gun Bans (though I understand the call for bans on “Assault Weapons” and I can see why people do support this – I am agnostic on them leaning towards supporting the ban), but reasonable Gun Control.

I add this so that people have some context.

Understand…. I am no pacifist. At one point I thought I was. I was wrong. I practice a very aggressive style of Martial Arts called Krav Maga. I do abhor violence for the purpose of assault or other crimes and I would NEVER initiate violence for that purpose. But I do enjoy fight sports and enjoy sparring. I think people should be fully equipped with knowledge of how to defend themselves if the need arises

.

That said… I also enjoy shooting my pistol (A Glock 17 9mm)

I enjoy shooting. There is something about it that I just really enjoy. I take classes in Israeli Tactical Point Shooting – (which has an emphasis on dealing with terror situations and not criminal assault, rounds are not chambered until the gun is actually pulled). The more I go through these classes the more I realize just how powerful a gun really is, and how it should never be taken lightly or be a weapon of “first resort”. The rhetoric coming from the NRA and hard-core supporters sickens me. In my opinion, when a gun becomes a response of “first resort”, these are the people that should absolutely NOT have guns or any deadly weapon.

So I just want people to understand when I come out in support of the gun control laws I support, that people understand I don’t want to take away peoples rights to sport shoot, hunt, or protect their family. What I do want is to regulate the availability of Guns and their destructive power.

When the horrible tragedy at Newton happened, the NRA and their supporters were out in force talking about how in Israel teachers are armed and that “They really know how to deal with Guns there.” One Paulist acquaintance, claimed he was going to move to Israel IF the Feds “came after his guns”. In response to this I wrote a diary titled: Israel to NRA and Tea Party: You have no idea what you are talking about

In that diary, I showed what were Israeli Gun Control laws, so I want to excerpt that part again:

Gun Owner Licensing

Genuine Reason Required for Firearm License:

Applicants for a gun owner’s license in Israel are required to prove genuine reason to possess a firearm, for example, self-defense, hunting and sport

Minimum Age for Firearm Possession

The minimum age for gun ownership in Israel is 27 years and 21 years if served in the military

Gun Owner Background Checks

An applicant for a firearm license in Israel must pass background checks which consider health, mental and criminal records

Gun Owner Licensing Period

In Israel gun owners must re-apply and re-qualify for their firearm license every 3 years

Licensing Records

In Israel, authorities maintain a record of individual civilians licensed to acquire, possess, sell or transfer a firearm or ammunition

Limit on Quantity, Type of Ammunition

A licensed firearm owner in Israel is permitted to possess a limited quantity of ammunition.

NOW this is gun control that I can completely support. I firmly believe in raising the age requirement for ownership, Full background checks, limited ammunition, licensing every three years (like driving in the U.S. sort of). I see no problem with any of this.

So let’s have the real argument… because from what I see, it all comes down to is that people want to keep their guns because they are afraid that our government will turn tyrannical and impose the second coming of the Third Reich, Stalinist Russia, or the Khmer Rouge.

People also have some misconception that they are going to be some heroes and valiantly stand up to whoever is oppressing them and every home is going to be “REMEMBER THE ALAMO”. Well… that is a bunch of crap. Most people (including myself and I am trained to deal with this to a small degree) would be freakin’ terrified to deal with this situation and most likely in real life say: “OK, here is my gun”.

Could this happen in the U.S.? Yeah… it could but it is highly unlikely and honestly were it to happen, how the hell some shotgun or my Glock is going to stop it? Right… they won’t.

So really, if we look at it closely, what is the gun here in most cases, but an extension of our inner desire to be tough or to not be “run over” by other people. I am not sure that is how I see it, since handling a gun does not make me feel tougher than anyone else (I am not sure I can describe how I feel but it is not “tough”), but, I do know many people who do feel as if a gun defines them (both male and female).

This is the thing… I think we need to be honest here. Why oppose any of the rules above? How do they hinder anyone from shooting, or learning to shoot? Here is another thing… If you like shooting “Assault weapons” (and I have fired M-16’s and an HK Folding Stock Automatic rifle), I say no problem.. I like shooting them as well. So here is a solution, how about there be ranges that have special licenses (like in Las Vegas) where you go and can target shoot? It’s all controlled, no guns leave the premises and you get to shoot as much as you like. Problem Solved.

Look, honestly, there can be very reasonable gun control and because guns are such powerful things they should be regulated and controlled. I am not sure I see the harm in that. No… I don’t see the harm in that.

No, if you are that afraid of the government coming to take away your precious guns then just admit it. If you think it sounds a bit whacky and you are afraid to even tell people that, then you shouldn’t have a gun – you won’t be able to handle it. I like my gun because I like to shoot and it is nice to have extra protection in the house (though locked up and out of sight), just in case of an emergency but that is about it. I am not going to fight off the Black Helicopters and U.N. Troops with my pistol. Heh.

I think that the real issue is in how we see ourselves and where guns fit in that image. The thing is that the Gun is an “easy” accessory to solve problems with, it is an equalizer. You don’t have to be big, or tough, or know things to have power you just have to have the will to pull a trigger. Until we understand that about ourselves this debate will rage and there will be more senseless gun violence. It really is as they say… “Guns don’t kill people, People kill people… BUT… Guns sure make it a lot easier”.

But in the end… I shoot, I support Gun Control. I want people to be safe and while you can’t protect everyone from every harmful thing you can make it more difficult for people to be harmed. I don’t see anything in Gun Control legislation that stops me from going to the range and shooting my pistol. I don’t see anything unreasonable in what is being proposed.


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/ 127 Comments

127 comments

  1. LabWitch

    i own long guns (mostly antique hunting rifles, one kraag, two shotguns [the 20 gauge is my fave], one sig sauer .380.  i have no problem with gun control and see no reason to have any automatic or military type assault rifle.  i also have no problem with new laws regulating guns.  i have a concealed carry permit, i’ve had it for years, i don’t always carry because i’m not putting myself in the situations in which i might need it.  i’ve taken many classes and am an excellent shot.  my safety training has been taught by my husband (a green beret) and police training officers.

    it isn’t a huge hobby, i keep in practice though and i can’t even lift that kraag.  

    i too support gun control and i also see no problem with it since my guns are really only used at the range also.  

    so, what i’m trying to say Volleyboy, is that i agree with your diary completely.  

  2. bubbanomics

    Enforcement is an enormous issue.  I don’t have any data (so you can stop reading here if you like), but I have the feeling that current regulations on background checks, which are currently required, are not enforced well.

    The Brady Law today

    From 1994 through 2009, over 107 million Brady background checks were conducted. During this period 1.9 million attempted firearm purchases were blocked by the Brady background check system, or 1.8 percent.[17] For checks done by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2008, felons accounted for 56 percent of denials and fugitives from justice accounted for 13 percent of denials.[18] In 2009, felons accounted for 48 percent of denials and fugitives from justice accounted for 16 percent of denials. Between 2000 and 2009, over 30,000 denials were reversed on appeal.[17] In April 2009, the FBI announced it had completed its 100 millionth NICS approval since its inception 10 years before.

    Prosecution and conviction of violators of the Brady Act, however, is extremely rare. During the first 17 months of the Act, only seven individuals were convicted. In the first year of the Act, 250 cases were referred for prosecution and 217 of them were rejected.[19]

    Beefing this up will cost money, and lots of it.  The people who are bitching and moaning about lack of enforcement of current laws (e.g., the NRA) as a means of putting off new laws are also, in many cases, the same people who wish to cut cut cut gov’t spending.

    Secondly, I think we have to differentiate the few mass murder tragedies like Sandy Hook from the larger number of lives ruined in gun violence in less dramatic circumstances.  Often the mass murder situations involve legally obtained large capacity guns, suggesting these could be mitigated with better laws of the type being discussed. While these are terrible tragedies, they are a small fraction of the gun deaths we see each year.  Something like 2/3 of gun related deaths in the US are suicides (around 20000 in 2012).  I don’t see how to solve that problem without banning a lot of guns outright: I would guess most purchases that involved a subsequent suicide would not have involved neither the type of guns currently being considered for additional control nor the type of individual who’d trigger a rejection slip at background check time.

    I really don’t see any gun control law that would solve a lot of our gun problems short of banning all handguns and all guns that hold more than a few bullets or shells.  and I can’t imagine a law at that level of restriction being able to pass.

  3. Chris Blask

    or “I be Rambo” self-defense style.

    I have had it with folks explaining that they need to be able to kill a lot of US soldiers. Plenty of adamant 2nd Amendment supporters – folks like Joe Scarborough, and others – have been pushing back on that madness, but still it persists.

    Read your history. The first step is taking away guns. I need them to Protect Liberty from the Coming Fascist Government.

    I’m sorry, that’s barking mad. We need to divide that demographic away from the conversation, because there is nothing you can say to someone looking forward to killing American soldiers and police officers.

    I would like to see the self-defense argument challenged more often as well. Bob Costas spoke well about the gun culture problem we have on The Daily Show the other night. Part of that is the belief so many people have that they need guns to protect themselves against this Dangerous and Evil World.

    Horse hockey.

    In conversation with my many gun friends I have been challenging that frequently of late. “Have you ever had to use your gun to protect yourself?” Do you know anyone who has? Do you really think it will work?

    I have never had a weapon, and obviously never had one in a conflict situation. But I have been in lots of conflict situations, some potentially dangerous, and they have all been resolved peacefully using – dare I say – words.

    The best I have come up with is two cases asking those things of friends is where someone showed their gun during a confrontation. While maybe that counts I would argue – and both have agreed – that the situation was just as likely to work out fine without one.

    For all that I like guns. They are fascinating machines and firing them is fun. I like the fact that America tends to have the kind of society that trusts individuals, first, then grudgingly limits them as a last resort. That latter point is where most of my divergence with classic liberalism comes in.

    I think this is a time when we can make some progress, though I do not know which bits of ‘rules’ will help. Mostly, I think we need to smarten up about the topic.

  5. Avilyn

    For the people who think that ANY regulation is bad because

    So let’s have the real argument… because from what I see, it all comes down to is that people want to keep their guns because they are afraid that our government will turn tyrannical and impose the second coming of the Third Reich, Stalinist Russia, or the Khmer Rouge.

    What exactly do they think having a few semi automatics or assault rifles or whatever is going to do about it??  The government/US Military has drones, tanks, and far more firepower than even a thousand civilians put together could hope to overcome.  And yet time and again, when I listen to gun debates on other programs or have gun debates with people I know, it keeps coming back to this.  I don’t get it.

  6. kishik

    i carried a gun every day to work.  By virtue of my job, I could carry it concealed off the job as well.

    But I also had to qualify quarterly to continue to carry, had to go through training plus refresher training.

    I loved going to the range to shoot – whether for practice or to qualify.  It was that challenge you had against yourself to hit the targe square on.

    My previous job, my experience with guns – it made me respect the power of a weapon that could kill so easily.

    We need some sort of uniform gun control in this country.  What changed my position on this was the massacre shooting on the Long Island Railroad in 1993.  Colin Ferguson killed 6 people with his legally obtained Ruger P-89 9mm pistol.  One of the victims was the wife of a co-worker.  This is the shooting that propelled Caroline McCarthy into politics.

    Have we not learned YET?  Do we need to count all the senseless shootings including further massacres to see there is something seriously wrong with our gun laws?

    and you know – with his wife murdered, his service weapon was immediately retrieved from my co-worker.  It was some time before he even felt he was ready to carry his weapon on the job again.

  7. slksfca

    …is on television programs. I just don’t see the appeal.

    But I don’t begrudge you an activity that gives you innocent enjoyment – and I think if all gun owners/users were as sensible as you, we wouldn’t really need to have such a very fraught discussion in this country, would we?

    Thanks for the great post.

  8. LabWitch

    i should have made myself clear, i meant protecting your or your family’s life.  the property can be destroyed for all i care, just let me have my animals and my family.

    i was merely pointing out, that in texas, as you well know, private property means just that.  remember, this was cattle country and many of those laws have never been revised to my knowledge.  many people, not myself, and not you, take that to mean, if someone you don’t want on your property enters it, you may take whatever deadly action you like.  one guy just down the street shot a man picking through his garbage cans. he was no billed as it was judged by the GJ that he was protecting his property.  the cans were not on the curb, they were next to the kitchen door.  it’s merely an observation, not an agreement with the decision.

  9. meagert

     I may  not agree with the things said, but at least the conversation stays away from insults, unlike the “other” place. When the rkba group there wrote 1 or 2 diaries a week, lots of people said they were sick of seeing so many, and now, every other diary is about guns. They can’t seem to get enough of them. sheesh

  10. LabWitch

    a very serious conversation between Americans.  instead there’s just screaming on both sides, except here.  meagert, you have the right to disagree with what i say, i respect you, the great part is you too respect me and understand that this is how discourse and intelligent problem solving works.  

  11. jsfox

    but first a statistic. 60% of the illegal guns confiscated by the DC police were traced back to just 40 gun dealers in VA. (FYI there are somewhere close to 250 licensed dealers in VA). The majority of guns confiscated by the NYPD come from the I-95 corridor south of DC.

    So while an assault weapons ban certainly will not cut down on the day in and day out gun violence. (1400+ have died by firearm since Sandy Hook)

    Maybe  making our gun laws universal will help so that there is not a patchwork of strict and lax laws state to state.

    Maybe limiting the number of guns an individual can buy in a month, not the number of guns one can own, just the number one can buy in a 30 day period. This might help cut down on the gun running.

    Hold gun dealer liable if  guns they sold keep showing up in crimes.

    And finally background checks must be universal, states must be required to keep their data bases up to date in a timely manner and forwarded to the FBI. we can no longer permit 40% of all guns to be sold in this country without a background check.

    Now will these changes make gun violence magically disappear? NO. However we don’t pass laws in the hopes of a miracle we do in the hopes that they will make things just a bit better for our citizens over time.

  12. BlueInUtah

    which is proud of having one of the loosest requirements for a gun license (possibly even a concealed carry permit) in the country.  You don’t even have to be in our state to get it, we’ll provide it online.  You just have tell us you attended a gun safety class.  We won’t even check, we’ll take you at your word.

    In other words, way too may whack-a-loons have guns with Utah’s blessing.

    For full disclosure, I own a Sig Sauer .380 and I shoot it regularly.  I’m a decent shot.  When I was in college, I was fully against guns, and I resisted learning to shoot.  But I have a not-so-hidden desire to emulate action heroines–at least in my mind–and I realized that the mystique of a gun is greatly dispelled by learning the limitations and abilities of the thing.  The derring-do is confined to the stories I write, but I am comforted by believing I won’t panic at the mere presence of a gun.  I know people who become practically hysterical if they just think a gun is nearby.

    I think guns should be more strictly controlled.  Too many people are making up for some sort of inadequacy with firepower.  I’m tired of going into family buffet restaurants and seeing some swaggering jackass with a gun on his hip who’s sure he’s going to get to play hero some day–if he doesn’t slip and shoot himself in the butt or foot in the bathroom, as has happened around here.

    I don’t understand the sheer gut fear some people have about the very existence of guns.  Perhaps it’s like my terror of big spiders, I just see pictures of them, and my stomach goes hollow and my brain goes elsewhere.  

    I think gun opponents will make better arguments if they understand guns instead of just shrieking about them.  Gun supporters–rational ones–will have more respect for those arguments if there is some knowledge behind them.  The flippant statement that “it’s the finger on the trigger that kills people, not the gun” has its truth, it can’t be denied that that trigger could control weaponry that is ludicrous in its capabilities.

    This is post is more disjointed than I wanted, but I’m glad for a place to get a rational hearing.

  13. creamer

    of intruders, because states are going to continue to underfund police. Charles Grassley claims background checks will interfer with buying guns on Sunday. Another woman testified that women like AR-15’s because they look badass, better to fight off those gangs of intruders.

      I still find it hard to have this discussion when a significant part of the population is lost in some parinoid dream and so many leaders are in the pocket of the gun industry.

  14. jsfox

    ATLANTA (AP) – Atlanta fire official: 14-year-old shot in head at middle school, hospitalized. (20 minutes ago)

  15. Irish Patti

    I am a nurse. Guns go against my ethos. The man I share a life with is in law enforcement. He is very pro gun. With his job there are 3 and soon to be 4 guns in this house.

    I now live in Wyoming and everyone here is armed. The state legislature just passed a bill saying they would charge federal agents with a felony is they “came for the guns.”

    I would like to see guns registered and insured the same way cars are.  

  16. BlueStateRedhead

    Model of the civility of conversation requested by the 12/14 dad who was heckled in Hartford and for the urban/rural

    how appropriate that this blog has a print friendly view where others do not.

    Unless Chris has managed to share the Hemingway coffee physically via F or Tweet with all of us, and it is all just a beautiful dream…..

    Good night from EST….

  17. mahakali overdrive

    since that’s all I have time for: I essentially agree, more or less, and am in support of much stronger regulations.

    Thus said, I absolutely would not support this without a strong systematic address of at least two issues which are not being addressed post-Newton:

    1) If we want to demilitarize the public, we need to also demilitarize the police. The police are the public baseline for a “well-regulated militia.” Without dealing with any asymmetry there, there will always be a strong 2nd Amendment backlash

    AND

    2.) We need to deal with the most underdiscussed demographic afflicted by gun violence in this all, a group we barely touch on whatsoever in discussions (and I feel these are white progressive liberal discussions, by and large), and that, my friends, is mainly African-American and Latino youth in urban environments (about 2/3rds of ALL gun-related deaths). To deal with this issue, we need to seriously deal with our drug laws. Our drug laws are why — in a small nutshell, obviously — so-called gang culture is perpetuated and exists. And these shootings are the vast majority of homicides. So anyone seriously concerned with this issue will absolutely and necessarily invest the bulk of their time making sure to work with this demographic of youth toward other solutions. Period.

    I am in strong advocacy for gun control laws. I could entertain a great deal of reform, in fact, some pretty radical at that. But I have to wonder where this influx of concern post-Sandy Hook comes from when every year there are plenty of little black and brown kids nicked by stray bullets in urban areas, and why we haven’t been talking about those kids?

    Gotta run! Good diary. It’s a start. Let’s take it up a notch.

  18. LabWitch

    YES! what a great President! photo Screen-Shot-2013-02-02-at-121510-PM_zpsd0af6bd2.jpg

    my opinion:

    1. it is not photoshopped

    2. the glasses are skeet shooting glasses, make it easier to see the target by blocking out the light that would obscure it

    3. it’s a smack in the face to the NRA

    4. wow, what great form

    5. likely a low skeet tower or a hand operated launcher

    6. yes, the trees are green at camp david even in august

    7. these are not the guns the President is trying to regulate

    any thoughts?

  19. LabWitch

    we just have differing opinions regarding the use of guns.  i do not advocate military style guns, i do not have a problem with long guns, or even handguns.  i do believe in MORE training for handgun purchasers (before and after the purchase) better and more stringent background checks, insurance, smaller ammo clips, and lots of other controls that would make it less likely for the people who should not have guns to get them.

    also, i think parents who have guns should be required to have them in absolute security.  not just a gun safe, something harder to get into.  also, any parent who leaves a gun where a child can get to it should be severely dealt with, particularly monetarily, prison time wouldn’t bother me either.

    we’re not as far apart as you may think.  my m.d. (i do have one of them too) states, first do no harm.  i did no harm, i’m sure of it.  

  20. LabWitch

    sorry, i’m having hand stiffness problems so things don’t always show up where they should due to my inability to press the proper buttons.  i THINK i have pressed the proper reply button, but obviously i haven’t pressed it so it actually engaged.  

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