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The Soapbox: Rants and Commentary:
Gun Control, Or Gun Common Sense?By Dan O'Leary(dano@cybercomm.net)January 2001 A politically-minded friend recently e-mailed me a Flash production from the www.teesdale.com Web site, apparently created before the election as a conservative promotion tool. I've included a description below, or you can also wait the two minutes for it to download and view it here. Each scene below fades in and then fades to black, making the show longer than it needs to be. Perhaps the producers thought that gave their project a gritty, serious tone, but it just came off as annoying. The 2-measure drum machine soundtrack didn't help either. The words in CAPS below are the words from the text that expand while the scene fades.
OK, before those fingers start pointing, I'm neither left nor right. While I honestly believe both sides have good ideas, both extremes can be terribly hypocritical. (Case in point: one side supports capital punishment but rallies against abortion, and vice-versa -- both sides claiming to protect the sanctity of life). I'd like to think most of us fall somewhere in the middle; at least most of the people who read my scribblings tend to be. Now, I gather the message of this little presentation is: "We are a large unified group with a lot of guns. We don't trust anyone who wants to take them, and lives will be lost if you try it." (Let's pause to purge the vision of Charlton Heston talking about his "cold, dead hands" out of my head.) It seems a bad idea to convince people of your point with threats of violence; they'll only mistrust you more and try even harder to take your precious guns away. Quotes from the Founding Fathers are pointless because we all know we don't live in the same culture they did. After the Bill of Rights was ratified, it took another eight amendments to get around to granting women the right to vote, and that wasn't until 1920. The Founding Fathers themselves mentioned Negro slaves as property; Blacks have had legally-mandated equal rights for only about 40 years. And though we've progressed in some ways, we've regressed in others. Even people my age (early 30s) can track the increase of violence in our culture and in our media just in our lifetimes. The number of school massacres over the last couple of years is enough proof of that. (Another topic for another rant.) We're an ill-educated, media-swayed, irresponsible, more-violent-than-ever society, and some restriction of guns is necessary in our times. As far as the other quotes, the Gore and Clinton quotes are incomplete out-of-context sound bytes. Gore was referring to the campaign calls he had made from the White House; who the hell knows what situation Clinton was talking about, or from which orifice he was speaking at the time. (Brief aside, I can't understand why conservatives hate Clinton/Gore so much. They backed down on universal heath care, pollution standards for auto makers, and the environmental debacle with Florida's sugar magnates, NAFTA, GATT, the Telecommunications Bill. There were times Al and Bill practically sat in Big Business's lap and accepted checks like doggie treats.) I can only chuckle if anyone truly thinks Team Tweedle-Dee thinks is a serious threat to his freedoms. I really wish people would stop using Mussolini and Hitler quotes when talking about gun control. They wanted to take guns away from citizens for obvious reasons. I don't see any person in power in this country advocating the elimination of certain ethnic groups...except maybe for Pat Buchanon, who's a Righty. The Axis boys also spent lots of effort beefing up their military forces, something the Right likes a lot too but doesn't see anything wrong with that. Speaking of dictators and such, one of the reasons I've been told pro-gun folks refuse to let their assault weapons go is in case the government wakes up bitchy one day and they need to fight another Revolution. Exactly who's going to be the oppressors? Conservatives should be able to trust the people they elect. (If not, they need to get some new friends they don't mind running the store.) Liberals? Coulda sworn the reasons liberals get razzed is their insistancy on rules that force everybody to be all nicey-nicey with each other, and their desire to give money to the oppressed poor. Even if there was some sort of revolution, I seriously doubt standing on the roof with that treasured assault weapon will do much when that tank barrel comes charging through the window, or that bomber strafes the house at Mach 26000. The Stalin quote is used to denote battle-readiness here. Looking at it another way, are ten deaths still a tragedy? According to "www.ceasefire.org", ten kids die just from handguns each day. Exactly how many people should die before it becomes a concern? Don't we want to keep guns out of irresponsible hands? Example: countless guns are sold in this country by gun show vendors that can bypass the normally-mandated background check, and the NRA has lobbied to remove it altogether. Why is this? We Americans are accustomed to some sort of background check before we're allowed to drive, get married, or even open a bank account. What's so wrong about being checked out when purchasing a device whose sole purpose is to detroy whatever is placed in front of it? I know this missive is painting in broad strokes. I don't pose any simple solutions to a complicated problem. If someone wants a gun in their home for protection, fine. I have friends in law enforcement who carry one every day and keep them in their homes. Not everyone, however, is as intelligent or responsible as my friends. What it comes down to is both sides need a compromise. The Left will never eliminate guns, and the Right will never get unrestricted gun use. Some degree of gun control should be expected if we're ever to handle these deadly objects responsibly. How about that, I really can write a rant about something that doesn't involve Hollywood. Guess I'll have to attack a Left issue next to achieve non-partisan equilibrium again. |
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