Sense, Sandy Hook & The Second Amendment - A Good Read

[nybuckboy]

I wanted to "Share the following article but there wasn't a share option if you can believe that! Anyway, it is very well written and certainly gives food for thought ---Here ya go...warning, it's long but a good read:

Sense, Sandy Hook & The Second Amendment

December 29th, 2012 Sarah

by Dan Blanchard

It hardly seems possible that scarcely two weeks has passed since the tragic events of the 2nd Friday in December in Newtown, Connecticut. Already, so very much has been said and written in attempts to account for the “whys” of it all. Much of that has been expressed sincerely, and out of a nationally shared sense of unquantifiable anguish and loss. But much has also been a rush to judgment by those whose agenda is so patently obvious, and whose goal is so terribly transparent, that it’s impossible to hide. An immediate response when driven by intense and conflicting emotions reduces most “dialog” to knee-jerk reactions, not common sense solutions.

So, in days since, we’ve witnessed Dan Malloy, Connecticut’s governor assert that “there are no answers.” Not true. Then, Wednesday saw massive gun “buy backs” in Oakland and San Francisco where, presumably it was somehow believed that criminals would show up in droves and just voluntarily relinquish their guns. End result? The law-abiding citizens of those cities went to bed that night just that much more vulnerable to and, therefore, more likely to be victimized by those who refused to be disarmed. And the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, said Thursday that “confiscation” of guns from those who have broken no laws should be “on the table” when their state legislature convenes in January. Target: “Assault weapons” with “high capacity magazines.” There’s just one problem. No such weapon was used in the Sandy Hook tragedy. The guns that were used do not fall under the “assault weapon” category. The killer (whose name shall not be acknowledged here) did have such a rifle in his possession—but chose that morning, to leave it in his mother’s car.

What do we make of all this? As freedom-valuing, liberty-loving people? What should be our optimal response?

1) Don’t Disarm the Innocent. Over the past week, 90 million law-abiding citizens who own over 300 million guns committed no crime. There has never been a more ludicrous “strategy” than to confiscate the guns of those who do not misuse them. I used to coach Little League baseball. In the unlikely event one of my players were to brandish a baseball bat threateningly (not an arbitrary illustration as, among non-gun related homicides in the US, the baseball bat is the #1 weapon of choice), what should be my response? To tell the rest of my players that no one will be allowed to use their baseball bat and that they will be confiscated immediately? Disarming the innocent emboldens criminals and makes us all more defenseless against criminal intent. This is why the Second Amendment matters now—and may be needed now—more than ever. One of the more fundamental rights of a free people is to be able to defend ourselves and protect those we care about from harm.

2) Better Understand Human Nature. At the very core, human beings are fundamentally selfish and self-serving creatures. If you don’t believe that, you’ve never been around a two-year old or scanned the headlines of your morning paper. The Founders knew this. It’s why they referenced Nature’s God four times in the Declaration of Independence—to remind us all from where our rights originate. John Adams in a speech to the military in 1798 warned, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion . . . Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Fisher Ames, a relative unknown among the signers of the Declaration of Independence wrote: “Our liberty. . . is founded on morals and religion, whose authority reigns in the heart, and on the influence all these produce on public opinion before that opinion governs…” It is far more prudent and practical to equip people to self-govern rather than to leave them as highly educated, self-seeking citizens who seek to benefit self at the expense of others. And there are those, whose minds are so devoid of such crucial values, who have so thoroughly annihilated their own conscience that hurting another for their own ends becomes a behavioral option.

Implications? This explains why laws do not prevent crime. Laws simply identify and define a crime as such. The two who went on a mass-murdering spree at Columbine in 1997 broke no less than eighteen gun control laws. Does anyone really believe a nineteenth would have stopped them? It is only a mind that has been taught to value life and a heart that has learned compassion that keeps one human being from doing harm to another. This is why a decal placed on a window by a school’s entrance boldly stating “Gun Free Zone” is meaningless. One with criminal intent, absent the aforementioned values, has zero regard for such a sign whatsoever. Places that post such signs, such as schools, theaters and malls, all venues where large numbers of people gather, are simply telling those determined to do violence that they can have a field day. Such persons can only understand a sign on a school that says something like this instead: “Any attempt to enter this building with the intent to harm any of our students or staff, WILL be met with deadly force.”

3) Acknowledge That Guns Are Morally Neutral Objects. The phrase “assault weapon” is itself derogatory by design. It assumes that the purpose of the gun possessed is, in fact, to be used to maim or kill another human being. Anything, when placed in the hand of one whose heart’s intent is bent on doing harm, becomes an “assault weapon.” Cain killed Abel with a rock. There was no outcry against the NRA (National Rock Association?) to ban rocks. In 1991, a 63 year-old Ohio man killed his wife of 30 years with a banjo. The point? Anything can be employed as an aid to facilitate another’s death. A more relevant analogy? About 16,000 people are killed in alcohol-related auto accidents (about 60% more than are killed annually by guns.) Do we blame “society” if a drunk driver careens into a crowd of people and kills several? Do we ban the make and model of the car he was driving? Confiscate the cars of all those who did not commit vehicular homicide? Or do we hold the individual accountable for his own condition of heart, mind and body? You know the answers.

The best way to honor Daniel, Olivia, Josephine, Ana, Dylan, Madeleine, Catherine, Chase, Jesse, James, Grace, Emilie, Jack, Noah, Caroline, Jessica, Avielle, Allison and Benjamin is neither to abandon the Second Amendment nor the common sense principles behind it.