Gun Control

Note: This column ran originally back in October in the newspapers. I refrained from running it on the blog, but will now in light of the latest incident.

Once again we have had a terrible thing happen at the hands of a mad man. Once again, there is a push for legislation on gun controlling measures. While this is an outdoors column, ownign and using firearms are an essential part of the outdoors as well as one of our primary rights as not only Americans, but humans.

I may be in a minority, or I may be part of the majority, it is hard to tell these days. Either way, I think it would have been refreshing to have heard a speech from our leaders worded in this way:

“Dear fellow Americans, I come to you tonight with heartache from yet another incident in which innocent peoples’ lives were taken at the hands of a gun wielding criminal. Details will immerge over the next 24 to 48 hours which will help authorities determine the root cause of act of evil that was bestowed on one of our school campuses.

I stand before you saddened and outraged all at once. WE cannot let this happen again. Other countries similar to ours, allies in fact, were able to take up legislation immediately following such an incident. England passed laws and confiscated all firearms in 1997 to prevent this from happening in their country.

Fortunately, we can learn from our allies and their moves to stop such violent crimes. Once England confiscated these weapons, their violent crime rate and homicide rate nearly doubled the year following. In fact, England has only had one year in which the rate was less than the year before acting upon this legislation.

Our very principles for establishing this more perfect union calls for the arming of the citizenry. It was important enough to list as our second amendment right.

Therefore, starting tomorrow, my staff and I will begin contacting each and every member of Congress to enact new legislation going forward to prevent these mass killings, as well as the abundance of gun related homicides and other crimes. We cannot do this without Congress’s participation, and we will see to it that they are motivated to do so.

I will ask Congress to establish legislation that requires firearm safety to be taught as part of the school curriculum for all fifth and eighth grade classes. This will help teach our children to respect what a firearm can do, become familiar with a firearm rather than scared of it, and to know what circumstances they can be used in self defense.

I will ask Congress to help fund classes for all teachers, administration, and support staff in our schools, colleges, and universities in proper firearm safety and handling, and recommend if not require teachers to carry firearms. Another of our allies currently arms their teachers, and Israel has not had these types of events happen in their schools even with the threat of constant terrorist attacks in these environments.

I will also ask Congress to pass legislation to do away with concealed carry laws. There will be no ordinance anywhere that will not allow an American citizen to carry concealed or otherwise in order to protect his or herself or others.

We have seen in such things as natural disasters that the government cannot always be there immediately to help. We even have a plan online called Ready.gov that teaches and outlines what to have and do in case of emergency. I will ask our Department of Homeland Security to add this website how to handle attacks such as these so that we may protect ourselves first and foremost.

Whether sane or mad, a man will not run into a group of well armed people and decide to pull a firearm. We cannot wait for the next massacre at a church, school, hospital, or establishment to happen because our people were not able to defend themselves.”