'Responsible gun ownership' is more than trigger locks

I certainly didn't go to bed last night wondering what today's topic would turn out to be. Rather, the question was, which cartoon would be the lead?

Clay Jones gets the nod, for having combined the central theme of weariness in his cartoon with an essay that tipped the balance in an otherwise dead heat.

Not only am I sick of cartoons about shootings but, like Clay, I grew up around hunting and a lot of my friends and neighbors were gun owners. And, though I never owned a gun myself, I was on a rifle team, so I don't have a visceral, negative response to guns themselves.

And I agree:

The distribution of guns in the United States is getting beyond ridiculous. It’s stupid. It’s time we actually enact very strict laws on gun ownership. I believe every single gun should be registered. I’ll go farther than that. We need to register ammunition. We need further background checks. Why do we sell guns to people we won’t allow on a plane?

Yes. Bad guys will continue to find ways to get guns. People continue to drive too fast but we don’t get rid of speed limits. Despite laws against it, people still commit murder.

So here's the story, Morning Glory, in two headlines and a Darrin Bell cartoon:

 

1. People are sick of shootings
2. Something is going to change

 

And for all the talk of "responsible gun ownership," my message to my responsible gun-owning friends is that you'd better speak up if you want to be part of what is going to happen, because the irresponsible gun owners are squaring off against the Bambi-lovers, and that's not likely to yield anything you're going to like.

You cannot sit back and let this be decided by paranoid lunatics on one side and people who don't know a rifle from a shotgun from a slingshot on the other.

Especially when, as Pat Bagley notes, the conversation on that first side is being orchestrated by people with a vested interest in the outcome, and little regard for anything more than their own benefits.

Look at it this way: If the garbagemen stopped picking up the garbage, you might be angry or disappointed or something, but what would you do? Let it pile up? Or start taking it to the dump yourself?

I ask this because the NRA was formed in order to educate people about gun safety, and they've stopped doing their job. In fact, for nearly 40 years, they've been doing just the opposite: They're actively, militantly lobbying to prevent gun safety.

It's as if the garbagemen had not only stopped picking up your trash, but were driving by and shoveling out sewage to go with it.

Would you really just stand there looking out the window saying, "Gosh, I wish they'd quit doing that"? 

You can't sit back and expect Congress to do anything about it. They're not only getting substantial contributions to do nothing about it, but they're aware of the tsunami of furious rightwing activists who will rise up if they do anything.

However, as Jack Ohman notes, the normalcy of these incidents has become offensive. 

Most Americans want background checks. Most Americans want sensible gun laws in general.

But between gerrymandered districts to maintain certain key seats, an overall tendency to sit back and let someone else do it, and media divided between right-wing libertarianism and spongy "on the one hand, and on the other" lukewarm mush, most Americans are not being heard.

And it's not just the cartoonists who are speaking up now, and so here's your

 

Juxtaposition of the Day

(Mike Luckovich)

(The NY Daily News)

Both these pieces come from the city. Not the same city, but they both see gun ownership through filters that do not include the rural tradition that is at the heart of responsible ownership.

There is a seething demand to end the "prayer" approach and come up with legislation, and, again, if you sit back and let others set the standard, well, you're going to have to pay the price of your silence.

If all gun owners are seen as paranoid conspiracy theorists, stockpiling their military weapons so that, when the Chinese soldiers burst out of the abandoned Wal-Marts, they can go into their caves and play "Red Dawn" militia games, then the laws will reflect that.

And if responsible gun owners remain silently standing in the window watching the NRA pile sewage on top of garbage, lawmakers will hear only the men with the pitchforks, and those who favor a ban.

And something will happen next. There's more than enough evidence that irresponsible gun ownership is already a real issue. We have more guns-per-capita than any other nation, and a higher death-by-gunshot rate than most. 

Honestly, I don't know how to deal with the number of guns already in the hands of paranoid people, and I'm not sure how many people would risk putting a "Repeal the Second Amendment" sticker on their bumper. (Nor do I think repeal is necessary.)

But something has to happen, and if "responsible gun ownership" doesn't start meaning more than trigger locks and gun safes, whatever does happen will be led by people who argue that the Second Amendment did not anticipate semi-automatic weapons, while ignoring the fact that the First Amendment was written with a quill pen.

Though I kind of like this anonymous meme that Janis Ian passed along:

 

But this really did happen:

(Times Herald, Olean, NY, Mon, Nov 26, 1923)

Which of course is why you never see cars on the street -- the government seized them!

 

 

Comments

[Dave from Phila]

Mike, I honestly think nothing will come of this mass murder. If 22 elementary school children did not tip the balance, why will this one? Heck ... it is 8 less people dead. Isn't that progress? If 22 elementary school children did not result in responsible gun owners standing up and saying, "Yes, reasonable gun control is the right thing to do and nobody, NOBODY, has a constitutional right to own an AK-47." ... why will they now? We have the best Congress money can buy and its spineless members do not, and will not, have the fortitude to face the fury from the delusional wing-nuts (like your description of when the Chinese attack from abandoned Wal-Marts) and Faux News that would result from even entertaining reasonable gun control let alone passing such. I vote every election and willingness to entertain gun control is a litmus test issue for me. Everyone around me through Facebook knows exactly how I stand. There is nothing else I can do because I cannot write even a $10,000 check ... let alone a $1,000,000 check. This issue is entirely controlled by the oligarchy.

[Nothstine]

Hi, Mike:

This turned up in my FB feed a little while ago. Serendipity? If I had to choose between a world where electeds got their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh and one where they got them from Janis Ian, at least the latter would be a breath of fresh air for a while.

bn

http://www.occupydemocrats.com/missouri-democrat-files-bill-to-regulate-guns-like-republicans-do-vaginas/

[Lost in A**2]

The Second Amendment is about military-grade arms, not fowling pieces. If it guarantees an individual right to weaponry, then the M-16 is the current weapon guarateed.

Since no one wants free access to M-16s, the amendment SHOULD be repealed.