Opening, again, a can of worms . . .

[Mom70x7]

This came from one of my sisters. The author is a long-time college friend of hers from Chicago. He's responding to a column written October 1st.



October 4, 2009


Dear Mr. Roper

I've been reading your columns since they first appeared in the Sun-Times, but "The right to bear arms" on 10/1 was a real shocker.  Are you turning into a Republican?

Snarky comments aside, I hope you have time to read this.

This country is truly a frightening place.  The number of people who feel they need a gun is scary.  Add the people who just want guns and you have a true nightmare.

There are all kinds of arguments—the Second Amendment, defending my home, yada, yada, yada—it is easy to go on at great length, but I'll cut right to the bottom line point—two points, actually, at the heart of the matter.

Number one:  Owning a gun means you are ready to kill someone at any time that you have access to that gun.  You are willing to kill another human being on purpose—or accidentally.  There are an awful lot of people in this country ready to kill someone.

Number two:  By favoring gun ownership, you are sanctioning all the handgun deaths that fill our newspapers daily.  Whether it's the little girl washing her dog caught in gang crossfire, a kid who find's dad's gun and accidentally shoots a sibling, an off-the-rails father who kills his family and then himself, all those CPS students—the list goes on, it's really, really long—you are saying very clearly that those deaths are OK.  They are simply the price we must pay for the people who are so frightened that they need a gun; the price we must pay for the people who simply want a gun.

The rest, if you have the time:

There are lots of ways to kill people:  beat them to death with a big chunk of wood, as happened last week; run them down with a car; strangle them with bare hands...another really long list.  There are all manner of things that can be used to kill a person.  But there is only one thing which has that as its only real purpose, and that's a handgun.  It's a tool for drilling a hole in a human body.  Can you imagine taking a power drill and shoving it into someone's body?  Maybe if you thought you were in a hand-to-hand, life-and-death struggle.  (Was it Body Double where someone was murdered with a power drill?)

A handgun gives you the power to drill that hole from across the room, across the street, across several city blocks.  (Remember those wild shots in Three Kings of a bullet tumbling and ripping through the internal organs of someone's body?)  Why are so many people so ready to do this?  Why so small a price on human life?

The Second Amendment
Bottom line, it is outdated.  It was written in a different time.  It was a wild country and there were a lot of things people needed to defend themselves against, including, of course, native people (Why Native Americans, by the way?  It wasn't America to them.) whose land they were overrunning.

Even if you don't want to repeal it, how do you get around the "well-regulated militia" clause?  I don't think the nuts in Michigan or Idaho fit that definition.  And you with a gun in your house and me with a gun in my house (or on the subway or at a political rally) certainly doesn't meet that definition.

The ballot box and a free press are our best defenses against government abuse, not guns.  National defense is our protection against invasion.  Red Dawn was fiction.  (Yes, I've seen a lot of movies over the years.  Come to think of it, none of the Patrick Swayze obits I saw mentioned that one.)

People argue this point because they simply want guns, damn it.  And not just handguns, but assault weapons...good grief!

Guns are everywhere.  And as long as the courts keep knocking down handgun bans like the ones in DC and maybe now in Chicago , the slaughter will continue.  I'm not a huge Michael Pfleger fan, but I'm with him and Mayor Daley on guns.  It's an arms race, ask the police.  As long as they are out there, some people will want more.  Guns are not the solution.

Let's try an experiment.  The latest thing that gun advocates have been pushing is right-to-carry.  Maybe they can get a moderate sized city, say Tulsa or Boise , to pass a right-to-carry law.  Let that go for a year or two and see how it works out.

What next?

What we really need, basically, is the abolition of handguns.  We need to get to the point where if you have a gun you are one of a select few who really need them (e.g., Secret Service) or you're a bad guy.

I don't have a clue as to how we get to that point.  It can't just be forced downward by the government.  The country is already too polarized as it is on way too many issues, this being one of them. (Please, please see Tom Friedman's NYT op ed on 9/29 relating to our current political climate, and not unrelated to this topic:  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/opinion/30friedman.html?_r=1&em  It is absolutely the best summary of the state of the nation that I have seen.)   And even if a vast majority of voters favored a serious national handgun ban, I think some of the remaining minority would be so hardcore as to generate a real crisis.

Full disclosure:  I'm white, male, straight, 60+, college grad, married with grown kids, Democrat, liberal, utterly opposed to the death penalty (don't get me started), and think we should be spending our energy making abortions unnecessary rather than arguing for or against.

I haven't been in a fight since 7th grade, but I'm not a pacifist and I will defend myself or someone else.  Unless your are law enforcement, don't point a gun at me or anyone else.  It means you are ready to kill and I will do everything I can to stop you.  I hate handguns and what they mean—that we are end someone's life.  With little thought and just ounces of effort, we are willing to do something that can't be undone.  And the almost universal availability of these things makes killing someone about as hard as snapping your fingers.

I suppose every generation of old men feels like their country is going to hell.  At this point, I'm kind of glad that I don't have any grandchildren yet.  Given the right wing reaction to Barack Obama's election, their blatant attempts to push us toward a fundamentalist Christian theocracy, and add in this love of guns, I fear things in this country may get a LOT uglier.

I've bent your ear long enough, thanks for your time.

Sincere regards and best wishes,

Michael Hart
West Ridge

Naturally, I agree with him. I know a lot of Forum friends will not. I also do not plan on debating the issue, feeling I won't change anyone's mind on this issue. Just want the information out there.

[sixdogsmom]

Thanks for posting this Mom, there are some interesting points here.

[pamsback]

I'm TOTALLY progun Mom but go you for havin the cajones to post this on here 

[jarhead]

I was going to read the Sunday comic strip but no need in doing so now because this gave me my daily laugh. Mr Hart points out he is a liberal Demo. you think He says he's not a pacifist and will defend himself if you point a gun at him. OK !! What you gonna do Mr Hart when the bad guy is getting ready to bust a cap in your arse---throw your lap top at him

[Diane Amberg]

Ya'll haven't seen the purse I carry. It's a lethal weapon!

[Dee Gee]

Only in close quarters.

[Diane Amberg]

Our "wild life" is mostly of the 2 legged variety.   Dee Gee, why would someone want to hurt me from a distance? I'm too old to taste good.

[sixdogsmom]

I've been arounds guns all my life, I can live with 'em or without 'em. I've walked beside my husband and killed my share of game, had guns in the house all the time. I can see where the second ammendment issue is hotwire, and I am not a pacifist. However, if this is a constitutional issue, and CC is legal, how is it that certain buildings can restrict the presence of firearms without violating constitutional rights. Inversely why cannot a community decide to ban  firearms if a business, or an association or office can ban them?

[kshillbillys]

Many states (e.g., Minnesota, South Carolina, Texas), in addition to outright bans on concealed carry in some or all of the places mentioned above, allow any business to post a specific sign (language and format vary by state) prohibiting concealed carry, violation of which is grounds for revocation of the offender's concealed carry permit. In Texas for instance, the applicable statute is Section 30.06 of the Texas Penal Code, and requires that a sign in contrasting colors, with letters at least 1 inch (25.4 mm) high, with exactly the following text in both English and Spanish, be posted at every entrance to a business prohibiting concealed carry:

"PURSUANT TO SECTION 30.06, PENAL CODE (TRESPASS BY HOLDER OF A LICENSE TO CARRY A CONCEALED HANDGUN) A PERSON LICENSED UNDER SUBCHAPTER H, CHAPTER 411, GOVERNMENT CODE (CONCEALED HANDGUN LAW), MAY NOT ENTER THIS PROPERTY WITH A CONCEALED HANDGUN."[34]
By posting the signs, businesses create areas where it is illegal to carry a concealed handgun similar to schools, hospitals, and public events. In addition to signage, virtually all jurisdictions also allow some form of oral communication by the lawful owner or controller of the property that a person is not welcome and should leave. This notice can be given to anyone for any reason, including due to the carrying of firearms by that person, and refusal to heed such a request to leave constitutes trespassing. In some jurisdictions trespass by a person carrying a firearm may have more severe penalties than "simple" trespass.


The Government does NOT own all buildings. It's just like an owner of a store or restaurant putting up a NO smoking sign. Their buisness...THEIR rules!

[sixdogsmom]

Okay, you addressed conceal carry, now why not ban in a community?