A Second Amendment reality check - echo from a gun owner
"These are my new thoughts and prayers," Elise Jordan.
This opinion was published in the April 16, 2018 edition of TIME Magazine, written by Elise Jordan.
Why I'm no longer a Second Amendment absolutist
When I was growing up, my family lived in Mississippi on the outskirts of a small town, near a hospital. Once in a while, an inmate receiving medical treatment there would escape. One night, one knocked on our door, asking to use the phone. My aunt declined to show hospitality. The inmate bolted. Soon, the police knocked on our door too. Although my aunt never touched a gun that evening, she certainly had ready access to plenty of options. The incident impressed upon me why it could be helpful to have one in the house.
The Parkland, Florida shooting, where 17 innocent people were killed*, was the culmination of several troubling years of legal guns winding up in the wrong hands.
I am convinced that those of us who have believed nothing should infringe upon the Second Amendment should now support commonsense gun control, from universal background checks to closing loopholes for gun-show sales and person-to-person transfers of firearms. The U.S. government is so broken, it is literally killing people - at least 438 American have been shot in school shootings since the Sandy Hook massacre- as well-funded bureaucracies fail to keep guns out of the hands of people who are not fit for the awesome responsibility of owning firearm weapons.
Sadly, the ease with which the alleged Parkland murderer obtained his rifle reminded me of an incident that was once funny, but is now troubling. A decade ago, when I was in Afghanistan, working at the NATO/ISAF headquarters, I bragged to my late father about shooting an AK-47, and he decided he wanted to buy one himself. One evening at around midnight, my mother answered the phone. The man on the line apologized for the late hour but told her he was on parole and it was the only time he could call without getting caught by his mother. He had seen my father's want ad and had a AK-47 to unload. My mother told him to never call again.
More recently, another relative purchased an AR-15 in a legal person-to-person transaction with no oversight or paper trail. The process is easier than obtaining certain kinds of skin-care treatment. Consider the regulation of Accutane, which has been linked to depression and can cause severe birth defects. In 2000, then Representative Bart Stupak's 17-year-old son committed suicide while taking the drug, and the bereaved Congressman championed greater oversight. The eventual result was the creation of a patient registry, which required patient, pharmacist and doctor participation.
It's extraordinarily annoying to obtain the drug, but I went through the process, going to monthly doctor's appointments, getting blood drawn and taking a quiz over the phone to make sure I wasn't pregnant- because it was important to me. And, yes, I probably needed a skin drug that can kill you as much as my dad needed an AK-47. But, that's the beauty of America. We should be able to get both, if we go through reasonable measures to do so.
I observed an evolution in viewpoint similar to my own in March, during Ashcroft in America focus groups held in Tennessee and Mississippi. Most of the participants were gun owners who believe in the right to bear arms but are open to banning bump stocks and high volume magazines, enacting stricter background checks and increasing the age limit to 21 for buying semiautomatic rifles.
Also, they reject arming teachers as a solution to school shootings.
These men and women would rather work for a solution than fight change that they consider necessary, and its they who are the gun lobby's biggest constituency. If the lobby does not start listening to what they want, it will risk ceding its influence during a moment of major society change.
As a libertarian, I don't want to surrender my individual liberties to a government that failed at so many pivotal points of the Parkland tragedy, including dozens of calls to local police since 2010, to go to the murder's home and detailed warning to the FBI.
But, just as in the aftermath of the serial tragedies, the Orlando nightclub, Las Vegas concert and the Sutherland Springs church shootings, and others, nothing will really get done unless voters - including those of us who support the Second Amendment - push Congress toward reasonable gun control.
These are my new thoughts and prayers.
97 percent of voters who responded to a Quinnipiac University national poll supported universal background checks (February 20, 2018):
U.S. Support For Gun Control Tops 2-1, Highest Ever, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds
*The teen gunman accused of opening fire with a semi-automatic rifle at his former high school in Parkland, Florida, has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder, officials said Thursday.
This opinion was published in the April 16, 2018 edition of TIME Magazine, written by Elise Jordan.
Why I'm no longer a Second Amendment absolutist
When I was growing up, my family lived in Mississippi on the outskirts of a small town, near a hospital. Once in a while, an inmate receiving medical treatment there would escape. One night, one knocked on our door, asking to use the phone. My aunt declined to show hospitality. The inmate bolted. Soon, the police knocked on our door too. Although my aunt never touched a gun that evening, she certainly had ready access to plenty of options. The incident impressed upon me why it could be helpful to have one in the house.
The Parkland, Florida shooting, where 17 innocent people were killed*, was the culmination of several troubling years of legal guns winding up in the wrong hands.
I am convinced that those of us who have believed nothing should infringe upon the Second Amendment should now support commonsense gun control, from universal background checks to closing loopholes for gun-show sales and person-to-person transfers of firearms. The U.S. government is so broken, it is literally killing people - at least 438 American have been shot in school shootings since the Sandy Hook massacre- as well-funded bureaucracies fail to keep guns out of the hands of people who are not fit for the awesome responsibility of owning firearm weapons.
Sadly, the ease with which the alleged Parkland murderer obtained his rifle reminded me of an incident that was once funny, but is now troubling. A decade ago, when I was in Afghanistan, working at the NATO/ISAF headquarters, I bragged to my late father about shooting an AK-47, and he decided he wanted to buy one himself. One evening at around midnight, my mother answered the phone. The man on the line apologized for the late hour but told her he was on parole and it was the only time he could call without getting caught by his mother. He had seen my father's want ad and had a AK-47 to unload. My mother told him to never call again.
More recently, another relative purchased an AR-15 in a legal person-to-person transaction with no oversight or paper trail. The process is easier than obtaining certain kinds of skin-care treatment. Consider the regulation of Accutane, which has been linked to depression and can cause severe birth defects. In 2000, then Representative Bart Stupak's 17-year-old son committed suicide while taking the drug, and the bereaved Congressman championed greater oversight. The eventual result was the creation of a patient registry, which required patient, pharmacist and doctor participation.
It's extraordinarily annoying to obtain the drug, but I went through the process, going to monthly doctor's appointments, getting blood drawn and taking a quiz over the phone to make sure I wasn't pregnant- because it was important to me. And, yes, I probably needed a skin drug that can kill you as much as my dad needed an AK-47. But, that's the beauty of America. We should be able to get both, if we go through reasonable measures to do so.
I observed an evolution in viewpoint similar to my own in March, during Ashcroft in America focus groups held in Tennessee and Mississippi. Most of the participants were gun owners who believe in the right to bear arms but are open to banning bump stocks and high volume magazines, enacting stricter background checks and increasing the age limit to 21 for buying semiautomatic rifles.
Also, they reject arming teachers as a solution to school shootings.
These men and women would rather work for a solution than fight change that they consider necessary, and its they who are the gun lobby's biggest constituency. If the lobby does not start listening to what they want, it will risk ceding its influence during a moment of major society change.
As a libertarian, I don't want to surrender my individual liberties to a government that failed at so many pivotal points of the Parkland tragedy, including dozens of calls to local police since 2010, to go to the murder's home and detailed warning to the FBI.
But, just as in the aftermath of the serial tragedies, the Orlando nightclub, Las Vegas concert and the Sutherland Springs church shootings, and others, nothing will really get done unless voters - including those of us who support the Second Amendment - push Congress toward reasonable gun control.
These are my new thoughts and prayers.
97 percent of voters who responded to a Quinnipiac University national poll supported universal background checks (February 20, 2018):
U.S. Support For Gun Control Tops 2-1, Highest Ever, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds
*The teen gunman accused of opening fire with a semi-automatic rifle at his former high school in Parkland, Florida, has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder, officials said Thursday.
Labels: Elise Jordan, Quinnipiac University national poll, thoughts and prayers, Time Magazine
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