(Unfortunately, I’ve lost the link to the article that inspire me to write this and the video that went with it. Mea maxima culpa….)
“They are our rights…[gi]ven by our creator to us all.”…. Oh really? Assuming by creator, they mean God. So I guess God told someone, “And the people shall have the right to more than ten bullet magazine clips.”…. Where is that in the Bible? Anyone? Beuller…. They also say this is why people have crossed deserts, swam oceans and risk their lives to come to this great country….for freedom. According to this video, people from all over the world swim here from other countries to have the freedom to shoot large groups of other people, including children, without the pesky need to reload! GOD FORBID that someone on a shooting spree needs to stop and reload. GOD FORBID a life is saved in the name of freedom.
And GOD FORBID that gun nuts should make a coherent, meaningful assertion instead of assaulting us with the smug arrogance that’s so typical of them. Selective editing, cheap shots, and silly “straw man” arguments are what gun nuts have to offer, because…well, “Gun-grabbing Liberals!!!”. I’ts pointless, intellectually dishonest, and offensive, but it points to the reality that gun nuts HAVE no argument.
First off, “The Creator”- or whatever appellation your Imaginary Friend wears- didn’t bestow the 2nd Amendment upon us. The right to bear arms is not God-given; it was created by men and it’s now being exploited by dishonest and disingenuous gun nuts. How is it that they plant their flag in “the right to bear arms,” but completely blow past “a well-regulated militia?” The 2nd Amendment was not ordained by God; it’s neither sacrosanct nor inviolable…except to those zealots who cling to it with a fervor that defies all logic or reason. Your “rights” to your guns are neither divinely ordained nor natural law. They were created by a collection of men who lived in a world where a smooth-bore musket was the apotheosis of firepower technology…and a “well-regulated militia” was a necessity. In those days, you couldn’t just call 911. We live in a different world today.
Second, if you want to make an argument based of facts and logic, I and many who believe as I do would be willing to listen. What I’m sick to death of is being accosted by poorly constructed and defended arguments that boil down to “Because….” or “[Insert name of preferred deity here] gave those rights to us.” The truth is that assault weapons and high-capacity magazines have but one purpose: to kill human beings. That sort of weaponry should rightly be limited to our military. There’s no reason in the world why I should see, as I did a couple months ago, a man walking alongside a highway with an AR-15 slung over his shoulder.
Guns kill something like 30 people EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Not all of those are killed by assault weapons and in fact the number that are is relatively small. That said, how many mass shootings will it take before we demand changes and Congress actually removes its collective anterior from its posterior? How many more innocent people will have to die before gun nuts recognize and admit the truth? This nation is awash in guns. If the “more guns = more safety and security” argument was true, America would be the safest, most secure place in the world. Instead, we live in a virtual free fire zone, and gun nuts evidently have no quarrel with that.
Hey, as long as it’s someone else burying their loved ones, where’s the fire, right?
