Coming to a draw on a solution for gun control

In the last month, CNN became more unbearable and Facebook statuses became more obnoxious than usual. No issue has divided the United States more in the last month than gun control in the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school. Without question it has provoked firm stances on both sides on what’s the best way to handle guns in our country.
The main aspect of the current gun control debate is around assault rifles because of the role they played in Newtown and the shooting in the Aurora, Colo. movie theater. Anti-gun groups would argue to ban assault rifles and our government needs to regulate guns in general. Many conservatives would argue that banning assault rifles would infringe on the Second Amendment, place the guns in the hands of criminals, and that the best way to safety would be to increase gun ownership of citizens so they can protect themselves.
As one who has never lived in moderation, this is one time I can see a grey zone through this problem. See while I’m not an NRA (National Rifle Association) enthusiast, I know through history and the War on Drugs tells us that prohibition is a terrible response to human impulses. So a “ban” on assault rifles or automatic weapons isn’t going to stop people from getting them or killing people. It could create a black market which will make assault rifles cheaper, easier, and more accessible to children.
My anti-gun friends bring up other countries such as Australia. John Howard, the former Australian prime minister, recently wrote an op-ed in the New York Times about banning assault rifles in the mid-’90s. The government got rid of the assault weapons through buying the assault rifles from their people and then prohibiting them. Their violent crime rate plummeted and remains lower than ours.
That’s a great point, but it’s tricky to apply other countries social problems to our own. Howard conceded this in his op-ed by acknowledging Australia’s differences compared to America. Our constitution grants the right to bear arms and the Bill of Rights doesn’t grant lawmakers as much power over individual rights as opposed to Australia. Howard also points out our bloody history, writing “After all Britain granted us nationhood peacefully; The United States had to fight for it.” He also acknowledged the power the NRA has in our politics. But lobbyists who secretly shake hands with Uncle Sam is a different issue for longer discussion.
Our country has a history of violence to obtain freedom. Since then we’ve always had an aggressive culture. Just like banning drugs will not stop the demand of citizens trying to get high, banning guns in America will not stop our love affair with shiny, loud objects that project speeding points of metal. America loves loud noises, as any Fourth of July celebration could tell you. So making guns obsolete isn’t going to stop the demand of guns. Most importantly, an active prohibition campaign, a “War on Guns,” will cause more harmful bloodshed and societal problems than our current, and failed, “Drug War.”
However the conservative arguments for gun control are getting ridiculous. They’d rather not talk about guns but talk about everything else, such as blaming mental health while failing to propose any federal spending to help curb it.
The Republican Party will never speak out for responsible gun policies because of their political ties to the NRA. According to OpenSecrets.org, a non-partisan website site that tracks campaign contributions, reported that the NRA spent $804,301 in contributions in 2012. Of that money 89 percent went to Republicans. When I said before that corporations have their hands up Uncle Sam’s rectum, the NRA is elbow deep.
Wayne LaPierre, vice president of the NRA and possessor of the “Frenchy-est” name for a GOP lobbyist, called for there to be armed guards in schools. A pro-gun group in Ohio has embraced this notion by launching a program to arm teachers and train them how to use guns, according to the Columbus Dispatch. Isn’t it a little unreasonable to expect a second grade teacher to get in Rambo mode when a violent intruder breaches a school?
My pro-gun friends claim “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” To that I reply “If I threw up my hands and said ‘I’m going to kill you,’ you would laugh. But If I held a loaded gun in front of you and said, ‘I’m going to kill you’ your response would be a lot different.” The point is while it’s a good argument, guns kill people quickly, and effectively more than other weapons. If I have to provide a statistic for that, then I’ve given up on your sanity.
One way that I propose dealing with guns parallels the way Switzerland dealt with their drug problem. In the 1980s, the Swiss had an epidemic of HIV and crime associated with drug use, usually needle injecting drugs. To curb this, the government first started a Safe Injection site. Other countries such as Germany and Norway have also established the same kind of sites.
While extremely controversial, these Safe Injection sites have been proven to have had positive effects. The Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse reported that the rate of drug overdose in Europe is 1 and 500 to 600, which attests to the sites as the reason. Countries such as Switzerland observed a decline in drug related deaths and decrease in crime.
Call me crazy…But why not do this with assault rifles. Don’t completely ban assault rifles but have them regulated to shooting sites where the only place one could get and use them is a regulated shooting range or hunting range. Would this decrease massacres that have been popping up from Columbine to Newtown?
I think it’s worth a shot. As long as if people don’t get so bent out of shape about strictly regulating guns, it could possibly work. It’s better than going after “violence in video games.” Trust me, evil people such as Genghis Kahn, Adolf Hitler, and Joseph Stalin didn’t become violent from too much Grand Theft Auto.