Sunday, December 16, 2012

American Skin

In case you're wondering what prompted the violent posts of the past several days, this is my daughter's classroom Friday, the very same day that a nutter took his Bushmaster .223 to a school very like it, and a classroom very like it, and killed children and teachers very like the ones you are seeing.
Now speaking generally I have never understood the "need" for anyone to own one of these military-style weapons. Frankly, an old-school Ruger 10/22 would seem perfectly capable of killing as many first-graders as you need to feed your sickness and has the added feature of being terrific for hunting squirrels when society collapses in the wake of the Zombie Apocalypse.
And I've never understood the idea that you can't legislate the type and number of arms that We the People can bear. How many fuckin' GI Joe look-alike Bushmaster .223's do you need? Christ, one is too many. The fuckin' deer and squirrels have yet to shoot back. And cricket bats and Winchesters work just fine on the zombies; you've seen Shaun of the Dead, right? What, a bolt-action Mauser isn't cool enough for ya?
But far beyond and above all the bloviating, this is what matters to me. She is half of my skin in the game.
If she, and millions like her, can be 0.001% less likely to capped by some nutter with a bad attitude and an autoloading rifle by the hard graft of separating the two then to me the benefit is worth the cost. Mental health? Don't make me laugh. I'm an old sergeant, and I do simple, easy, and certain. I know with dead solid surety that it's simpler, easier, and more certain to take the weapon out of the hands of the asshole nutter than take the nutter out of asshole nutter with Prozac and a couch.

I don't pretend to have an unbiased opinion on the subject. If you're coming here for that you are in the wrong place. On this subject I am in full-rant mode.

I am tired of the lies about tyranny prevented and the evasion of real death and maiming done to innocents. I am tired of people with vested interests in weapons lying about how regulation equals confiscation. I am tired of the endless blaming of the nutters and not the admission of how much more difficult it would be for them to indulge their murderous nuttery if they had to do it with a kitchen knife.

But to me what is the most important thing is that these children, that MY child, benefit from increasing the chance that the next nutter won't be able to lay his hands on a Bushmaster .223 before he walks through the door of this classroom.

If this be tyranny, I will make the most of it.

6 comments:

Ael said...

Before I was wed, my wife-to-be informed me that she would not live in a house containing guns. I've never missed them.

It seems entirely reasonable to make highly dangerous and low utility things inconvenient to possess. Yes, that means the government can tell me what I can and can not do.

The slogan "Peace, order, good government" works for me.

FDChief said...

The thing is, Ael, that I DO have several weapons in our house; a bolt-action rifle and two shotguns.

The kids know that they're here but not where they are. And the ammunition is locked up where they cannot get it.

But, then again, I have no paranoid fantasies about fighting off hordes of frantic welfare recipients crazed after their EBT cards are cut off or Korean gangsters doing a home invasion. I've read the statistics and realize that I have something like 400% more likelihood of being shot by a drunken relative with my own rifle than I do in one of those scenarios.

And I don't harbor any dreams or fantasies of locking up every civilian firearm in the U.S. But I DO believe that it is both legal and in the nation's best interest to tighten the restrictions on certain types of firearms. Military-style semiautos are designed to be used easily by idiot draftees; they are too easy for idiot nutters to use, too.

There's no reason for a civilian to have more than a 10-round or even an 8-round magazine.

People identified as having mental health problems should never, ever have any sort of firearm. Ever.

And every firearm sold should be through a licensed dealer who would HAVE to check the buyer's bonafides - like NOT being a certified mental.

THAT's where I stand on this issue. If the NRA doesn't like those terms they can kiss my ass.

Syrbal/Labrys said...

We keep only a shotgun; we have had cougar and bear sightings in the block.

But more than that, no.

FDChief said...

Like I said, Labrys; I have firearms, hunt, shoot, and hope that my son and daughter grow up familiar with and comfortable with using weapons - because I hope it will make the RESPECT the weapons as the deadly tools they are.

Not fucking security blankets against fantasy carjackers.

Not ridiculous totems in an impossible WOLVERINES! Red Dawn macho masturbation scene.

Tools. Tools that can feed your family - my father as a kid hunted deer because meat was fucking expensive and a rifle cartridge cost a penny - or teach you patience and concentration.

Talyssa said...

Hey FDChief!

I can say that I am so glad that Australia does not allow people to own guns,we have enough deaths that happen just from stabbings I can't imagine how many more would happen if guns were commonly allowed. It is after all much harder to perform a stabbing massacre on an innocent group of people than it is a shooting massacre.

I may have to disagree slightly on one point you make - mind you I know nothing about guns - but I don't believe tightening the restrictions on what type of firearms people own is going to stop someone from using a shotgun if they get off on killing a bunch of people.

I guess it would actually depend on the psychopath...if he gets off on using a military weapon to kill a bunch of people then yes it would help but if he just wants to kill a bunch of people...I'm sure he/she'd consider any type of gun.

Overall, I think deaths by guns in Australia is significantly lower than that in the US and we definitely do not have massacres occurring as often as I hear them happening in the US, on the news. Therefore, I think a no gun policy would be the most successful in reducing the amount of deaths that occur from these massacre type situations.

I also should add that people CAN own guns legally in Australia for hunting etc, but it is a lengthy process to obtain one and you have to get a lot of licences etc.

Now I'm going to share something with you about why I think guns are completely unsafe, regardless of how safe a parent thinks he/she has kept them away. In Australia I live in bushland, so if people in my area like, they can apply to own a gun because kangaroos are considered somewhat of a pest and are allowed to be hunted (within regulation). So my neighbour at the time owned a gun. One day my my brother and I were playing with the neighbourhood kids (we were all about 6-8years old), and the son of my neighbour who owned the gun, told us his father owned a gun. As it is not common in Australia to own guns naturally all us were like "as if" etc etc. Eventually he walked away and the rest of us continued playing. The kid comes back 10minutes later holding this huge rifle in his hands points it at my brother and says "so you think my dad doesn't own a gun?!" and pulls the trigger. The gun makes a bang sound. Everyone froze and then the kid holding the gun starts laughing and says "HAHA you were all so scared!! My dad doesn't keep bullets in it!!"

Turns out he hadn't even checked if the gun had bullets in it or not. He just assumed. Had his father taken the gun out the day before and forget or didn't find it necessary to remove the bullets, that situation could have been completely different!!

His father wasn't too pleased to find out his son broke into his shed AND knew how to open the locks to the gun - especially since he had never shown or told his son how. Nor was he pleased when his gun had to be removed(My parents were furious and took action).

FDChief said...

Talyssa: I agree with you - nothing is going to make my country, or anywhere else, "safe" from some nutter with a gun.

But...what I have problems with is that in this country we're not even willing to open up the legal toolbox to try and REDUCE the number and lethality of our guns.

I enjoy shooting (and hunting, before soft-hearted kiddos told me flat out that I could NOT bring cute little duckies back dead...). I don't want to try and try and outlaw private firearms, and even if I did I'm not foolish enough to think we could.

But...let's take your example.

Let's say that it was a Federal Class C felony to allow an unlicensed person unfettered access to a firearm. So your neighbor would have been required - by law - let's say, to purchase a gun safe where his rifle and ammunition would be stored, and to have the key or combination under his control at all times.

So by law your neighbor kid wouldn't have even been able to get hold of his dad's rifle. No rifle, no bullet, no "bang".

And your country has some of the toughest gun-control laws in the Western world. Here's what the Wiki entry says:

"Anyone wishing to possess or use a firearm must have a Firearms Licence and, with some exceptions, be over the age of 18. Owners must have secure storage for their firearms.

Before someone can buy a firearm, he or she must obtain a Permit To Acquire. The first permit has a mandatory 28-day delay before it is first issued. In some states (e.g., Queensland, Victoria, and New South Wales), this is waived for second and subsequent firearms of the same class. For each firearm a "Genuine Reason" must be given, relating to pest control, hunting, target shooting, or collecting. Self-defence is not accepted as a reason for issuing a license, even though it may be legal under certain circumstances to use a legally held firearm for self-defence.

Each firearm in Australia must be registered to the owner by serial number."


Any one of these would cause a @nd Amendment Purist in this country to go utterly berserk; even trying to get legislation written to require secure storage, for example, would cause an insane furor.

It's not that I expect some sort of magic gun-law to make us all safe and happy. But it's damn deadly depressing when my fellow citizens on the other side of this issue won't even CONSIDER what is considered common-sense regulation in your country...