When I lived in the western suburbs of Chicago, I remembered seeing directional signs to Highland Park; I also lived in Lake County from 2001 to 2004, but looking at area maps, I don't think I ever visited the town. I've almost never attended a parade, although I've been to fireworks shows in the past.
Now you can check my nearly 6000 posts and you won't find an obsession with guns and the Second Amendment. Personally, my Dad never hunted and probably never owned a gun, so I was never in the gun culture. I recall when I lived in WV in 2014, one of my co-workers proudly showed off his 9-yeat-old daughter's photo posing with her first deer kill. (Lots of deer: I remember warning signs on the Interstate.) I remember thinking, I'm a middle-aged guy, and a 9-year-old girl has more hunting kills than I have...
I've never been a member of the NRA or any other gun-rights organization.I am well aware that guns and rifles bought for hunting, varmint control, shooting competitions, and self-defense, among other reasons, can be used to commit violent crimes. We know there are literally more firearms in the country than American residents. Yet only a tiny fraction are used for criminal purposes; this shouldn't be taken that I am insensitive to shooting victims: I'm a principled proponent of the Non-Aggression Principle.
What made me snap? Let me be clear; I've dealt with the incessant back and forth of the gun control debate, probably since at least the Clinton assault weapon ban
A tweet from Sen. Amy Klobuchar.(D-MN) triggered this rant. She has written multiple tweets on the topic, but this clip from a July 12 tweet makes my point: "Today I met with survivors and advocates from Highland Park and Uvalde about the urgent need to reinstate a ban on assault weapons." Note this is after a recent bipartisan gun reform bill was signed into law.
First of all, the informed reader needs to understand this is polemical by nature of its phrasing. One might think that the puhlic is buying and using military weapons. No. The firearms in question, particularly the AR-15, are semiautomatic (one trigger pull per round/bullet) The acronym AR stands for a brand (ArmaLite), not "Automatic Rifle". Military weapons are different, typically automatic (like machine guns) and have been generally unavailable to the general public since the Great Depression. Semiautomatic rifles and guns have been marketed to the public for over a century. The relevant market for these rifles is primarily for hunting and for shooting competitions. I remember how one dad descried how his 14-year-old daughter preferred the usability, smooth operation and accuracy of her rifle in hunting. Forbes notes that female hunters are the fastest growing segment of hunters.
Second, as I've mentioned in earlier posts or tweets, the evidence of effectiveness of the decade-long Clinton era "assault weapon ban" is dubious at best. (Among other things, many existing firearms were grandfathered, and similar functionality rifles were legally available.) We continued to see a drop in homicide rates in recent decades, with or without the ban.
Whereas mass shooting incidents get obsessive media coverage (and no one can deny the related tragedies), only a tiny percentage of relevant rifles are used for criminal purposes. And we know from FBI and other sources, a large percentage of firearms used in crimes were not purchased on the open market by the perpetrator, at least by his identity, but were stolen, gifted, etc. To what extent do you inconvenience the rights of other people? Where do you draw the line: the bodega operator fatally used a knife on an aggressor. Knives can be used for other purpose. There are chemical products in your hardware store or grocery that can kill people. You can also die from ingesting too many doses of prescribed meds. When the teen Uvalde shooter got his dad to approve his rifle purchase, even after in the past having threatened family members with violence, what faith do you have in a government bureaucrat to do better?
Let me close this essay by quoting Benjamin Franklin:
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
