#Neveragain

Once again, our nation’s children are being murdered. That’s the truth of it: conditions are such in this country that anyone can buy a military assault rifle and shoot people until somebody stops them. Most often the people that get murdered are our children.

This is an issue that transcends partisan politics. No sane person is in favor of murdering children. I feel safe in saying that the vast majority of Americans want this fixed–whatever it takes. As I see it the problem has two components: The Second Amendment and mental health. Both areas need attention.

There are people who adamantly believe that we can’t outlaw assault rifles because the Second Amendment  says we all have the right to bear arms. It also says that it is related to a well regulated militia. A guy buying an assault rifle just because he thinks it is cool is not part of a well regulated militia. In fact we already do regulate firearms. Anyone who has ever hunted knows this well. Where I live in Minnesota it is illegal to hunt deer with any kind of rifle–only shotgun slugs are allowed. If you want to hunt waterfowl you can’t have more that 3 shells in your gun and you can’t use lead shot. So we already accept regulations on our right to bear arms. The question is: What regulations do we need?

Since the Second Amendment was written, the technology of war has changed significantly. I don’t think any thinking person thinks it would be OK for any individual to own an atomic bomb–or a functioning war plane or a functioning tank or any number of mass killing machines. So where do we draw the line? I say no civilian needs an assault rifle.

The other night I watched Marco Rubio say that he did not support a bill banning specific weapons because it would be too easy to get around. I say that writing a bill to solve the problem of readily available assault rifles would be easy. Really, it needs only 2 components:

Rate of fire: Any rifle that keeps firing automatically when you hold the trigger down should be illegal.
Magazine size: Any rifle that holds more than 6 or 8 bullets should be illegal. Reloading takes time.

Again, we already regulate what weapons individuals are permitted to own. I think a law that does these 2 things will go a long way toward solving the “readily available assault rifle problem”. Politicians need to transcend party politics and fix this ASAP.

I see this post is getting long so I will address the issue of mental health in my next installment.

Before I close I want to applaud the efforts of the students of Stoneman Douglas High School in addressing this problem. They are in the crosshairs and we need to listen to them.