Time to reconsider gun control

How many times have you pulled up behind a car festooned with bumper stickers like “Gun Control Means Using Both Hands,” “Keep Honking, I’m Reloading,” “If You Can Read This, You’re in Range?”

You know, “cold, dead hands” stuff.

Now, how many of you feel a warm sense of security being that close to someone who is apparently upset enough to say these things to someone who hasn’t done anything to them?

Personally, I don’t know what has put their bandoliers in a bunch. The only gun legislation the president has signed is that which allows loaded firearms in national parks and unloaded guns in Amtrak luggage compartments. That’s it. It seems Obama has gone out of his way to sidestep any Second Amendment controversy.

At least until now.

Even the most paranoid among us tends to be right sometimes, so break out the aluminum foil overcoats everyone, because here it comes. In the wake of Newtown, the president has said it’s time to do something about gun violence in this country “regardless of the politics.” That’s code for hide your guns everyone, because the angry man is commin’ ta git ‘em.

A thing like this could mean no more loaded pistols in national parks and no more guns, loaded or unloaded, on the train. It could even get to the point where you can’t carry a sidearm into a bar. I don’t know about you, but if I’m entering a room full of drunks I want everyone to know that I’m packin’. It tends to get the conversation started.

Actually, the president, in the person of Vice President Biden, will probably push to reinstate the assault weapons ban and limit magazine capacity. I don’t see us going much further than that. The fact is, due to the NRA’s talent for lobbying, we do not have the ability to do the one thing that would help us keep guns out of the hands of psychos — a national database to track gun ownership.

So the next time you are watching “CSI Newark” and the bespectacled lab person pulls up the history of a handgun with just a few simple keystrokes, you can claim B.S. We don’t have that ability in this country because there is no central clearinghouse of information. We can do it for your driver’s license and your library card, but not for your Glock. After all, cars, buses, and trucks are meant to transport people and goods and are a vital part of our national wellbeing. The purpose of libraries is to disseminate information, which we all know can be a very dangerous thing. Guns, on the other hand, are designed to kill. Why would we want to know where they are and who has them?

I know what you’re probably thinking. I’m thinking it too. What happens when the government takes over and we are all herded into concentration camps to toil away our lives making computer chips and copies of the Communist Manifesto for our Chinese overlords? What then? Well, when that happens you can use that 30-round clip to go after the folks who have cruise missiles and aircraft carriers.

I don’t suppose it matters that the takeover will be initiated from the people we keep electing to office. After all, it won’t be the people I voted for. It’s all those other politicians elected by all those other people. Those people aren’t real Americans. How could they be? They keep electing people I don’t like, and I only like real Americans. That’s logic. Taking my country back means taking it away from everyone who doesn’t see things my way, and for that I need to be armed.

Even before the Apocalypse, I need my Baretta to protect me from the kid in the car next to me whose music is too loud. Or the on-call firefighters trying to put out a house fire. Or the rookie police officer loading an unconscious woman into an ambulance. Or the unarmed black kid in a hoody who won’t stop when I tell him to. Or the more than 100 gun deaths that have happened in this country in the days since Sandy Hook.

Guns are the answer to gun violence the same way a Zippo is the answer to forest fires. I’m not advocating a rewrite of the Second Amendment, but sensible gun laws are not the death of freedom in America. The Bill of Rights is not sacrosanct and untouchable. For example, the First Amendment doesn’t mean that I can say anything about anyone. In a recent column I said Vic Kohring voted for an oil tax that he didn’t vote for. I was called on that by a reader and that reader was right to do so. The First Amendment doesn’t give churches the right to perform human sacrifice or allow Sharia Law to circumvent our Constitution.

Likewise, the Second Amendment does not give you unfettered access to any weapon of your choosing. I think we can all agree that a bazooka in the hands of a 3-year-old is a bad idea.

So it seems that some regulation is acceptable even to the most strident. The debate has centered on so called assault weapons. Frankly, if you’re using a rifle for hunting, I don’t think you will need a 30-round magazine; not unless you are being attacked by a herd of commando caribou. If you are using that rifle for self-defense, you stand a good chance of shooting your toes off before you draw a bead on the potential evildoer.

The reason for the coming debate boils down to this. In Connecticut, there are 26 households with unopened Christmas gifts. Less than a month after that unimaginable act there are more than 100 families making arrangements for loved ones. We can be better than this. It’s time.

Chuck Legge is a freelance political cartoonist and community columnist who lives in Sutton.