Common sense gun restrictions neededBy Renee Horton
It was an announcement one might expect to see in The Onion, an online fictional newspaper: "FAIRFAX, VA - With solid support from the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the Legislature, Governor Ruth Ann Minner signed SB46 into law today, establishing Delaware's first handgun hunting season."
Handgun hunting? Although it struck me as unlikely, Delaware is actually behind the times - 47 other states already allow handgun hunting, according to the above NRA press release. Arizona has allowed it "since at least 1968," Tom Whetten, information and education program manager for Arizona Fish and Game's Region 5 office, told me when I called about the state's hunting rules.
The NRA press release quoted John C. Sigler, the organization's first vice president, as saying legalizing handgun hunting in Delaware "recognizes that hunters are safe, responsible and ethical regardless of the implement used in pursuit of game."
I suppose it depends on what your definition of "game" is. Last month, a 19-year-old decided people playing basketball inside an East Side Tucson sports club were "game." Numerous times each year small children make the mistake of thinking their playmates are "game." Folks angry at love conclude spouses or paramours are "game."
I have no problem with hunters having weapons; my father actually put food on our table with game when I was a child. But do sportsmen and women really need to bag Bambi with a Smith & Wesson .22 Masterpiece double action revolver?
These thoughts have been on my mind lately because of a story my son related about his summer construction job. Recently, the company had him working up in Oracle. At lunchtime, he and the 40-year-old supervisor went to a local Circle-K. In the 30 minutes they were there, he said, he saw three people with handguns: A man wearing one in a shoulder holster, another carrying one in a hip holster and a woman pulling one out of her purse while digging for her wallet.
"I can't believe you can just walk into a Circle-K with a gun," he said.
Of course you can, said Todd Rathner, a member of the National Rifle Association's Board of Directors and a Tucson hunter education instructor. According to Rathner, Arizona law requires permits only for concealed weapons, "but if you have it out in the open, you don't need any permit." To gun owners, I'm sure that spells freedom; to me, it spells scary.
I know hunters should be allowed their guns and people who want to own handguns for personal protection should have that opportunity. But the sheer mass of weaponry floating around this country due to lax gun control - there are 200 million guns in private ownership in the United States, according to Rathner - makes the chance for gun crimes and gun accidents much more likely than if we insisted on a few commonsense regulations. Surely, one really does not need an arsenal to hunt nor protect personal property. But mention any restrictions and the NRA begins to fight.
For instance, the organization has defeated efforts limiting the sale of assault weapons or rapid fire ammunition magazines in Arizona, as well as one requiring child-safety locks be sold with guns and one holding adults responsible for leaving loaded guns around children. They do this in the name of the Second Amendment, but it is an illogical stretch to believe the Founding Fathers envisioned blowing away a squirrel with a machine gun or protecting hearth and home with something out of Lethal Weapon 2.
According to Rathner, the NRA believes gun crimes could be solved if we enforced the 10,000-plus gun laws he says are already on the books. Perhaps, but that does nothing to lessen the plethora of guns on streets and in homes that criminals, suicidal teens, emotional spouses and innocent children can access. At some point it is no longer about personal freedom, but about public safety.
The NRA claims that when guns are outlawed only the outlaws will have guns. I'd turn that around: When anyone can buy a gun, then everyone is in danger. Yes, restrictions would bring a little less freedom. But how many unnecessary gun deaths do we have to witness before we decide that the common good requires some common restrictions - at least in the Circle-K?
http://www.explorernews.com/articles/2005/06/15/columnists/an_examined_life/an_examined_life.txt*FW Note:When I first read this article, all I could do in response was stare at my screen and blink, thinking: "You've got to be kidding".
What we have, in summary, is a woman without an earthly clue.
It starts with a frightened liberal woman in Delaware equating sportsmen engaged in a lawful activity with murderers and gang-bangers, turns to her husband travelling out of state on business and being frightened by free men doing things that free men do, and ends with a political rant about the founders, machine guns, squirrels, and "safe" shopping at the Circle K.
Two things should be on this woman's "to do" list. She needs to get out more, and her "man" needs to grow a set.
:roll:
