OpEds: Start the gun debate

MIKE INGLES

MIKE INGLES

Vice President, Joe Biden, is what writers call “comic relief.” Problem is, I seem to be the only one laughing. Joe is a great resource for this president as a liaison to senate Republicans, schmoozing with the likes of Senator McConnell, making the crag crack-up, and Steven Colbert has made a living off his gaffes, But he has lost the gun control debate before any real discussion has begun. The Vice President started the discussions by asking for “terms,” instead of demanding that our children be safe in their schools and in movie theaters and in malls. He called together “interested parties” like gun-groups and movie-makers and video-games producers, instead of human rights advocates and teachers and members of the religious community.

His idea seems to be to ‘make nice’ with the very people who will oppose any true reforms that really matter. And, what are his reforms: more stringent background checks, limiting ammunition and creating a national firearms database. None of these measures would have saved a single child last month. None. But, it is so easy for us to forget what really happened at Sandy Hook: A sick young man stole automatic weapons from his mom and exacted his personal revenge, of a troubled youth, on 6-year-old children. And Joe, wants to do business with the folks who enjoy killing helpless animals and peppering cardboard images to show off their skill at destroying anything that might extract their individual revenge some day, if their minds happen to turn to mush. Say-it-ain’t-so-Joe.

What makes sense? Ban all firearms, except shotguns. No more handguns with 10-in-the-clip, no more rifles with 30. Give the wild game an even chance, the hunters won’t starve. Sportsman and hunters can get their rocks off shooting 12-gauge single shot shotguns, and those militia types, who are certain that the government is going to invade their homes, can fend off “Big Brother” and his drones by peppering them with buckshot, after all, that’s more than their forefathers had.

That’s the line-in-the-sand that should start any rational debate. With 315 million of us crowding into metro areas at a record pace (corporate farming has taken all the open lands) some 80% of live in urban areas. If only one in ten-thousand of us are capable of violence with a gun, do the math—that’s 315 thousand folks with brains made of mush just waiting to get their hands on momma’s guns in the hallway closet. What time’s the movie start?

Instead, our man, Joe, wants to improve the database of registered gun owners; that won’t save lives, that won’t fix the problem. It’s a wonderment to me that we’ve gone over a month without any mass-shootings in this country.

The second thing any rational negotiation should include is a proposal to ban all gun-lobbies and/or gun-groups. Just because folks backed by gun-manufactures, with millions of dollars at their disposal, support a few hundred thousand people who have irrational fears about this government taking away a make-believe ancient right, and others who get turned-on by demonstrating their recent penis extension by shooting cardboard at long distances, just because these folks who have a propensity to have mush for brains want to keep guns in their hallway closets, means I should have to live in fear that my grandchildren will be murdered by a madman looking to exact revenge on his wife or mother or boyfriend or the spies at the Pentagon. What about the rights of those who have just begun? What about my right to live in peace.

The third and last point to start the negotiation is by asserting that all guns, other than single-shot shotguns, be turned in at the Post Office within three-months. This single act will save more future lives than flu-vacations. In fact, item 3-A on my agenda would be for the government to give a placebo inoculation to all gun owners when turning in their weapons of choice to make them believe that the sanctity of life trumps hate and violence and guns and irrational fear and colonial patriotism.
Now, let’s begin the debate.

MIKE INGLES is a freelance writer living in Ohio. He has a degree in American Literature from Franklin University, Columbus, Ohio.
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