“We Must Do Something”

By Semperpapa

Gabrielle Giffords made her appearance at a gun violence hearing last Wednesday in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The former Arizona Representative opened up the hearing with the expected passionate plea for gun control.

I deeply sympathize with Ms. Giffords for the tragedy that affected her when she was wounded by a crazy gunman couple of years back, and I am happy that, considering the gravity of her wounds, she seems to be slowly recovering.

That said, I find it disturbing that the tragedy Ms Giffords was victim of would be used blatantly to attack the constitutional rights of millions of American citizens.

The culprit? A semi-automatic pistol with an extended magazine?

Not in the least!

The culprit was a demented liberal, obsessing for the politician and protected by a politically correct environment that is more interested in keeping someone with very dubious background on the street.

The portion of the statement that caught my attention was this one:

“Too many children. We must do something. It will be hard, but the time is now. You must act. Be bold. Be courageous. Americans are counting on you. Thank you.”

More specifically the “We must do something” and that something is the infringement on the right of millions of Americans, law abiding Americans, to self defense?

Is the answer to all the evils of America, the ignoring of the Constitution?

I stated this before and will do so again: the moment that the government can 100% guarantee that never, ever any harm will ever come to any member of my family, I may consider some form of gun control. Until then, there is no compromising about the Second Amendment for this American.

The problem is that the moment the American people will place all the aspects of their safety in the hands of the government, than the enemy of the people will be the government.

Any time we tell the government that it must do something, the government is more than happy to oblige, because it increases its power.

When in the 1990s then President Clinton promised to put 100,000 new police officers on the streets of America, everyone cheered as they saw the government responding to the people’s request for “safety” on Main Street.

What we got, was federal funding for many municipalities to pay for all these new cops and also federal guidelines in the selection process.

Racial and gender quotas were secretly enforced according to unwritten federal guidelines placing in uniform, with a badge and a gun, folks who had no business being there. One of the results, years later, was the scandal of the Rampart Div. of the LAPD.

The solution to acts like Newtown or Aurora or Virginia Tech is not to infringe upon the inalienable rights of millions of law abiding citizens. The massacre of Ft. Hood is an example, because the tragedy, as appalling as it was, would have been a lot worst had it not been for the presence of an armed federal police woman, who, although shot twice, brought Hasan down with her weapon. A good guy with a gun!
In Newtown, if any of the adults in the school had been armed, maybe the murderer could have been interdicted sooner and save lives.
In Aurora, similarly, an armed patron in the theater could have saved lives.

I want to emphasize the word “could” in my above statements, because it is not a certainty that an armed good guy could be effective, but it is a certainty that the absence of armed citizens will always result in the attacker being effective.

So yes, something must be done, but attacking law abiding citizens’ rights is not it.

Just my thoughts!