GUN CONTROL FOCUSED ON THE WRONG ISSUE

Guns are Not the Problem

I’m sitting at my dining room table and my loaded Makarov is lying on the table near me.  I eat breakfast, clear the table and even leave the gun sitting there for a few hours.  I’m testing how dangerous the gun is.  Later that day, I safely stow it away, noting that at no time has the gun moved, nor has it fired itself.  Similarly, my car hasn’t taken off to hit someone, my knives have stayed safely “holstered” in my knife rack and my opiate meds for my knee have stayed in their bottles.  It’s another boring day in the Kalm household.

I know.  That first paragraph seems ridiculous, until you realize that the gun control movement blames guns (and gun owners) for the problem of gun violence.  Ridiculous restrictions are placed on what kind of gun you can have and how you must store it as if the gun were a hungry lion that must be contained.  This myth continued with the Alec Baldwin case where the defense was that the gun fired itself.  Baldwin claimed he had never pulled the trigger.  If you’ve ever had a gun, you know that guns never “fire themselves.”

The gun control movement continues to try to take our guns away with this myth of their inherent danger.  I was prompted to write this after New Mexico’s governor, Michelle Grisham, issued an executive order to suspend the carrying of firearms in Albuquerque’s County.  She claimed it was a “public health emergency.”

The Real Problem

While lawful gun ownership has increased over the past years, primarily because of the well-founded public fear that guns will be taken away in order for the government to have more control over us, there is no evidence that the new gun owners are the problem.  For many years, despite the fact that millions of people owned guns, we didn’t see the level of gun violence that we have now.  If it isn’t the number of guns, we have to go deeper. Let’s look at who is involved in gun violence and consider what is really going on.

In a majority of cases, we’re talking about people under the age of 24, which, since Obamacare, are dubbed “children.”  In study after study, the leading cause of death for these children has been suicide and more than 50% of suicides involved guns.

Homicide is the 2^nd leading cause of death in that age group.  Almost all of the gun homicides happen in cities and are caused by young males who got their guns illegally.  In other words, gun control laws have no effect on these murderers because they don’t follow any law.  They haven’t been vetted by the DOJ nor have they had a waiting period to acquire a gun. 

Over the past years, more and more young people report suffering from depression, hopelessness or anxiety.  Even as I recall have some degree of these issues as a teen, kids now have greater challenges.  So many live in single parent homes where fathers have little presence.  Many become attracted to gangs as a way of getting a sense of belonging.  Sexual pressure is extreme.  Add to this the recent push towards becoming transgender, the failure of schools to inspire children and the celebration of violence seemingly supported by the government (BLM, Hamas support, etc.), and it’s no wonder that children are stressed beyond their ability to manage.

Whether you are religious or spiritual, one thing that faith engendered was self-restraint.  You didn’t do anything you thought about.  The entertainment industry, as well as our government, encourages people to do whatever they like, while pretending that this behavior will lead to happiness.  Obviously, it doesn’t.  While one might have the “freedom” to indulge in anything, we all know that this won’t lead to happiness.  Freedom goes with responsibility, and the core of responsibility to self-restraint.  In other words, you think through choices before you make them.

Mental Health Support Coupled with Guidance

If you’re older, you probably had some kind of lecture on sexual responsibility.  Boys were told that getting a girl pregnant most likely would result in financial consequences.  Girls knew they would be stuck with the decision to keep or destroy the fetus.  Most I’ve talked to (and I was a pregnancy counselor at Planned Parenthood a while back) still feel pain and sorry about ending the life of their child. 

No one is born with a moral code, so if schools want to provide more than the 3 R’s, they should be helping kids build a code based on responsibility and restraint, supporting the parents.  Kids should have someone to talk to when the pressure gets too great. If not their parents, there should be people in the community lining up to help kids as they struggle to find their identity and define their values.

My mother really helped me when the ’60’s-style sexual pressure felt too much.  Everyone says they don’t tolerate bullying, but how many kids got a gun to shoot those who hurt them.  There are few consequences to behavior that hurts others, even less now, since they can’t be suspended or expelled.  The only way to learn self-restraint and responsibility is for bad actions to be followed with punishment.  If we catch problems early and offer support, it won’t escalate to violence, to themselves or to others.

Too often, I read that people knew that a mass murderer was struggling and angry.  They aren’t surprised when the young boy (in most cases) grabs a gun and goes on a spree.  Why weren’t these kids helped?

Gun Control is People Control

In fact, the Left doesn’t care about the victims of gun violence, nor do they care about the perpetrators.  They’ve read history and know that control can only be achieved if you have a disarmed populace.  Don’t buy into any of their myths.

If you care about gun violence, just remember that even if there were no guns, the slaughter would still happen, but with knives, improvised bombs, etc.  At core, our children are being given the freedom of adulthood without the guidance to make good choices.  This is something we can fix, without stealing a core freedom adults should be able to enjoy.