No Easy Answers on Guns

As the debate over gun control, gun violence, or gun safety heats up we need to all realize there are no easy answers. There is no one dimensional answer. Certainly it would seem to many of us, myself included, more importantly a high percentage of gun owners themselves, feel that some common sense restrictions on the purchase of guns should be enacted.

It seems to me that large magazines and Bushmaster weapons are not really something any private citizen needs. As Jon Stewart said on his show recently when the Second Amendment became law a musket was the weapon of choice. His answer that muskets be exempted from all gun control has a wry merit to it.

What those folks on the side of gun control need to realize is that a large majority of Anericans are in favor of private gun ownership and have at least some reservations about the government restricting gun access. For me personally I think this is kind of silly but just because I do does not mean I am correct. We on the left on this issue need to be very careful to be respectful of those we disagree with. A great majority of those who own guns are good citizens and they deserve no condescension.

Fox news analyst and political commentator Charles Krauthammer write a column in December after Sandy Hook that was dead on in his assessment. Rarely do I agree with this man but in this article he spoke eloquently and correctly about the challenges we face on this issue.

He pointed out that while taking a few types of guns away, even large cartridges, would make us feel like we were doing something, would inevitably stop a few terrible events from happening, it would not be the panacea to the problem that those on the left believe.

Our country has a mental health crisis. One could argue why this is so, but what is most evident is that in the last generation a great number of people that in a previous life would have been institutionalized are not anymore. Moreover those that need mental help are often caught in limbo. Often times a parent or a guardian or even a friend of a person struggling with mental health issues cannot get the help they need. More than one person related to one of these mass murderers has stated that they were previously denied help because the individual had not " done anything to get in the system." In short the house needs to be on fire before the fire department can come.

The third issue and for some reason the issue the left seems to have the most vocal response to is the discussion of movie violence and video games such as Call of Duty and Halo. I hate these games. My sons both have played those games, they use them as much as a social tool as the boys play them together with headsets but I still feel a remorse every time I hear them playing. I would throw them all out today but I am in the minority in both my house on this issue, and certainly with the other places my children go. My argument of acceptance, weak though it is, is that at home I can monitor them but I feel that this is my greatest mistake as a parent. Now my children are not desensitized to violence, they are well adjusted, and of course most children who play these games have no issues. The problem is that some, a small minority do. On top of this a whole new breed of movie has sprung up in recent years, a kind of violence porn that is to me reprehensible.

What is to be done? As pointed out by many experts including my father years ago the mind is a sponge. In the case of video games and movies it is garbage in, garbage out. Would this be a good place to limit free speech? First amendment advocates, many of whom who have no problem with the limiting of the second amendment have no ability to comprehend the need for this discussion on movies, videos and the like.

Mental health care needs to lose it's stigma, something that might or might not happen, but many experts and people in the know state that the only way to get a real handle on the mental health crisis in this country would be to have a database of those seeking help. This too makes alarms go off for many people. A violation of privacy. If in the interests of society the ability to commit people against their will, even if advocated by their loved ones, would butt up against the Fifth Amendment.

As Krauthammer says we need to make sure that all of the people involved in the solution have respect for each others opinions and also each sides attachment to a particular amendment.

Quentin Tarantino might claim the First Amendment is sacrosanct and that is right but then he must be understanding of those that feel the same way about the Second.

In short there are no easy answers. We all need to understand that to solve the problem something we all need to understand is that perhaps stopping this violent culture from worsening can be the only goal that is sacrosanct.