- Mon Feb 18, 2013 9:37 pm
#49295
wrote this in response to a story ran by a local, liberal paper of sorts. I doubt it will make any impact at all, but I figured it was part of the democratic process. There were a lot of avenues I could take but I figured brevity would be my ally.
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Mr. Hladky -
I am writing in response to some of the recent stories the New Haven Advocate has been running about firearms and in particular, the “Smart Guns?” article you wrote for the February 14 - 20th edition. I wanted to try to clear up some misconceptions among individuals about how firearms work in an effort to establish more dialogue between the 2nd Amendment support camp and the gun control advocates. While I do my best not to assume other people's opinions, it would seem based on the tone of the “Smart Guns?” article that you are among the gun control camp.
Much of the aftermath of the Sandy Hook tragedy has been increasing amounts of legislation aimed at citizens who legally own firearms. There has been implication among the media and by many who are pushing for gun control that firearms owners are all potentially unstable individuals who need to be feared. There has not been much national or state attention to the various social and financial problems in our country that are actually contributing to violence. Violence is a complex issue and it would be foolish for anyone to think we can magically make it go away through mere legislation. We live in a society that harbors great ignorance regarding mental conditions and where it may be difficult for someone to obtain support for they need. These ignorant assumptions can have dangerous consequences; for example, there was a commonly argued notion that Adam Lanza was mentally ill because of his autism. If we extend the belief that anyone under the autism spectrum is a potential psychopath, we are really demonstrating our collective lack of understanding as a country of mental conditions.
We also live in a country with educational and financial disparity. Children do not have access to the same levels of educational opportunity and afterschool program support. Many lower income families have two or more children but lack the means to support them, and frequently these become single parent households. It is no surprise that unguided children can suffer from an abnormal social development.
Whether the fear is over new potential massacres or increased violence in the streets, the base emotion is the same. Fear is dangerous because we wish to resolve it immediately. We demand action and, as humans, we want to feel better about what we are doing. While this wave of gun control may make you and other individuals feel better, it blatantly disregards the actual problems we have in this country and endangers the lives of our citizens.
I need to address your interpretation of firearms. Firearms are certainly a unique tool. While they can be utilized in a sporting atmosphere (for competition or hunting), we generally discuss 2nd Amendment rights in the context of self defense. You compare the plight of the so called “smart gun” to the development of safety standards in the automobile industry. You also made a direct comparison to firearms and smoke detectors. These are not generally appropriate in the context of your arguments. The primary existence for a firearm to be used as a defensive tool is to exert legitimate, morally justified force against an individual who is seeking to do harm against someone. Guns have no moral compass; they are objects. They have no ability to think or to commit actions on their own volition. While this seems to be a common sense observation, you and other gun control advocates seem to believe that firearms and ammunition are inherently dangerous, ticking time bombs ready to shoot up movie theaters and schools by their very existence. You mention the notion of a “smart, safer” firearm in your article. A firearm is not inherently smart, or safe, or unintelligent or dangerous. While Martin D Looney may feel that people should own the “safest guns possible”, he is simply rehashing this erroneous belief.
The first thing that shooters learn are the four rules of firearms safety. In no particular order, they state that all firearms must be treated as if they are loaded, never point the firearm at something that you do not wish to destroy, keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to fire, and be sure of your target and what lies beyond the target. There have been lots of hypothetical situations brought up by both gun control advocates and 2nd Amendment supporters during this time period and I want to bring up one more.
Let's put aside the four rules of firearms safety for a moment, for the sake of a hypothetical scenario. Imagine that you and I are standing at a table. I have an AR15 rifle, the same rifle that was alleged to be used by Adam Lanza although NBC later ran a report that this was not the case. Let's say I take a magazine with ammunition inside of it. I place the magazine into the rifle and charge the rifle. I disengage the rifle's safety and I point it right at you. Then, I walk away. You could sit at that table for one hundred years and nothing would happen. With no user that desires to commit a crime, or to take his or her own life, the gun can never kill you. It has been designed in a manner that makes arbitrary shooting impossible. This hypothetical, loaded firearm is not “dangerous”. It cannot become dangerous until the human element becomes involved.
This is precisely why adding new “safety features” or removing “assault elements” from a firearm is a pointless endeavor. It can only succeed it impeding the proper usage of a firearm. Imagine how many times you have to deal with minor issues with electronics on a daily basis; your internet hiccups, the computer crashes, the copy machine jams, your credit card isn't read the first time by the point of sale machine, and so on and so forth. This would be a disaster for someone who needed to use a firearm to defend themselves. It would also greatly increase the cost of firearms, thus making it even more difficult for individuals in low income areas to afford the tools of protection they need. The rates of violence in low income areas are generally higher than anywhere else, and whether the gun control advocates want to believe it or not, the people shoving guns into the faces of store clerks or murdering people in their homes during botched burglaries are not the individuals that submit full fingerprints and background checks to the Federal government.
By focusing the legislative and social attack on firearms and their owners, gun control advocates are making a major mistake. They are removing the element of responsibility from the agents of issue. They excuse the criminals who choose to exert violence against the innocent. They try to legitimize the actions of the mentally ill who harbor ridiculous thoughts and plan mass murders. They ignore the egregious social issues of poor parenting, perceptions of mental conditions, and a medical culture that encourages an aggressive regiment of prescription drugs, especially anti-depressants, used to treat conditions that were not even understood or did not exist in a textbook two decades ago. This is far more dangerous than a loaded weapon.
Rather than address dangerous or destructive behavior among Americans, there seems to be the desire to ban and legislate our problems away. Americans suffering from an obesity epidemic? Let's ban the sale of soda and sugary treats instead of trying to understand what physiological and behavioral traits are leading to the problem. Connecticut residents suffering from second hand smoke medical issues? Let's propose a bill that makes it illegal for anyone to smoke in a car with children. The same applies to firearms. We as responsible gun owners realize you all have the best intentions. You see a problem and what you believe is a common sense solution. But I implore you on a personal level to look beyond your fears and to help address the real problem at stake – anyone who is in a condition where they have paranoid beliefs about their very existence, who suffer pronounced depression, schizophrenia, or other such conditions need to be treated properly. These are the people that mental health clinics and halfway houses literally dump onto the streets due to lack of funding. If someone is so mentally ill that they would attack innocent people and young children, to brutally assault, murder, and destroy their bodies by violence, can you really say that banning an object is going to prevent further tragedy? We cannot place police officers, security guards, and soldiers everywhere at all time. Life of any sort is the most important, precious thing of our existence; it is guaranteed morally and legally. No matter what we do, there are those that will choose to take life; where we have an impact is how to dissuade individuals from going down that path and how to prepare ourselves so that potentially fatal attacks have as little of an impact as possible.
If you would like further resources regarding studies on firearms and their impact on violence by national agencies or evidence of the crippling effect that budget cuts have had on mental health facilities, I would be glad to share this information with you. Curbing violence in the United States is something that every citizen is responsible for. I can only hope that our national dialogue begins to address the actual causes of violence rather than robbing law abiding citizens of their only means of protection.
Regards,
Chris
-------------
Mr. Hladky -
I am writing in response to some of the recent stories the New Haven Advocate has been running about firearms and in particular, the “Smart Guns?” article you wrote for the February 14 - 20th edition. I wanted to try to clear up some misconceptions among individuals about how firearms work in an effort to establish more dialogue between the 2nd Amendment support camp and the gun control advocates. While I do my best not to assume other people's opinions, it would seem based on the tone of the “Smart Guns?” article that you are among the gun control camp.
Much of the aftermath of the Sandy Hook tragedy has been increasing amounts of legislation aimed at citizens who legally own firearms. There has been implication among the media and by many who are pushing for gun control that firearms owners are all potentially unstable individuals who need to be feared. There has not been much national or state attention to the various social and financial problems in our country that are actually contributing to violence. Violence is a complex issue and it would be foolish for anyone to think we can magically make it go away through mere legislation. We live in a society that harbors great ignorance regarding mental conditions and where it may be difficult for someone to obtain support for they need. These ignorant assumptions can have dangerous consequences; for example, there was a commonly argued notion that Adam Lanza was mentally ill because of his autism. If we extend the belief that anyone under the autism spectrum is a potential psychopath, we are really demonstrating our collective lack of understanding as a country of mental conditions.
We also live in a country with educational and financial disparity. Children do not have access to the same levels of educational opportunity and afterschool program support. Many lower income families have two or more children but lack the means to support them, and frequently these become single parent households. It is no surprise that unguided children can suffer from an abnormal social development.
Whether the fear is over new potential massacres or increased violence in the streets, the base emotion is the same. Fear is dangerous because we wish to resolve it immediately. We demand action and, as humans, we want to feel better about what we are doing. While this wave of gun control may make you and other individuals feel better, it blatantly disregards the actual problems we have in this country and endangers the lives of our citizens.
I need to address your interpretation of firearms. Firearms are certainly a unique tool. While they can be utilized in a sporting atmosphere (for competition or hunting), we generally discuss 2nd Amendment rights in the context of self defense. You compare the plight of the so called “smart gun” to the development of safety standards in the automobile industry. You also made a direct comparison to firearms and smoke detectors. These are not generally appropriate in the context of your arguments. The primary existence for a firearm to be used as a defensive tool is to exert legitimate, morally justified force against an individual who is seeking to do harm against someone. Guns have no moral compass; they are objects. They have no ability to think or to commit actions on their own volition. While this seems to be a common sense observation, you and other gun control advocates seem to believe that firearms and ammunition are inherently dangerous, ticking time bombs ready to shoot up movie theaters and schools by their very existence. You mention the notion of a “smart, safer” firearm in your article. A firearm is not inherently smart, or safe, or unintelligent or dangerous. While Martin D Looney may feel that people should own the “safest guns possible”, he is simply rehashing this erroneous belief.
The first thing that shooters learn are the four rules of firearms safety. In no particular order, they state that all firearms must be treated as if they are loaded, never point the firearm at something that you do not wish to destroy, keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to fire, and be sure of your target and what lies beyond the target. There have been lots of hypothetical situations brought up by both gun control advocates and 2nd Amendment supporters during this time period and I want to bring up one more.
Let's put aside the four rules of firearms safety for a moment, for the sake of a hypothetical scenario. Imagine that you and I are standing at a table. I have an AR15 rifle, the same rifle that was alleged to be used by Adam Lanza although NBC later ran a report that this was not the case. Let's say I take a magazine with ammunition inside of it. I place the magazine into the rifle and charge the rifle. I disengage the rifle's safety and I point it right at you. Then, I walk away. You could sit at that table for one hundred years and nothing would happen. With no user that desires to commit a crime, or to take his or her own life, the gun can never kill you. It has been designed in a manner that makes arbitrary shooting impossible. This hypothetical, loaded firearm is not “dangerous”. It cannot become dangerous until the human element becomes involved.
This is precisely why adding new “safety features” or removing “assault elements” from a firearm is a pointless endeavor. It can only succeed it impeding the proper usage of a firearm. Imagine how many times you have to deal with minor issues with electronics on a daily basis; your internet hiccups, the computer crashes, the copy machine jams, your credit card isn't read the first time by the point of sale machine, and so on and so forth. This would be a disaster for someone who needed to use a firearm to defend themselves. It would also greatly increase the cost of firearms, thus making it even more difficult for individuals in low income areas to afford the tools of protection they need. The rates of violence in low income areas are generally higher than anywhere else, and whether the gun control advocates want to believe it or not, the people shoving guns into the faces of store clerks or murdering people in their homes during botched burglaries are not the individuals that submit full fingerprints and background checks to the Federal government.
By focusing the legislative and social attack on firearms and their owners, gun control advocates are making a major mistake. They are removing the element of responsibility from the agents of issue. They excuse the criminals who choose to exert violence against the innocent. They try to legitimize the actions of the mentally ill who harbor ridiculous thoughts and plan mass murders. They ignore the egregious social issues of poor parenting, perceptions of mental conditions, and a medical culture that encourages an aggressive regiment of prescription drugs, especially anti-depressants, used to treat conditions that were not even understood or did not exist in a textbook two decades ago. This is far more dangerous than a loaded weapon.
Rather than address dangerous or destructive behavior among Americans, there seems to be the desire to ban and legislate our problems away. Americans suffering from an obesity epidemic? Let's ban the sale of soda and sugary treats instead of trying to understand what physiological and behavioral traits are leading to the problem. Connecticut residents suffering from second hand smoke medical issues? Let's propose a bill that makes it illegal for anyone to smoke in a car with children. The same applies to firearms. We as responsible gun owners realize you all have the best intentions. You see a problem and what you believe is a common sense solution. But I implore you on a personal level to look beyond your fears and to help address the real problem at stake – anyone who is in a condition where they have paranoid beliefs about their very existence, who suffer pronounced depression, schizophrenia, or other such conditions need to be treated properly. These are the people that mental health clinics and halfway houses literally dump onto the streets due to lack of funding. If someone is so mentally ill that they would attack innocent people and young children, to brutally assault, murder, and destroy their bodies by violence, can you really say that banning an object is going to prevent further tragedy? We cannot place police officers, security guards, and soldiers everywhere at all time. Life of any sort is the most important, precious thing of our existence; it is guaranteed morally and legally. No matter what we do, there are those that will choose to take life; where we have an impact is how to dissuade individuals from going down that path and how to prepare ourselves so that potentially fatal attacks have as little of an impact as possible.
If you would like further resources regarding studies on firearms and their impact on violence by national agencies or evidence of the crippling effect that budget cuts have had on mental health facilities, I would be glad to share this information with you. Curbing violence in the United States is something that every citizen is responsible for. I can only hope that our national dialogue begins to address the actual causes of violence rather than robbing law abiding citizens of their only means of protection.
Regards,
Chris
- By SR9