Guns in America
The school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, was an inexcusable tragedy. There is no justification for either the carnage or the perpetrator even having access to a weapon, I'm sure all will agree.
While I am a supporter of the Second Amendment,
I've long supported the need for true background checks (which include mental stability as well as criminal history) as well as safety courses for any proposed gun purchaser.
When the Founding Fathers codified the citizens' right to bear arms, it was on the heels of the American Revolution against colonial rule by Britain. They understood that a disarmed population could easily be controlled by an overreaching government and kept unable to rebel against it. They were seeking to prevent any future government from confining a citizen's right to selfdetermination, and provided that armed citizens could form a “well-regulated militia” for that purpose. The predominant weapons of citizens at the time were muskets and singleshot pistols, useful for hunting game as well as self-protection.
The revolver (familiar to fans of western movies) was perhaps the first “semi-automatic” weapon. After a round was fired, the next round was automatically advanced into the firing chamber, but the trigger needed to be pulled for each round (far different from the automatic weapons of today, which continue firing until the trigger is released).
Automatic weapons only belong in the armories of the military. Police on patrol don't necessarily need to be routinely armed with them, and there's certainly no place for them in the hands of civilians. I am not a hunter, but I can't imagine anyone hunting deer or other game with an automatic weapon.
If a person is deemed or certified safe and sane, and has been taught the proper way of handling and safely storing weapons, I believe they ought to be permitted to own a revolver, rifle or shotgun for hunting or protection. Hunters should be extremely careful to prevent access to their weapons and ammunition by children or young adults.
The best-intended laws governing gun ownership cannot guarantee avoidance of another tragedy such as we've recently seen. Laws are only obeyed by law-abiding people. Even a sane person can “crack” at any time. The only thing we can do as a free society to minimize the unimaginable is to keep automatic weapons where they belong (in military or lawenforcement armories), and manufacturers of such weapons should do their part to insure that their products are only sold to the appropriate agencies.
— Ed Rosenback/Vallejo