Honor veterans; restrict weapons of war
Another chance to address common sense with guns, let’s not wait again …
This weekend I had the honor of catching up with my father in Washington, D.C., as he was among a group of WWII veterans honored for their service during the war. The group flew from Minneapolis to the nation’s capital, where their U.S. Senator, Al Franken, offered them a warm greeting.
My father’s Army group battled to free the area that is now called the Czech Republic. And after the war came to an end in Europe, he headed to Japan – there to assist in the cleanup. Five years later, my father and mother returned to Japan to begin their service as Lutheran missionaries in Japan. He later earned the rank of major as a chaplain in the Air Force.
My father was an expert marksman, but I never heard bravado from him about shooting guns. Rather, the only story I recall him ever telling me was the grief he experienced while sitting with a soldier as he died. War is not pleasant and neither are the tools of war. My father is a patriot. I would like to consider myself one as well.
That is why I am committed to stricter gun control here in the United States. Our soldiers and our police officers need weapons. I’m not so sure the rest of us do. In fact, there is considerable evidence that those who store guns in their homes are more likely to die or get injured by those guns than those who do not own them. Guns simply do not make us safer. Ask any family member who has lost a child in an accidental shooting within their own home.
A column in this week’s Heron’s Nest drew a firestorm of resentment from gun owners. The editor’s key recommendation, “Maybe we should be convulsed by the knowledge that these things keep happening, and we do nothing to stop them.”
The first Facebook criticism levied against the column argued that we shouldn’t be talking policy while families in Las Vegas grieve. So when might it be appropriate to raise the question? In addition to the slaughter of innocent people in Las Vegas this past Sunday, another gunman killed three and two were wounded in Lawrence, Kansas.
At least 59 were killed in Las Vegas when one man managed to smuggle 23 weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition into his hotel room. If we don’t raise the question now, when will we have the guts to do so? We made no authentic changes after Columbine, after Sandy Hook, and after Orlando. What would motivate us to do so in a few weeks after Las Vegas?
Private sellers in some states (including Pennsylvania) can sell semi-automatic weapons without even initiating a simple background check. Here in Delaware County, my wife and I have been involved in the organization, Delaware County for Sensible Gun Policy. The organization has been seeking background checks for all gun purchases – simple background checks. That just doesn’t seem so outlandish for weapons that are designed to kill. Yet the gun lobby is ready to fight anything they fear could possibly construed as an infringement on the Second Amendment. They do so with an almost religious fervor.
That simply doesn’t jive with common sense or with the will of the American people. The biggest culprit is undoubtedly the NRA, an organization that has funneled enormous amounts of money into campaigns nationwide. The NRA clearly represents a potent vocal minority of the American people, but wields the weight of money – the currency that far too often seems to dictate a range of irrational U.S. policies.
Now is exactly the time to stand up to the NRA and make common sense decisions. We should be able to limit the number of firearms an individual can possess. We should be able to halt all sales of semi-automatic weapons that are not designed for hunters, but for mass killers. I can’t imagine even the most ardent of NRA supporters saying they would savor the right of anyone to kill masses of the innocent.
In one of the most moving late-night monologues I have ever witnessed, Jimmy Kimmel, in tears, shared this message Monday night:
“There are a lot of things we can do about it. But we don’t, which is interesting. Because when someone with a beard attacks us, we tap phones, we invoke travel bans, we build walls, we take every possible precaution to make sure it doesn’t happen again. But when an American buys a gun and kills other Americans, then there’s nothing we can do about that.”
We honor people like my 92year old father, our veterans who died in battle, and victims across the country who were innocently killed in gun carnage when we stand up for common sense laws that will save lives.
“Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” But guns sure do make it a heck of a lot easier for one man to kill 59 innocent people in just a few moments. The Second Amendment was crafted in a different time period for a different era. It was not intended for homeowner’s possession of automatic and semiautomatic weapons.
It wasn’t that long ago when the U.S. Surgeon General and the medical establishment helped take on the similarly powerful tobacco lobby, and today smoking among Americans has fallen dramatically.
It’s time we modify gun ownership laws. We just might save innocent lives, just like the cessation of smoking has undoubtedly contributed to longer lives ... allowing older Americans the opportunity to address the challenges we should have addressed decades ago. Leave your comments online Use hashtag at