After the shooting in the Aurora, CO movie theater I wrote
all my state and national legislators urging them to pass laws to restrict the
sale of military issue weapons, and to limit the number of weapons an individual
could purchase. On the day I learned of the shooting in the Sikh Temple in
Wisconsin, I received a reply from Rep. Pat Meehan, my representative in
Congress indicating (in response to my earlier letter) that he agreed with Pres.
Obama (one of the few times he ever has) who advocates strengthening the
enforcement of existing laws. The fallacy of this position is that the weapons
used in these and all the other mass shootings over the last few years
(Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, Aurora, and Tucson) were committed with guns
purchased legally.
Despite the rhetoric as to his being a threat to the gun
lobby, Pres. Obama has done more to weaken gun laws than his NRA member predecessor
George W. Bush. He allowed the assault weapons ban to expire and signed
legislation allowing guns to be carried in National Parks. He has not put more
teeth into the data base that checks on those who seek to purchase guns, even
provisions regarding mental health on which has spoken but not acted. He has
not challenged the Tiahrt Amendment, nor has he in any way challenged the gun
lobby or the NRA or the gun industry to come up with real solutions to the
proliferation of guns into the hands of people such as those who committed
these and other heinous crimes. Furthermore, neither Congress nor most of state
legislatures have done anything to limit the number of handguns or other weaponry
that a person can buy nor given police proactive tools ( such as a law
requiring lost and stolen guns to be reported).
The problem that these recent shootings highlight (yet
again) is it that it is the laws themselves that are contributing to the
problem. When non-military and non-law enforcement people such as the Aurora
killer can collect an arsenal not only of guns but other explosive devices
legally, the problem is not enforcement, it is the law itself. When
para-military groups espousing white supremacist hatred can roam freely and
gather weaponry, the problem is the law.
However, when these common sense solutions don’t even get a
hearing, the problem is not just the law; it is a system of government that
allows powerful lobbies with deep pockets like the NRA to buy silence and
inaction from representatives. It is a system that has a Supreme Court that
renders a decision like Citizens United
which allows money to dictate who gets heard in Congress and who does not. It
is a system that so broadly interprets the Second Amendment that owning a gun
is a right without responsibility or just cause.
The problem is also us that we aren’t so outraged
that we demand to be heard and that we are always reacting rather than seeking
to disrupt this system that is so corrupt and so unresponsive to the real
problems people face (here I refer not only to guns but also so much more),
because it is only serving the needs of an elite few. I am not sure at this
point what that disruption looks like, but it seems that is time for an Occupy Washington,
and Occupy (fill in your state capitol), where we take up residence in the
legislative halls and streets that supposedly belong to the people and demand
action that our elites are not willing to take.
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