Gun Control

For John, BLUF:  Gun control is someone else trying to control your ownership of guns.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Yesterday on City Life, at the very end of the show, the question of gun control came up.  Too late for the audience to respond.

We will pass over, for now, the question of trying to eviscerate our Bill of Rights through the back door and the question of if we chip away at this or that part of the Bill of Rights will we eventually just have chips and dust.

Let us ask ourselves the question of why we need the Second Amendment and then ask if those needs are satisfied:

1. Overthrow the Government—I think Thomas Jefferson is the big proponent of this.
2. Hunting.
3. Protecting the home, and family from home invasion.
4. Protecting oneself on the street, from crime.
5. Hobbies such as shooting and collecting of antique firearms.

Now let us see where we stand:

1. While I think President Jefferson was a little over the top with his tree of liberty line,♠ this is a never-ending need, as other nations show.
2. Well, some may think hunting is cruel, I don't, even though I don't hunt.  And in some parts of the nation hunting is a way of gathering food.
3. When the bad guys are only feet away the Police are only minutes away.
4. Like Number 3.
5. I don't see the harm, given that the gun owners keep things locked up when not in use.

One of the problems with gun control is it is a never ending quest.  There will always be someone out there with a gun.  At the end of the day some police arm of the Government will have to tear apart every house in America to ensure there are no more guns.♥ 

An indication of seriousness on the part of the Government would be a move to disarm the police (as in the UK) and most other agencies authorized to carry firearms.♦  The US Department of Education?  Please.  Call the Marshall Service.  Or Treasury.  Or the FBI.

UPDATE:  On a check ride in 1979 I flew into Chicken, Alaska, had lunch, and flew back out.  I was gigged for sucking the gear too soon coming out of Chicken—it was a short field in amongst rough terrain.  Chicken was also visited by the Feds more recently, in this case the Alaska Environmental Crimes Task Force (EPA).  Guns and body armor.  What has this nation come to when the Federal Government is afraid of the ordinary citizens.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
♥  Whoops, there goes another of our Rights under the First Ten Amendments.
♦  That would be some Federal 73 agencies, including the US Department of Education, which in 2012 purchases 27 "police grade" shotguns, to add to their inventory of weapons.  Why?