By Raleigh Perry
BUFORD, Ga. | The Gun Violence Archive counted 648 mass shootings in 2022 in our country. In 2023, mass killings began with at least 36 dead in January. This is ridiculous and could be cut way down with national controls on guns.
Perry
Ah, but for the National Rifle Association (NRA), something could be done. They get their way by paying, one way or the other, enough members of the House and Senate to vote their way to save the infamous Second Amendment.
I admonish all to read the Second Amendment to see exactly what it says. Basically, it is there to have a well- armed militia in the states and this was done because there was not really a functioning army originally.
I would say that another real reason to have a gun would be to procure food through hunting, especially in the days when the Second Amendment was written.
Let us talk about the guns for a second. What they had, whether they were pistols or rifles, were flintlock, single-shot guns. But what the NRA is protecting today is pistols and rifles that are automatic, or semi-automatic, that can hold clips or magazines with a lot of rounds (bullets). The AR-15 types of guns will hold up to 30 rounds, and the man who has one can carry several additional clips with him.
There are rational ways to control these shootings that do not involve anything that the Second Amendment says. The most rational would be to control the amount of ammunition manufactured. Make the rounds that end up on store shelves so expensive and so heavily taxed that you would not want to shoot 15, certainly not 30 on the streets of Atlanta or Buffalo. Interstate sales of ammunition has to be stopped and the importation of rounds from outside the U.S. has to be stopped.
Also, without ever registering guns, you can find out who owns them and what calibers that they have by having a type of credit card that would have to be used to purchase ammunition. That credit card could be run through a reader and information on it would be downloaded by state and/or federal agencies. Ammunition could not be bought except in the state of a person’s residence.
In addition to that, stop all sales of guns that hold more than eight rounds. Make it illegal for a person to carry more than one magazine or clip.
Part of the problem of gun control is that there exist a plethora of laws pertaining to guns all over the place in the U.S. Code. They are attached as riders to much legislation. We need to codify our laws in the U.S.
The problem is the National Rifle Association (NRA) which funnels massive amounts of money to congressmen and senators. It makes you think they almost pay Supreme Court Justices somehow.
People are not going to become responsible with guns on their own. They will have to have responsibility forced upon them. But, of course, the NRA cannot have us touch (or barely mention) the Second Amendment. Any mention of it is sacred — at least to gun owners, but not in the same way to most Americans.
Follow Us