Democrats in Michigan move on gun violence- and the nutters heads explode
Let’s be clear from the start. I am a gun owner and go to the range semi-regularly to shoot targets. I am not opposed to guns but do believe that reasonable regulations are necessary.
The link below [1] to a Facebook article from local Fox17 news channel and the resulting comment thread illustrate the fanatical hyperventilation of gun-nutters to any kind of rules. In their minds, ANY regulation is an infringement!
The Michigan Legislature is working to pass a red flag law. These unreasonable opponents claim it is a violation of due process. It is NOT. In fact, red flag laws actually HAVE a process. That’s the point!
One proposed law would require background checks for private sales. Apparently this is also an infringement. When I pointed out it was needed to prevent strawman sales, their response was that there are already laws against strawman sales. For those that do not know, a strawman sale is when someone who can legally buy a gun does so and then turns around and provides it to someone who cannot legally buy a gun. The problem is that under our current system in which there are no background checks for private sales, there is no means to actually enfoce the ban on strawman sales! Requiring background checks for private sales would close this loophole.
Of course, as usual, the gunnutters bleat and whine that “nobody is going to take their guns away.” No law is proposed that includes confiscation of ANYBODY’s guns. There is no slippery slope to confiscation. Never has been. In fact, if there is a ‘slippery slope’ it has been in the opposite direction of removing regulations or making them ineffective to the point of irrelevance.
The Biden administration just issued an Executive Order with regards to gun regulations which would increase background checks, improve public awareness for safe storage, provide policymakers informtion on gun dealers who violate the laws, among other activities.[2] Naturally gunnutters went ballistic (no pun intended) about the executive order. But the EO is really nothing more than the administration actually pushing to enforce existing laws! Isn’t that what gunnutters always say? “Enforce existing laws, don’t create new ones.” Yet, here is an attempt to do just that- enforce existing laws- and they heads explode!
The comment thread on Facebook for the news article is also replete with historical revisionism. One commentator quoted George Mason with regards to guns. Mason was a well-known OPPONENT of the Constitution and fought its ratification. It is quite ironic to claim to be upholding the Constitution when quoting an opponent.
Another commentator, when confronted with the first half of the second amendment “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State” claimed that the militia was “the whole of the people”- again citing an opponent of the Constitution.
I had to refute that by repeatedly urging these folks to read Hamilton’s Federalist Paper #29, which goes into great detail the purpose and organization of the militia of the day. The militia of the day was NOT in place to push back against the “tyranny of our own government.” The militia was the defacto army of the new nation in the absence of a large standing army (though we did have a small official army and officer corps at the time). The militia was created to put down invasion and insurrection and civil disturbance. Nothing is more evidence for this than the federal government calling up the militia to put down the Whiskey Rebellion [3]. Then president George Washington assembled 12,000 men to put down the rebellion in the only incidence of a sitting president actually riding at the front of troops!
I had to point out that private militias are illegal not only in Michigan but in almost all other states. Our militia is the national guard. Militias of the day were under the control of the state government with the governor as commander in chief, just as now with our national guard.
In short, red flag laws are not a violation of due process, nobody is confiscating guns and registration and background checks are NOT an infringement!
Their answer is to turn schools into prisons. And always their answer is more guns. Yet we are awash in guns! The USA has over 120 firearms per 100 residents and there are more guns than people in the country. Gunnutters cite the need for “protection” and point to rising crime. And yes, there is an increase in violent crime too, but it is mostly between people who know each other. Crime against strangers is far less common.
I live in an urban environment. A diverse neighborhood south of the main downtown in Grand Rapids. My wife has no concern walking the dog in the evening. Downtown Grand Rapids is almost always a busy pedestrian environment pretty much every evening. While any crime is of concern, it is overblown in an effort to to sell more guns as if one must walk around strapped like Dodge City.
I am reminded of Jefferson’s line in a letter which reads:
“the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants”
Except in America now, the tree isn’t being refreshed with patriot’s and tyrant’s blood, but rather, the blood of innocent children and college students! Apparently there is no amount of mass murder and death which would convince these nuts that some reasonable regulations to address the carnage needs to be enacted.
The USA had 647 mass shootings in 2022. 44,000 people died due to gun violence overall in 2022. [4] What number of deaths is needed to change their attitude? 100,000? One million? How many children must die to spark a change in their attitude?
[3]
https://www.history.com/topics/early-us/whiskey-rebellion
[4]
https://www.insider.com/number-of-mass-shootingsin-america-this-year-2022-5
