Re: How to disarm America
- From: Sue <sebrady@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2007 15:44:18 GMT
On 28 Apr 2007 20:47:50 -0700, aeiou2120@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070425/OPINION04/704250310/0/OPINION
Article published Wednesday, April 25, 2007
The disarming of America
Dan Simpson, a retired diplomat, is a member of the editorial boards
of The Blade and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
LAST week's tragedy at Virginia Tech in which a mentally disturbed
person gunned down 32 of America's finest - intelligent young people
with futures ahead of them - once again puts the phenomenon of an
armed society into focus for Americans.
The likely underestimate of how many guns are wandering around America
runs at 240 million in a population of about 300 million. What was
clear last week is that at least two of those guns were in the wrong
hands.
When people talk about doing something about guns in America, it often
comes down to this: "How could America disarm even if it wanted to?
There are so many guns out there."
Because I have little or no power to influence the "if" part of the
issue, I will stick with the "how." And before anyone starts to
hyperventilate and think I'm a crazed liberal zealot wanting to take
his gun from his cold, dead hands, let me share my experience of guns.
As a child I played cowboys and Indians with cap guns. I had a Daisy
Red Ryder B-B gun. My father had in his bedside table drawer an old
pistol which I examined surreptitiously from time to time. When
assigned to the American embassy in Beirut during the war in Lebanon,
I sometimes carried a .357 Magnum, which I could fire accurately. I
also learned to handle and fire a variety of weapons while I was
there, including Uzis and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
I don't have any problem with hunting, although blowing away animals
with high-powered weapons seems a pointless, no-contest affair to me.
I suppose I would enjoy the fellowship of the experience with other
friends who are hunters.
Now, how would one disarm the American population? First of all,
federal or state laws would need to make it a crime punishable by a
$1,000 fine and one year in prison per weapon to possess a firearm.
The population would then be given three months to turn in their guns,
without penalty.
Hunters would be able to deposit their hunting weapons in a centrally
located arsenal, heavily guarded, from which they would be able to
withdraw them each hunting season upon presentation of a valid hunting
license. The weapons would be required to be redeposited at the end of
the season on pain of arrest. When hunters submit a request for their
weapons, federal, state, and local checks would be made to establish
that they had not been convicted of a violent crime since the last
time they withdrew their weapons. In the process, arsenal staff would
take at least a quick look at each hunter to try to affirm that he was
not obviously unhinged.
It would have to be the case that the term "hunting weapon" did not
include anti-tank ordnance, assault weapons, rocket-propelled grenade
launchers, or other weapons of war.
All antique or interesting non-hunting weapons would be required to be
delivered to a local or regional museum, also to be under strict 24-
hour-a-day guard. There they would be on display, if the owner
desired, as part of an interesting exhibit of antique American
weapons, as family heirlooms from proud wars past or as part of
collections.
Gun dealers could continue their work, selling hunting and antique
firearms. They would be required to maintain very tight inventories.
Any gun sold would be delivered immediately by the dealer to the
nearest arsenal or the museum, not to the buyer.
The disarmament process would begin after the initial three-month
amnesty. Special squads of police would be formed and trained to carry
out the work. Then, on a random basis to permit no advance warning,
city blocks and stretches of suburban and rural areas would be
cordoned off and searches carried out in every business, dwelling, and
empty building. All firearms would be seized. The owners of weapons
found in the searches would be prosecuted: $1,000 and one year in
prison for each firearm.
Clearly, since such sweeps could not take place all across the country
at the same time. But fairly quickly there would begin to be gun-
swept, gun-free areas where there should be no firearms. If there
were, those carrying them would be subject to quick confiscation and
prosecution. On the streets it would be a question of stop-and-search
of anyone, even grandma with her walker, with the same penalties for
"carrying."
The "gun lobby" would no doubt try to head off in the courts the new
laws and the actions to implement them. They might succeed in doing
so, although the new approach would undoubtedly prompt new, vigorous
debate on the subject. In any case, some jurisdictions would
undoubtedly take the opportunity of the chronic slowness of the courts
to begin implementing the new approach.
America's long land and sea borders present another kind of problem.
It is easy to imagine mega-gun dealerships installing themselves in
Mexico, and perhaps in more remote parts of the Canadian border area,
to funnel guns into the United States. That would constitute a problem
for American immigration authorities and the U.S. Coast Guard, but not
an insurmountable one over time.
There could conceivably also be a rash of score-settling during
hunting season as people drew out their weapons, ostensibly to shoot
squirrels and deer, and began eliminating various of their perceived
two-footed enemies. Given the general nature of hunting weapons and
the fact that such killings are frequently time-sensitive, that seems
a lesser sort of issue.
That is my idea of how it could be done. The desire to do so on the
part of the American people is another question altogether, but one
clearly raised again by the Blacksburg tragedy.
Dan Simpson, a retired diplomat, is a member of the editorial boards
of The Blade and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
What a load of crap. This guy is joking, isn't he? Well, he said
that it's his "idea" but he didn't specify that it's a *good* idea.
Perhaps he meant his *bad* idea. How many Constitutional violations
are there relative to this guy's "idea"?
Sue
.
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