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Mass Shootings – The Moral Decay of America?

–Assault Weapons Ban is Sensible Start to Curb Carnage

Reasonable Restrictions

Banning semi-automatic weapons will not result in a “slippery slope” leading to the abolition of all guns. This is particularly true considering how many handguns are already on the streets of America and how easily they are unlawfully obtained. Yet despite the horrendous gun rampages in El Paso and Dayton, modern history shows that it is indeed possible for the President and Congress to successfully work in unison to enact sensible restrictions on weapons of war.

Federal Assault Weapons Ban
The Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act or Federal Assault Weapons Ban ( AWB) was a subsection…
en.wikipedia.org

President Bill Clinton proved this in 1994 when he signed the last national ban on assault weapons. But provisions of the bill inserted by the all-mighty gun lobby let this law lapse after 10-years.

The result: America today is a nation incessantly on edge, which is at least partially due to a visible increase in hate crimes and mass casualty gun incidents.

It’s hard to argue that hate groups have not been emboldened by the divisive and dangerous rhetoric of President Trump. Moreover, this cloud of hate has metastasized on an unregulated internet where would-be mass killers remain anonymous in spewing their venom on the dark web.

  • How many times does this type of national nightmare need to play out before spineless politicians on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue show some backbone?
  • When will our elected officials start putting America’s national interests above their own narrow-minded political interests — and that of the powerful gun lobby?

At the heart of the mass gun, epidemic are two entrenched institutional culprits: politicians at all levels of government and the mighty gun lobby in Washington led by the National Rifle Association (NRA). When the Founding Fathers penned the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution did they really anticipate citizens arming themselves with the most deadly types of firearms, those once reserved for military warfare? Regardless of where you stand on a host of contentious gun issues, enough is enough already!

Citizens simply don’t need easy access, or any access, to AK-47s and AR-15 assault weapons for lawful purposes.

The AR-15, for example, was outlawed when the decade-long assault weapons ban was in place, even though the NRA made sure there were loopholes to weaken the legislative intent. Should people really be able to purchase semi-automatic firearms as effortlessly as buying bread and milk at the local grocery store?

What about the Second Amendment’s sacred right to bear arms?

There’s a significant difference between the “right to keep and bear arms” and arming oneself with the most lethal types of firearms. This should be a simple question of common sense to any rational minded person.

  • While most Americans approve of the Second Amendment’s guarantee to own guns, aren’t handguns and rifles enough?
  • Do sportsmen really need semi-automatic weapons to facilitate hunting down Bambi and her friends in the forest?

America’s deadly love affair with guns needs to be brought under control already.

The problem is that the NRA has too many members of Congress in its back pocket due to large campaign contributions and grassroots political support.

Mass shootings test power of an NRA in turmoil
Mass shootings in Texas and Ohio that left 31 people dead over the weekend are raising new calls for background checks…
thehill.com

NRA in Disarray?

One age-old NRA mantra is: “Guns don’t kill people…people kill people.” On that note, President Trump towed the NRA line on Monday when he said that “mental illness and hatred pull the trigger, not the gun.” Perhaps the divider-in-chief needs to have his own head examined. While one could argue that guns technically don’t kill people, they are an unequivocal deadly means to that end. People use guns to kill other people, and sometimes themselves. Facts are facts no matter how you spin it.

However, there’s a major distinction between pulling the trigger of a handgun or a rifle versus that of an AR-15 or AK-47 assault weapon. The only purpose of such weapons of war is to kill as many people as possible, and as quickly as possible.

Another popular NRA mantra is that a good person with a gun can kill a bad person with a gun. Although this may sound practical in theory, it’s flawed in practice. Even in states like Texas, with open right to carry laws, no good person with a gun was able to stop the mass killing in El Paso before law enforcement arrived on the scene

Final Thoughts

Again, you can support gun control without supporting gun abolition. Don’t let the NRA brainwash you into equating one with the other. Having control over weapons of mass murder is a good thing, whereas total loss of control to mass murders is not.

One way to solve the persistent problem of gun violence is by voting politicians out of office who favor easy access to military-style assault weapons. Such weapons are outlawed for public consumption in nearly all civilized democratic societies, and for good reason.

But don’t tell that to the NRA.

Supreme Court Upholds Reasonable Restrictions on Guns for Domestic Abusers
The United States Supreme Court today rejected arguments by the gun lobby and convicted wife-beater, Randy Edward Hayes…
www.commondreams.org

Although the Supreme Court has consistently upheld gun rights, it has also stated that in certain circumstances reasonable restrictions on firearms are consistent with the Constitution — per the 2009 ruling in United States v. Hayes.

During times of national mourning due to nonsensical acts of mass murder, we need to look inward as human beings.

We need to ask ourselves some profound questions about the basic rights and responsibilities of government to protect the citizenry against mass gun violence. As Albert Einstein famously said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” This clever quip should be blasted through the halls of Congress with a megaphone every day until sensible gun laws are approved by both the House and Senate — and then signed into law by the President.

Our elected officials must not only acknowledge the disturbing reality of proliferating mass gun violence but finally take concrete actions to curb the carnage.

We can do better. We must do better.

Do you agree? Please share your valuable comments below.

David B. Grinberg
David B. Grinberghttps://www.linkedin.com/in/davidgrinberg-pr/
David is a strategic communications consultant, ghostwriter, and literary PR agent on issues of workforce diversity, equal employment opportunity, race and gender equity, and other social justice causes. He is a former career spokesman for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), where he managed media relations for agency headquarters and 50 field offices nationwide for over a decade. Prior to his public service at the EEOC, David was a young political appointee for President Bill Clinton in the White House: Office of Presidential Personnel, and Office of Management and Budget (OMB). A native New Yorker and University of Maryland graduate, David began his career in journalism. You can find David online via LinkedIn, Twitter, Medium, Good Men Project, Thrive Global, BIZCATALYST 360°, and American Diversity Report.

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7 CONVERSATIONS

  1. Mr. Grinberg,
    As a Certified Firearms Instructor and someone who has studied firearms, firearms law and the current mass shooting phenomenon, I was with you up until the end of your list, where you ran off into the weeds of prohibition. Yes, the problem of mass shootings goes far beyond guns and requires a multi-vectored approach. What it has NOTHING to do with, however, is so-called “assault weapons.” First off, the term is meaningless; it’s not about machine guns, which are already prohibited, by and large, in the U.S. It also has nothing to do with “high-capacity” magazines, which have been around for over a century now. There’s no such thing as “high-powered ammo” that differs for military vs. civilian use. (And again, ammunition specifically for warfare, such as incendiary/explosive rounds are already prohibited.) The reality is that people playing politics made up the term “assault weapons” in order to ban firearms they think look scary. Compared to their civilian non-assault counterparts, the differences are cosmetic. In fact, the .223 (5.56) round used by the AR-15 is considered too small and impotent to hunt deer with, and the same holds true for the AK-47’s 7.62x39mm round. Yet said ban would make those illegal, while the mighty 30-06 and the infamous .45-70 Government that cleared the American Great Plains of buffalo would still be readily available.

    These inconsistencies and dichotomies are due to ignorance on the part of non-gun-owners. The simple fact is that banning so-called “assault weapons” is wrongheaded. We learned this during the Clinton era ban, where we did indeed witness a gradual decrease in shooting incidents, but at EXACTLY the same rate as the months leading up to the ban’s implementation, and again in the years immediately following it. According to Clinton’s own Justice Department, the ban had “no measurable impact” on the number of shooting incidents or their severity. An unfortunate side effect to such bans, of course, is that the innocent are also disarmed, shifting, then, the balance of power to the gangs, drug dealers and other criminals responsible for most of the carnage.

    America has always had a lot of guns around, yet we’ve never seen the kind of mass shooting phenomenon we see today. Firearms technology hasn’t made any radical progress over the years, and if you actually compute the number of incidents vs. the number of guns in circulation, shooting incidents (per firearm) have actually DECREASED. This tells us in no uncertain terms that this is a SOCIAL issue. As such, it’s going to take more than Congressional policy, which already makes any possible misuse of firearms (or their manufacture, sale, etc.) illegal. It’s going to require us to shift the focus from the tool (guns) to the reasons why someone decides it’s a good idea to pick one up and open fire. It won’t be an easy quick fix. If it was, we’d have done it long ago.

  2. David, thank you for sharing this piece. Common sense gun legislation is… well… common sense as you’ve articulated so well here. Most of what you delineate above is a priority for the majority of the population. The statistics are staggering, and only through civil discourse will anything change. Your voice is needed. Keep up the good work.

    • Thanks so much, Melissa, I really appreciate your kind words. And ditto that for you. It’s really fascinating to understand some of neuroscience related to the gun issue and people’s behaviors. I always enjoy reading your excellent articles, which are insightful, timely and intellectually stimulating. Keep up the awesome!

  3. David, thanks for your perspective.

    Unfortunately, your article is simply a big long insult or “I’m smarter than you” piece. i want to thank you for saying:

    I lack common sense
    See other solutions than NYT suggests
    Not smart, since i disagree with your first steps
    Not sensible since I disagree with your first ideas
    And apparently not of goodwill because I disagree with your assault gun ban

    And that’s just the first page. You appear to come from the “cling to their guns and religion [read as Constitution]”, and calling a large portion of the population “deplorables” style of communication.

    And most especially if these are not done through amending the Constitution.

    If you’re interested in dialog, you might check out my piece here: https://www.bizcatalyst360.com/speak-into-their-reality/

    • Michael: Thanks very much for taking the time to read my article and provide your valuable feedback. Although I strongly disagree with your characterization and assumptions about my writing style, it’s nonetheless critically important that all voices be heard in a constructive open dialogue online. I also appreciate the link to your article, which I can’t wait to read. Thanks again for your thoughtful reply.

    • Thanks for the reasoned reply. We don’t have to agree to have a dialog.

      Love to hear what you think about my article.

    • Interesting read, Michael. Yes, people see things through their own narrow lens as filtered by the media they consume, which often leads to confirmation bias. That’s why I make sure to consume a diversity of news from media sources on the right and left to gain a better understanding of the issues from all sides. FYI—I’ve been a registered independent for over two decades. My last political job was working for President Bill Clinton.
      Lastly, one of my favorite quotes is from Socrates: “All I know is that I know nothing.”

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