LITTLE ROCK — “What’s this-something good out of Joe Biden? The vice president is said to be conferring with a wide range of officials in law enforcement in order to come up with a comprehensive plan to stem the violence in our shoot-’em-up society. Instead of just another piecemeal approach to gun control-like a restriction on gun shows here and a limit on the size of ammo clips there.”
-Arkansas Democrat-Gazette IT’S ABOUT time-past time-to have this debate. Those of us who live in Arkansas, and remember what happened in Jonesboro in 1998, have had to know as much at leastsince that unforgettable, awful, murderous day. Much of the rest of the country may have been shocked into re-opening this debate in 1999-after Columbine. But in between massacres, procrastination sets in, and urgency fades into delay. That must not happen again.
This country has to do something-finally-about guns and their use, their repeated use, in these slaughters of the innocent. And about magazines that hold dozens and dozens of rounds. And about the ease with which people who should never, never have access to guns get them. How many more school/movie theater/cafeteria massacres must there be before we finally say . . . Enough!
The problem with guns, or even whether guns are a problem at all, is too important a subject to debate in 20-second sound bites on TV. It’s too important a subject to leave to the James Carville School of Debate. You know that school. It teaches its students to talk first, talk all over your opponent, then talk last. And declare yourself the winner.
Television, and even radio, is rarely a place for serious discussion. About anything. It used to be just a wasteland; now it’s too often a noisy wasteland. Yes, there are thoughtful programs on television-remember C-SPAN’s Brian Lamb on books, and anything else? But he was an exception to the high-decibel rule on television and talk, talk, talk radio.
The topic of guns, school shootings and all the rest is also too important to leave to the ignorant. Anybody who doesn’t care enough about the topic to understand the basics of what’s involved, even the simplest of distinctions between firearms, would do better to talk about something he does understand. Whenever somebody on television says, “We don’t want to bother hunters, we just want to get rid ofsemi-automatic weapons,” they’re announcing, unmistakably, that they don’t care enough about the debate to realize that most hunters use semi-automatic weapons. It would be akin to saying you don’t mind folks who drop their kids off at school in the family SUV, but automobiles should be outlawed. It doesn’t make sense. And the other side stops listening.
It’s become fashionable, apparently, to repeat this line on TV, too: We need to get rid of the “gun culture” in America!
That’s what you say if you can’t think of anything else. It’s like saying the best way to improve education is toimprove parenting. Of course it is. But you can’t legislate good parenting any more than you can pass a law to rid the country of its gun culture. This is America, remember? Land of the free, home of the brave, and also of the ever-moving frontier, of hunters and fishermen,of Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone. If some “expert” has nothing but slogans to offer, and fact-free ones at that, he’d do better to discuss something he knows something about. This is the kind of discussion that deserves more thought, and knowledge, and civility, than the average bumper sticker.
SOMETHING else you may have noticed on the holler shows. Those who still populate the Far Left have again decided to take on the Second Amendment-and talk about how the country needs to excise the right to bear arms from the Constitution. Or just ignore it.
That ain’t gonna happen. It takes three-quarters of the states to ratify an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Even if you got three-quarters of the people, you’d still need majorities in three out of every four states. And in that regard, Alabama would have just as much say as New York. The little ol’ state of Mississippi, not to mention Arkansas, would have just as much weight as California.
Repeal the Second Amendment? Wipe out the gun culture? Let’s get real.
If we knew how to fix this, you’d be reading the answer right here. We’re as baffled as most folks. But most baffling of all are those who talk at length without saying anything, not anything of value anyway, and who won’t bother to educate themselves about the basics of this subject, even after the latest bloodbath.
Come, let us reason together. And reason requires at least a little basic knowledge to work with.
Editorial, Pages 12 on 01/10/2013