Violating the Second Amendment

Advocating for gun control legislation is like iceberg spotting in the tropics. One rarely appears, and when it does it quickly dissolves in a sea of warm water.

Case in point, the brave folk of San Jose, California voted to require gun owners to carry liability insurance. Given the carnage and public expense incurred by firearms, this is a highly-logical idea. It's only fair that those who help enable it pay for it, right?

This isn't the comprehensive national policy that requiring gun manufacturers to assume liability would be, but it's a start.

Ignoring the subsequent lawsuit and gun owner's predictable whining about their Second Amendment rights being violated, let's take a look at the bill.

In that sad and timid way we have of tip-toeing around gun owners, the law would “encourage” same to purchase trigger locks, gun safes and participate in gun safety classes. The actual liability would cover death, injury and property damage emanating from accidental use of the weapon.

No definition on what constitutes accidental use was given.

Lost or stolen weapons would remain the responsibility of the gun owner until they were reported lost or stolen. Naturally, gun owners who don't buy-in won't lose their guns or face criminal charges.

And yet, there's the lawsuit. And the whining.

Sigh.

The American exceptionalism many of us grew-up with no longer exists. Countries all over the world surpass us in dozens of metrics. Access to affordable healthcare. Infant mortality. Life expectancy. Per capita income. Access to higher education. It goes on and on.

For those of you with a need to cry “We're number-one!”, take heart in the fact that America remains the most heavily-armed developed nation in the world. Take heart in the fact there are 120 guns for every 100 people.

If the NRA is correct that more guns = more safety, we must also be the safest. Right?

Wrong. 

According to data on Wikipedia, it's true the United States can't touch places like Mexico and El Salvador and Venezuela when it comes to per-capita homicide-by-firearms rate. But rest assured the U.S. runs rings around virtually every country in Europe. Japan. And Australia.

And presumably unstable places like Cambodia. Pakistan. And Ghana.

This despite the heightened safety and security offered by our guns. Doesn't add up, does it? Someone is—to be as diplomatic as possible—not right. And it ain't the numbers on Wikipedia.

Gun advocates and the NRA are preaching the same gospel they've always preached, which is the gospel of fear. Fear of minorities. Fear of women. Fear of political incontinence.

(Which, for those of you not versed in the finer points of aging physiologies, is the loss of control.) 

So many boogeymen. 

So yes. Get a gun. Get a gun when a pandemic settles in over a nation. Get a gun when Black people protest. Get a gun when Democrats are elected. Get a gun when someone who already has uses it as intended—which, it must be said, is to kill.

We'll shoot our way out of this.

I get what we think we're shooting our way out of, but what are we shooting our way to?

That's what I want to know.