All the gun, ammunition laws in the world won't change...

[stevie_d_64]

All the gun, ammunition laws in the world won't change who we are

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By John Bogert Staff Columnist
Posted: 09/23/2009 04:06:52 PM PDT

I had to look up a column I wrote back in 1994 about guns and ammunition just to see if I am as prescient as I think.

Or as crazy.

But first, allow me to say something about firearms. I am completely in favor of dropping all of them into that deep trench said to exist just beyond the Redondo Beach pier.

That way America's 90 to 150 gun manufacturers can immediately get to work creating a modernized fleet of replacement weapons for the 192 million to 250 million (an always imprecise figure) guns that we dumped into the drink.

That's economic stimulus coupled with bettering our ability to defend ourselves against one another and the tyrannical federal government.

Meanwhile, unsubstantiated rumors of a federal tax on weapons coupled with a belief among many that the Obama administration is about to clamp down on our collective firepower has bullets flying off store shelves at the rate of 10 billion rounds per year.

In fact, there is a serious shortage of ammunition caused by bullet hoarding and stoked (partly) by a number of Internet sites preaching an imminent take-down of Second Amendment rights.

One blogger who calls himself "Politicus" wrote, "The numbers do not lie. There is no way for the government to win against the People. Even the Pentagon's own war games tell them that the U.S. military vs. the militia (the people) ends up with the militia winning every time. The numbers say that the government line of `resistance is futile' is pure bull."
That, of course, is a ridiculously extreme view.

Mind you, I have no way of knowing if that really is a ridiculously extreme view. But it sounds extreme, doesn't it?

So, in fact, did news of a June meeting in Garden Grove where 15 area church leaders gathered for an interfaith intruder response course. With three church shootings this year alone, the ministers were trying to figure out a way to protect their congregations in "these violent times." Not that these violent times are any more violent than usual, not when the last decade has seen 50 people killed and 30 wounded in church shootings.

The solution? Undercover, armed security teams.

Luckily, the president has Secret Service protection. So naturally there was nothing to worry about when people openly and legally carrying firearms protested outside a Phoenix arena where he recently spoke.

Then comes what has to seem like the kicker of all kickers to firearms owners.

No, not the hotly rumored (and untrue) Senate Bill 2099 that "will require us to put on our 2009 1040 federal tax form all guns that you have or own and require fingerprints and a tax of $50 per gun."

No, I'm talking about the very real California Assembly Bill 962, introduced by Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, which barely squeaked through both houses early this month and is expected to be signed into law by the governor. This bill regulates not handguns, but handgun ammunition, an idea that probably sounds perfectly reasonable to anyone who doesn't own a gun and absolutely nuts to anybody that does.

Citing several examples of children in his district (Alhambra, Lincoln Heights, East L.A., crime, crime, crime) felled by stray bullets, De Leon sponsored a bill that would make it illegal to sell ammo to criminals, gang members and felons.

Dealers would also be required to keep bullets out of shoplifting reach and to take thumbprints of ammo buyers while making sales records available to the cops.

Though there is no waiting period for taking delivery, all bullet buying - Internet purchases would go to dealers for pickup - would have to be done face to face with a dealer.

The federal government once had a law remarkably like this but it was killed off, as the president who signed it nearly was, during the Reagan years.

But what's remarkable, to me anyway, is that I offered my own version of an ammo rule many years ago: "Why not a tax? If a guy goes fishing out of King Harbor, he pays a license fee that helps defer the cost of his hobby. By all means, if a gun collector wants to collect, let him. But why should the rest of us support his hobby? Why not a levy on ammunition sales? Say a 20 percent bury-the-victims tax and a 25 percent aid-the-maimed tax. That way collectors can keep collecting and the unregulated militia can go on being unregulated while those who get shot up by criminals and lunatics get a few bucks to deal with the mess."

Since I wrote that I've become far more cynical and lots more practical. The fact is, I know a lot of gun owners who are not people I'd worry about in the least. The same goes for possibly everyone in the NRA. In fact, people should be required to join the NRA when buying a firearm. That way the amateurs might learn something about responsibility and how to safely use and store weapons.

As someone who was once nearly shot accidentally by a friend, and as a friend of a guy who actually was shot by another friend, I'd like to see a move toward gun education. Either that or make all these weapons disappear.

But that, for about 250 million reasons, will never happen. Nor do I think that this new gun law will do any more than all the other gun laws to stop L.A.'s Avenues gang (192 shooting victims in the last three years) or any other gang member from obtaining ammunition.

And we're dreaming if we think that laws will somehow stop the buying of ammunition by law-abiding citizens who might go suddenly and inexplicably berserk, shooting up colleges, high schools or you and me.

All the laws in the world won't make us any different than the way we are.

[Mithras61]

{The} bill ... would make it illegal to sell ammo to criminals, gang members and felons

Right. That'll work, because ASKING the patrons if they are crooks works so well, and we have an accurate and accessible database of goblins that will identify them, right?

I guess some folks will never learn that you simply can't prevent crime by making rules that limit criminal access to the tools, since the criminals won't obey the rules. Rules/laws only work on those willing to obey them, or that can effectively be enforced. All this law will do is crminalize those who inadvertently sell bullets to criminals!

[casingpoint]

There is no way for the government to win against the People

I knew an Army officer who worked in intelligence and planning at the Pentagon for years. Don't worry. The Union will stand.

[HankB]

As someone who was once nearly shot accidentally by a friend, and as a friend of a guy who actually was shot by another friend, I'd like to see a move toward gun education. Either that or make all these weapons disappear.

A liberal I was debating gun control with expressed similar reasoning - guns were bad, because two of his friends committed suicide with guns, and another one, under stress, committed and armed robbery.

My response was the same one I'd give to the author of the above quoted statement: You need to be more careful picking your friends.

[Purplehood]

Don't you hate it when you have to look someone in the eye and say, "you sure know how to choose them, don't you"?

[Fangs]

It's worse when you have to look at yourself in the mirror and say it.

[DoubleJ]

It's worse when you have to look at yourself in the mirror and say it.

I said that to my ex once....





yeah, only once....

[Mithras61]

It's worse when you have to look at yourself in the mirror and say it.

I said that to my ex once....





yeah, only once....

Never question your wife's judgement...



After all, she picked YOU!