Peeling the Onion on Guns

The call for gun control and the need for improved school security have been linked since the Newtown, Conn. shooting, but while linked, they are very separate issues in some respects.

While the Congress can’t seem to get its act together on gun control, some states are carrying the ball just fine. The governor of Connecticut has signed one of the toughest gun laws in the nation, requiring background checks for gun buyers, restricting magazine capacity to 10 bullets, and requiring those who currently own weapons with larger magazines to register them by next New Year’s Day. Personally, I would go even further, requiring everyone who buys a gun to be licensed, similar to what’s required of drivers. That would include training and passing some sort of test.

The argument about registration being a precursor to the government’s confiscation of guns is, to me, so bogus and outlandish that it defies description. It will not happen in this country in anyone’s lifetime. Even if such an initiative were launched, the confiscators would have to pry weapons out of millions of sets of cold, dead fingers. It would be Civil War II.

But what about security in schools? The NRA has called for an armed security officer in every school, and I don’t have a problem with that. Many high schools have had “school resource officers” from local police departments for decades – not a radical concept.

And what about teachers or school administrators carrying concealed weapons? Actually, I don’t have a problem with that either, as long as strict background checks were in place. Perhaps there should be a limit on how many teachers or administrators per school would be packing on campus – and that information should be absolutely confidential. True, it could increase a school district’s liability costs, but when the rubber hits the road, if it limits the damage a crazy person could cause at a school, it might be well worth it.

Older men like me often repeat themselves, so I’ll do it here. The Second Amendment is not sacred text, nor is the Constitution itself. That’s why there are things called “amendments,” and even they can be repealed as justices become enlightened.

Gun control is not, in the end, a legislative issue. Someday, for example, alcoholic beverage consumption won’t be a habit, but that will require a cultural sea change. Prohibition, one of the aforementioned amendments, was repealed because it didn’t work. On the other hand, it’s not inconceivable that smoking will virtually disappear in the lifetimes of many of us, because it just isn’t cool anymore. That’s really how the gun problem will be solved, and that will require of us something in short supply these days: patience.