...on what I wrote here...
Mark my words, to follow this story will be another Chron editorial advocating the passage of another semiautomatic rifle ban, this time with teeth, under the guise of "being a good neighbor" and "helping our friends south of the Rio Grande fight the scourge of illegal drugs and gun violence." Nothing about tightening the borders, nothing about our insane drug laws, nothing about Mexico's insane gun laws.
I would have won today!
No turn of phrase can hide the link between gun sales in Texas and the violence just over the border. If we want Mexico's cartels under control for our own security, we need to halt their incredibly easy access to military-grade weapons on this side of the border.
...So it is in Americans' interest to upgrade our regulation of gun sales. Sensible restrictions on military-grade weapons is not punishment — it's self-preservation. This is why we regulate pesticides and prescription drugs.
Smart regulation of a potentially dangerous consumer product isn't going to hamper law-abiding citizens' constitutional rights. In fact, imported assault rifles were effectively banned (independent of the now-expired federal assault weapons ban) with no ill effects, from 1989 until just eight years ago. But in 2000, the Bush administration began allowing foreign manufacturers to circumvent the law.
The import ban embodied the spirit of the Second Amendment, which cites regulation, as well as the right to bear arms, as part of public security. And Americans still managed to pursue their favorite sports and protect their families from intruders.
Wow. A gun ban, which effectively infringes on Americans' right to keep and bear arms and therefore violates the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, is keeping within the spirit of the Second Amendment because it "cites regulation." This is what passes for informed opinion in the main newspaper serving the fourth largest city in the United States, folks. Nothing about our insane drug laws, nothing about the accompanying "war" to uphold them and that war's undermining of the Constitution, nothing about Mexico's insane gun laws. Oh, and nothing about beefing up the security on the border either. (If I remember correctly the 1989 import ban was passed as part of that war on drugs. Yet the violence apparently continued unabated. There's a lesson in there somewhere...) So in effect what the Chronsters are advocating is to "ban the guns again, only HARDER!" I am not surprised, but it's still pathetic.
(Welcome, visitors from A Keyboard and a .45! Main page is here, pull up a seat and stay a while!)
|