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A bipartisan group of senators has reached agreement on the framework for Washington’s first significant gun reform legislation in decades. President Biden has already said he will sign the bill if it reaches the Oval Office. But will the changes in the proposed legislation be enough? In the wake of recent tragedies like the Uvalde school massacre and the Buffalo supermarket shooting, Straight Arrow News contributor Rashad Richey says Congress has to take steps to address the issue of guns in America.
Okay. We have a problem. Guns, guns, guns in the United States of America. And let’s stop with all this hyperbolic language about people trying to take your guns away from you. That’s not happening. As a matter of fact, gun sales increase under Democratic presidents, as opposed to Republican presidents. It is not about taking guns away from American citizens. True. You have the right to bear arms. Let’s talk about that right for a moment. In places like Texas and other Republican states, they have passed new laws called constitutional carry. What does that mean? Constitutional carry means because your right to bear arms is codified in the United States Constitution, then the state government, nor the federal government should be in place to make you have a prerequisite in order to bear arms. No license, no permit. That’s what constitutional carry means. So what they’re saying is that because it is a constitutional right to bear arms, you do not need any registration, any prerequisite permit to exercise that right?
Okay. Let’s follow the linear logic here. Do you believe the Constitution gives you a right to vote? If you believe the Constitution gives you a right to vote, why would you think that you should have to register to vote? Why do you need to present a government document, an ID to exercise your right to vote? It seems as if their linear logic makes no sense. They are saying that the government should remove barriers so that you can exercise your right to own a gun — to bear arms — but it should create barriers for you to exercise your right to vote. You see, this is not about bearing arms at all. This is about a small minority of power hungry, money hungry executives in the NRA and the gun manufacturers that continue to promote them. Remember the vast majority of Americans are actually for universal background checks.
The vast majority of NRA members are for universal background checks, but the vast majority of Republicans who are in power to enact common sense legislation, they are not. Most Americans are actually for common sense red flag restrictions to gun ownership, to purchasing a weapon. However, the elite manufacturers, the executives, are not.
Do you realize that America makes up 4.4% of the global population? That’s it. Under five percent. But America owns 42% of all guns on the planet Earth. Starting from 1966, 31% of mass shooters were right here in the United States of America. Adjusted for population, only Yemen in some years has a higher mass shooter rate. There’s more. Why many will say, “this is about mental health; we need more mental health services.” And in context, I agree. We need a better mental health system. But to say that America’s gun culture and mass shooter problem and gun problem is associated with mental health only is really a cop out and the facts say otherwise.
