In the 18th century in the United States, history records one school shooting. In the 19th century, 28. In the 20th century, 226, and so far in the 21st century there have been 212.
Twenty of the top lawmakers in the United States who receive money from the gun lobby are Republicans who control both the House and the Senate. Thirty-nine of the 50 American states do not require gun owners to report when a gun is stolen. Anyone, anytime, can gift a gun to anyone else.
A person undergoing treatment for a mental illness and who posts on the web that he is going to shoot law enforcement officers is entitled to purchase an assault rifle and that’s what occurred in the most recent school shooting in the U.S., where 17 people were massacred.
Per capita, the U.S. has more guns than any other country in the world. Its homicide rate by firearm is triple that of the Western World and 11 times higher than that of Canada. And the list goes on and on.
The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, written in 1791, was enacted in response to issues happening in England and gave every U.S. citizen the right to bear arms to protect himself against the government. Today, the U.S. citizenry has guns to protect themselves from a government that has tanks, fighter jets and nuclear weapons. If the purpose of the Second Amendment was for citizens to be able to protect itself from government, then should it not logically follow that they should all be permitted to own a tank, a fighter jet and a nuclear weapon?
Ludicrous you say! Yes, ludicrous.
We are so fortunate to live in this country, and even atheists like myself thank a generic god that I live in Canada. What a corrupt dunghole of a place is this United States of America whose elected officials can’t even enact legislation to stop the madness. Let the people keep their guns but do something as simple as a registration process and background checks. In 1791, the most modern gun available was a muzzle loader. For the life of me I can’t understand why anyone should be allowed to purchase an AR15, semi-automatic rifle and a bumper-stock to turn it into an automatic rifle.
The Second Amendment will never be amended. So, why not just impose a tax on every semi-automatic weapon that is so high that a person would have to be out of his mind to own one? Tax ammunition for these weapons to the same extent. But that is never going to happen, so there is only one solution.
Every man, woman and child in the United States of America should be allowed to own and carry at gun at all times to protect themselves — not from government but from each other.
That’s the official position of the National Rifle Association, which has contributed nearly $4 million to presidential candidate Mark Rubio and, in 2017 alone, nearly half a million dollars to Speaker Paul Ryan.
It’s only going to get worse!
Thank God, we’re surrounded by water…
Tom Badcock
St. John’s
