"Come, Let Us Reason Together" The First in a Series Addressing Public Violence

            The holidays are over, the year is ended, and things are settling back into a more reasonable and comfortable groove.  Now is the time for reasonable thinking, planning, and action.

            I have avoided raising my emotionally charged voice to declare my horror at the events of recent weeks.  I have wanted the dust to settle before weighing in on the subject of what happened in Connecticut, and other places. 

            I considered not commenting at all, but a number of people who read this work have urged me to speak up on the issues surrounding this tragedy.  What surprises me are the number of varying opinions of what the problems are and what we should do to solve them. One thing I have learned by sitting back, listening, and waiting for the air to clear, is that the problem of public violence is many-faceted, and the opinions and ideas are all valid. Instead of trying to address all the issues in one column, I will look at the problems over the next few weeks.

            The elephant in the room, when talking about the events in Connecticut specifically and public violence in general, is gun control.  I will wrap myself in the cloak of the Second Amendment, and say in my best drawl, with my pistol packing posture, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people," and I believe, with all my heart, that this is true.  But in light of recent events, I must qualify that with a "yes, but…"

            I have fired thousands of rounds of ammunition through M-16s, AK-47s, and other assault weapons.  I like them, they have saved my life, and I love to shoot them, but they have only one function, and that is to kill people.  It is an evil necessity, but it is there and assault rifles are the tool for it.  Since returning from a war, and having lived in a free country since, I recognize the limitations of assault weapons.

            They are terrible for home defense.  You would not use a screwdriver for a hammer and not expect disastrous results.  The same can be said for using an assault weapon to defend our home.  There are better tools.  Unless a horde of bad guys are storming the manor, I have no use for one.  I hear the argument at gun shows often, "Well, you need to be prepared."  Yes, I agree, and I am.  You come onto my property, or enter my home with evil intent; you will be met with a searing defense, but not from an assault weapon.

            My defense of mine and me is to do so without risking additional harm to us. Operating an assault weapon in close quarters is both ineffective, and dangerous. From experience, I can tell you that when bringing a weapon to bear on a target, the longer the barrel, the longer the time it takes to get it there, and an action is always faster than a reaction. I want a weapon in my hand that moves faster than the bad guy's, and that I have confidence in. I also want my defense to be safe for others in my charge.

            The bad guy does not care where his rounds go. He is trying to do harm, whereas, I am defending, trying to limit his harm, and not cause more. I want to be able to direct my fire to the best effect without injuring my people and property. An assault weapon does not give me the best chance to achieve this end. 

            I am certain that there are many who can recount stories of successful home defenses involving an assault rifle. They were lucky. I know one story where an assault rifle, in the hands of a home defender, was used with disastrous results. In the excitement and fear of the moment, he tripped and fell. The weapon discharged a single round into the ceiling, passing through the upstairs floor, through a stack of books on that floor, through a box spring, a mattress, into and through his daughter, through the ceiling of that room, through the attic above, and out the roof. One such story is enough. Give me a weapon I can control, that will not penetrate walls, producing, as they say, collateral damage. All the "collateral" I care about has names.

            None of us wants to be told what to do by our government, and the Second Amendment was earned by, and sealed with, blood, but the time has come to look at its real intent. We need some limits, and some controls, but an armed society is a polite society. There has to be a reasonable compromise between the right to bear arms and the safety of society. The very weapons we designed to protect the innocents are being used to slaughter them. Something is wrong, and it needs reason, not knee-jerk reaction to solve the problem. Assault weapons have their place, but not in schools, not as hunting weapons, and not in my home.

            This is an unpopular stance, but I take it without apology. I love guns, the Constitution, and the freedom both afford me, but when the guarantees of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are no longer protected, but are taken from any of our citizens by our right to bear arms, something needs to change. Be brave enough to face it, and let us once again, provide an environment absent of fear for those we love to grow up safe.