The horrible events over the past three weeks that have resulted in the tragic loss of life has everybody reeling and looking for answers and solutions. One thing we should stop doing is looking to our politicians to take the lead and come up with viable solutions. The elected elites who like to think they run the country have shown no inclination to honestly address the causes and possible solutions.
The answers are not reflexive calls to ban guns nor to smear entire groups of people because of the actions of someone who is mentally unbalanced, because after all, no sane person would go on the kind of killing sprees we have seen in Buffalo, Uvalde and Tulsa.
Unfortunately, no sooner had innocent blood been shed in Buffalo, we had President Joe Biden blaming “white supremacy” and countless others screeching about guns. It’s become a tiresome rote of the left that solves nothing.
It was followed by the unfathomable elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in which a clearly unbalanced person slaughtered 19 precious elementary schoolchildren and two teachers.
Last week in Tulsa, we saw it again when an unhappy patient gunned down his doctor and four others (including a heroic 76-year-old who helped save others before he was murdered) because he was angry that his back surgery had not relieved his pain.
Normally, I would not feel inclined to mention the race of the perpetrators because that shouldn’t matter, but since our esteemed leader saw fit to do so, it’s worth noting that, yes, while the Buffalo shooter was white, it needs to likewise be noted the Uvalde shooter was Hispanic and the Tulsa shooter was Black.
Evil is not exclusive to any race and it was evil that committed these acts.
Keeping firearms, a constitutionally protected right, out of the hands of law-abiding citizens won’t solve this issue. It is sad Biden chose to declare the Second Amendment is “not absolute” inasmuch as it is the only Amendment that specifically states a right “shall not be infringed.”
While it is worth looking at potentially raising the age for legal gun ownership to 21, the problem with trying to ban weapons is most of the people calling for bans are blithering idiots when it comes to any kind of understanding about guns.
We hear talk of “semi-automatic” weapons being “weapons of war” by the liberals that populate much of our national media, exposing their ignorance on a daily basis. No soldiers are carrying AR-15s into battle.
So, what is a semi-automatic weapon? According to the American Gun Association, “a semi-automatic weapon is a firearm that only fires one projectile per trigger pull. A single round is loaded into the firing chamber and, as soon as the trigger is pulled, the round is fired and another round is loaded automatically into the chamber via an internal or external magazine.”
Semi-automatics are both handguns and rifles. It applies to a rifle as basic as a Ruger 10/22 or the popular Smith & Wesson 9mm pistol — both of which my wife and I own. There is no difference in function between these guns and the vilified AR-15. The big difference is the AR-15 looks scary. Let’s also clarify what AR stands for. No, it’s not “assault rifle” but for ArmaLite Rifle, named for the company that produces it.
Guns in the hands of the wrong people are a problem. That goes without saying. It is also important to note we do have gun control and we do have requirements regarding background checks but background checks are not failsafe as we have seen. Nobody is really stating what kind of improvements can be made to make it failsafe. Just a lot more screeching.
Banning guns is not going to solve the murders we are seeing in big cities on a daily basis. Those guns are being obtained illegally and the measures being discussed would have no impact on determined criminals getting their hands on guns.
If it only were that simple.
No, there are many factors. First and foremost we need to address the issue of mental illness.
Two of the recent mass murders were committed by young men. Unfortunately, in today’s society too many young men are rudderless, without a strong male influence in their lives. They are feeling isolated (thanks also to COVID restrictions) and many spend too much time online.
We need men to step up and live up to their familial responsibilities.
We need to re-establish government-funded psychiatric hospitals that can provide necessary, sometimes in-patient, care.
We need more police, not less, and we need armed officers in every school. That must be our priority, to protect our most precious commodity, our children.
Until we address these issues, the rest is just a bunch of empty platitudes from blowhard politicians.
Veteran newsman Brit Hume recently shared that while he was covering the Senate, he was asked by then-Sen. Joseph Biden why he never used sound bites from him, “Senator,” he said, “I think you are a windbag.”
It seems nothing has changed.
Dave Ruthenberg is a multiple award-winning columnist and Main Street Nashville opinion editor. Reach him at: druthenberg@mainstreetmediatn.com.
