I am not the only person in the U.S. who is proposing a ban of ALL firearms. Unfortunately, there are not enough of us yet to make it happen. (See a few articles at RELATED LINKS below.) Along with a ban must be a repeal of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Impossible goal, you say? Yes, if those who think a total ban is necessary don't speak up.
Sadly, many of those who are talking about gun "control," are talking the oxymoronic talk of “responsible gun ownership” or “sensible gun laws” or “common sense firearms legislation.” There are no such things! A device to propel a blob of metal at 5,000+ feet per second is, by design and purpose, lethal. It is the very nature of the object, a gun. The manufacture and possession of firearms should be unequivocally and forever illegal, except for the military and police (and I am not too sure about some of the police).
Of the organizations in the U.S. that urge various curbs on gun sales and use, 99.9% are, quite frankly, muddying the waters and nibbling about the edges of the problem, which is purely and simply gun ownership. With these groups we get lost in a fog of rhetoric from various well-meaning or even divisive “sides” to the issue. Like Alexander, we must slice through the Gordian Knot of firearm possession and end the discussion for good. Ban 'em all!
I posit that the mere possession of a firearm creates an immediate transformation of the mindset of the bearer, and therein lies an inherent, inescapable danger. I can tell you from personal experience that carrying a gun of any sort while I was in Vietnam placed me in a totally different relationship with my surroundings, that is, one of power over all else. You feel the power when you pick the weapon up. The feeling is immediate and inescapable. With one exception, I have not touched a gun since October 1969 when I departed Vietnam. That incident occurred in Los Angeles while riding with a friend who was an FBI agent. He asked me to retrieve something from the glove compartment and when I opened it, a fully loaded .357 magnum revolver fell out, hitting my foot. Luckily it did not discharge but I had a bruised foot for weeks. It was a good lesson about accidents with guns.
Such a total ban may take decades to implement--this is not my first parade. A ban would induce a cultural tsunami, but a necessary one if America wants to consider itself civilized--and survive through the 21st Century and beyond.
Comments by Readers
Dianne Foster
Apr 11, 2023Hurray for Dick! I’ve been saying that for most of my 76 years, and have donated thousands to Brady Gun Control organization and others. No friggin’ “gun safety”, we need a complete ban on the production, sale, and distribution of weapons. Some years ago a bunch of us raised holy hell with Fred Meyer for selling hunting rifles, and they finally stopped doing it. Those were the very same words I used on a call to Larsen’s aide last week. She said she was seriously taking notes.
Randy Petty
Apr 11, 2023Well as you said not likely to happen in this country… I could get off into whether it’s a good idea to have the entire civilian populace disarmed but I wonder if it might be more effective to put controls on ammunition and equipment used to make your own ammunition? Or how about a variable tax on ammunition sales with ammo used in assault rifles being something like $100 per round?
Dick Conoboy
Apr 11, 2023Randy,
I did not say that is it not likley to happen in the US. I said, “Such a total ban may take decades to implement—this is not my first parade.”
As for your suggestions, that is exactly what I stated in my article that impedes a ban and takes up the oxygen in the room. To make it easy, just ban them all. No exceptions. No workarounds. Nada. Zilch. Zero.
Dick Conoboy
Apr 11, 2023Dianne,
To be honest, it is exactly these gun control organizations who are avoiding the necessary, a total ban. That is why I do not donate to them. They act with good intentions but are complicit.
Dianne Foster
Apr 11, 2023The original Brady Gun Control organization, I believe, was for a complete ban, but it got compromised over the years.
davidhopkinson
Apr 11, 2023Dick, thanks for the clarity. I agree with you about a total ban.
For an American in a country where guns in public are extremely rare, realizing the comfort of feeling safe is oddly refreshing - and sort of sad.
Michael Chiavario
Apr 11, 2023Thanks, Dick.
Randy Petty
Apr 11, 2023Dick, “to make it easy, just ban them all.” I’m reminded of those who fall on their own sword by voting for some 4th party candidate ( Utopia Now) instead of holding their nose and voting for the candidate closest to their views who actually has a chance to get elected. It’s a worthy topic.
Personally I’d go for eliminating sales of everything except bolt-action rifles, shotguns and revolvers. And I’d vote for some sort of ammunition tax or other restriction.
Ruth Fruland
Apr 11, 2023A good place to start is where you want to end up. Other countries have banned or instigated strict gun laws, but cultural differences may be why…or maybe not. It’s possible here, because great change was possible in Bogota, Colombia. In spite of the violence from terrorists and drug cartels.
“When Antanas Mockus was elected Mayor in 1995, he inherited a city which was statistically the most dangerous in Latin America - Bogotá, Colombia. He used innovation, serious humor, and art to significantly reduce both, the endemic violence in the city’s culture, and the perception of guns as protection.
“Along with the decommissioning of arms through the voluntary exchange of weapons for Christmas vouchers, Mockus also sought to prohibit the carrying of firearms in public by reclassifying ‘everything that happen[ed] in the streets, parks and public establishments [as] a public spectacle (‘Let Weapons Rest in Peace at Christmas’, Decree 757, 1996). These co-ordinated initiatives saw the homicide rate fall from 82 to 35 per 100,000 inhabitants between 1993 and 2000; a decrease of over 50% in seven years.
http://statecrime.org/the-cop-in-your-head-or-the-clown-in-the-street-antanas-mockus-and-the-theatre-of-civic-culture/
“The percentage of people who think that it is better to have firearms in order to protect themselves fell from 24.8 percent in 2001 to 10.4 percent in 2003.”
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2004/03/academic-turns-city-into-a-social-experiment/
Of course, Mockus had other programs that improved the quality, not just the safety, of life. For example: The city’s provision of drinking water rose from 78.7 percent of homes in 1993 to 100 percent in 2003. The sewage service rose from 70.8 percent of homes in 1993 to 94.9 percent in 2003.
What really may have been in the secret sauce were social/educational/political guiding principles of governance that Mockus applied to intentionally align and leverage formal laws with moral and cultural sensibilites. Let’s hear it for the mathematics and philosophical academic who became mayor!
Nancy Grayum
Apr 11, 2023Video games, mass media and film teach even the youngest how to deal with conflict and with “the others.” Shoot to kill. It’s a deadly form of communication and it’s educating our entire culture. Teach your children well.
Ruth Fruland
Apr 11, 2023I abhor the violence in video games, films, but most of all, real life (mass shootings, the war in Ukraine, the physical destruction of Nature, and abuse of women and children). Parents, families, and all the adults that children observe everyday are still on the hook for demonstrating alternative peaceful, compassionate, and when appropriate, humorous ways of dealing with conflict. The physical world is the one where consequences matter. If someone gets hit in the real world, it hurts.
Because I just read up on Antanas Mockus, I found this gem of a story about how far some of Colombian culture has to go.
Mockus was a constant presence in the media, promoting his civic campaigns. “My messages about the importance of protecting children from being burned with fireworks, protecting children from domestic violence, and the sacredness of life reached many, including the children,” he said.
Once the mother of a 3-year-old girl called his office to say that meeting Mockus was her daughter’s only birthday wish.
But the meeting also revealed, said Mockus, that Colombian society has a long way to go. During the visit, the mother told him: “When I am going to hit her, she runs to the telephone and says that she is going to call Mockus. She doesn’t even know how to dial a number, but obviously she thinks that you would protect her.” Mockus, who has two daughters himself, was shocked at the woman’s nonchalance about striking her daughter.
Carol Follett
Apr 11, 2023Thank you for this article, Dick. It would be a beautiful thing for weapons of all kinds to vanish from the face of the earth. Of course, a disappearance of the desire to use them would be even better!
I agree with Ruth, education and examples of an alternative to violence along with addressing “want,” may bring a greater, longer lasting relief from violence than a ban on guns. The first recommendation in a table of suggestions for reducing violence from the CDC is to “Strengthen economic supports.” https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/communityviolence/prevention.html
I hope our Mayor and City Council will read about Mayor Mockus of Bogotá and be inspired.
Tim Surratt
Apr 11, 2023As long as one political party is driving fear and distrust, there is no way to get there. There are countries without outright bans, but strict requirements, which provide for ownership and use. Hunting is still a legitimate pursuit. So is target competition. How well did Prohibition work? I do not believe absolutes work.
Carol Follett
Apr 11, 2023Yes, prohibition was the wrong solution to a pressing problem. Women’s right to vote, to work, and to divorce were much better solutions; yet we do still have many vitims of its use and abuse. Unlike guns, alcohol abuse is often the result of a a physical addiction. We should have more success at discouraging gun use.
Dick Conoboy
Apr 12, 2023A general comment to the above comments. Predictably a proposal for a total ban brings out the “carve outs”. Hunting, sport shooting, changes in ammo, only bolt action, only revolvers, only this and only that. All of these distract from the objective of removing guns from the American society. As Ruth Fruland wrote, education is a primary component of ridding our country of this firearms plague. The paradigm has to shift.
David A. Swanson
Apr 12, 2023The Kaiser Family Foundation has issued a presss release for a recent survey with the headline:
One in Five Adults Say They’ve Had a Family Member Killed by a Gun, Including Suicide, and One in Six Have Witnessed a Shooting;......
https://www.kff.org/other/press-release/one-in-five-adults-say-theyve-had-a-family-member-killed-by-a-gun-including-suicide-and-one-in-six-have-witnessed-a-shooting-among-black-adults-a-third-have-experienced-each/?utm_campaign=KFF-2023-The-Latest&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=254096509&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-82ScJ0JHbfiPG2uEKFoe7CjBvRBb5Aho5spIKbBT7lByrBBMiDzS-HRPjStiNAnUGHfgCBmpdxlk_R80i5MJ3GGyJEpA&utm_content=254096509&utm_source=hs_email
Carol Follett
Apr 12, 2023In addition to the above, from the American Pychological Association:
“Stress of mass shootings causing cascade of collective traumas
The regularity of mass shootings is razing Americans’ mental health—heightening stress and dulling compassion in ways that demand broader concern, engagement, and change….As mass shootings repeatedly erupt in schools, grocery stores, and other establishments we visit every week, Americans are living in fear. For children and teens, whose mental health is already in crisis, the ongoing backdrop of violence is steadily eroding the sense of well-being, safety, and efficacy known to be essential for healthy development.”
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2022/09/news-mass-shootings-collective-traumas
It is as if America is at war with itself. If we have enemies, we are certainly helping them. We are killing, demoralising and impairing the development of our own people.
Dianne Foster
Apr 26, 2023We all need to make it clear to County Council that we don’t want our tax money used to fund a goddamn shooting range. Not now or ever! Close it down permanently.