Rant #2,932: Questions and Answers

The computer is getting worse, we might have somebody coming in to check on the pool, and there is nothing much more I can do about either problem.
 
But my problems are minor compared to what continues going on in this country with guns and people shooting each other for no apparent reason.
 
We had the latest huge mass shooting,  in Highland Park, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, on July 4, of all days, and I characterize this particular incident as “huge” because there were also a number of other “smaller” mass shootings on the very same day, even in my old stomping grounds of Queens, New York.
 
But back to Highland Park, a fairly middle class/upper middle class suburb of Chicago, where people were celebrating the birth of our country on Independence Day with a parade.
 
Somebody decided to shoot people at that parade, in what evidently was a well-planned attack.
 
He dressed as a woman to blend into the crowd and be undetectable, he climbed up stairs of a building and got to its rooftop unimpeded, and he started to shoot people indiscriminately with a military-style rifle, round after round after round.
 
He ended up killing at least seven innocent people, others may be added to that list as I write this, and dozens of others were wounded.
 
The person, we have since discovered, was not an unknown, as many mass shooters are. He was well known to the authorities, as he had some prior dealings with them, over knives, his own attempted suicide, and some posts he put on social media that were ultra-violent in nature.
 
And this deranged person bought his gun legally.
 
OK, you know what I am getting to now, but don’t get nuts about it if you are pro-gun, and for the rights of Americans to bear arms.
 
I am backing you with that right, even though I do not, for the life of me, understand why anyone would want to carry a gun or have it in their homes,
 
However, that is your right, and if you want to do that, that is fine.
 
That not what I am talking about here.
 
Handguns, pistols … if you want ot keep those in your homes, that is fine with me, I guess.
 
But to buy and be able to keep military-style artillery in your possession?
 
Sorry, you completely lose me there.
 
What is the reason for being able to legally purchase such artillery, weapons that can take out not just a possible intruder in your home, but a possible army of intruders in one fell swoop?
 
There is no reason to be able to legally purchase such artillery, nor the ammunition to be used with such artillery, nor the body protection that people shield themselves with when using this artillery.
 
If you say that the right to own a gun protects yourself and your family from harm, that is fine, but these guns are the types of guns used in warfare … why have them in your house?
 
By the time you pulled this gun from under your bed sheets and had the wherewithal to use it, the intruder would have either shot you with his own gun or left the premises.
 
Owning a gun like a pistol is quite different than owning a military style gun, and while I believe that about 95 percent of all gun owners are careful and know what they are doing, all you need is one nut who hasn’t a clue about the handling and storage of such a weapon, and you can have a major problem on your hands.
 
And that includes deranged people, who when they have such a weapon in their hands, can pull off scenes like we saw in Highland Park and several other places lately.
 
Banning these guns for legal sale really is the way to go, and since people believe such a ban is an abridgement of their rights, then let’s do this: anyone who wants to purchase military style artillery and all of its side products must wait at least two years to be able to get all of this stuff.
 
Waiting two years would provide ample time for background checks and any red flag to be looked into … and it might provide a cooling off period for a potential mass shooter, allowing them to think about what they want to do before they do anything.
 
Whatever the case, we need a better system of meting out such weapons in this country. People should not be able to get such weapons after only a few days.
 
Now, of course, there are some among us who would say to me after reading this, “Well, you have illegal guns all over the place, and there is no waiting time for people to get those, so why should I, a legal gun owner, have to wait years to get what I want?”
 
The answer is simple—yet quite complex--to that.
 
The answer is this: “I know it is wrong, and I know that it is going to be difficult for you to understand this, but legally purchased artillery and those that can be gotten on the street are two different stories that need to be looked at separately, if for nothing else that you have the legal side and the illegal side of this question, and they are not one and the same thing ... although they an be somewhat enmeshed.
 
“We can regulate the legal purchase of guns to protect everyone, including the responsible gun owner, from abuse that they don’t deserve.
 
“The illegal gun side of the story must also be taken care of, but it is more difficult to regulate something that is illegal to begin with, but yes, our legislators must be diligent in prosecuting those who use stolen guns or ghost guns on the streets.
 
“But remember this: all it takes is for a legal gun to wind up in the hands of a felon, and it becomes a stolen, and thus, illegal gun, so it all begins with the legal gun owner even possessing a gun to begin with.
 
“Legal guns can turn into illegal guns in a blink of an eye.”
 
I rest my case.