Gun ban – why it’s not going to happen

Tens of thousands march for “sensible gun control”!

Ain’t gonna happen, and here’s why.

But first of all let me tell you where I’m coming from. Like Kris Kristofferson’s Pilgrim, I’m a walking contradiction.

I’m a strong Second Amendment supporter but I don’t own any guns and don’t do shooting sports. (I do have a nice sword collection if you’re thinking about a home invasion though.) I favor decriminalization of drugs but my drug of choice is beer. I think traditional marriage is the best environment to raise children in, but I’m a single father of two.

So all of you on both sides, think of me as an outsider and listen.

You anti-gunners, you’ve destroyed your own case. You have, pardon the expression, shot yourself in the foot.

You pro-gunners, though I think you’ve got the better argument sometimes you’re not helping yourselves either.

“We don’t want to take your guns we just want sensible laws!”

Nobody believes you. I’m not even sure you believe you.

No doubt marchers’ opinions ran from restrictions to outright bans, but the central drive of the anti-gun movement is to outlaw civilian ownership period. No politician will say it in public, but plenty of people who aren’t running for office have told me straight up that’s what they want.

Secondly, nobody respects your opinions because they are largely uninformed. Most of you don’t know much about firearms and it shows in the embarrassing gaffes you make when you talk about them.

Nor do you seem to know anything about laws concerning firearms because almost every proposal for “sensible restrictions” is already in place.

Background checks – already here, which you’d know if you ever tried to buy one.

Gun show loophole? A misrepresentation, if not an outright lie.

What about banning military style assault weapons like the AR 15?

The AR 15 is used in a tiny fraction of murders, is in fact a useful farm rifle, and is far less powerful than some semi-automatic hunting rifles without the purely cosmetic features that make it look so “military.”

What you’ve made all too plain is that you don’t hate guns, you hate and fear the people who like guns and want to humiliate them and take their guns away. Which makes them afraid of how you’d treat them if they weren’t armed.

Gun people – sometimes you scare them right back.

I recently posted a comment on social media about the school resource officer in Maryland who killed the 17-year-old student who shot two students before the deputy stopped him.

Pro-Second Amendment people have complained the media has mostly ignored this.

I commented that though the deputy did what he had to do, he now has to live with the fact that he killed a boy – forever.

Counter-comments ran from dismissal, “Oh I think that trauma is overhyped,” to “Good on him!” to “Don’t call him a boy, he’s a killer!”

I think only one recognized that whatever the reality, no matter how justified, that deputy had to kill a human being who looked like someone’s child.

This does make you sound a little bloodthirsty.

Folks we’re going to be neighbors and countrymen for a long time, I urge everybody to calm down.

And tell that annoying kid from Florida to stop making the Fascist salute at rallies, you’re scaring people.

A collection of Steve Browne’s columns, “The View from Flyover Country: A Rural Columnist Looks at Life” is available on Amazon Kindle.