Off the Editor’s Desk – 1-16-13

Gun Control?

Ever since the horrifying Newtown, Connecticut school shootings the national news media and politicians have been hounding on the need for gun controls.

President Obama has Vice President Joe Biden leading the charge. Rush Limbaugh calls the vice president “Joe Bite Me” and that is just what Biden would like to do to all gun owners, take guns away or place heavy controls on them.

Why would anyone in government want to take away the guns from the law-abiding citizens? Well, it would be a lot easier to control the population if they are not armed. It would also make us an inviting target for an invader to try to take over our country.

But, then why is there so much violence in this country with the gun? Well as I was watching TV before and during the Packer game on Saturday, several current movies were being advertised. Such names as, “Bullet to the Head,” “Taken 2,” “Last Stand,” Die Hard,” and “Gangsters Squad.” All of these and more feature guns, some of which are fully automatic weapons, killing people and these movies draw large crowds and make money for the studios. And the gun is getting the blame.

Bob Costas, an NBC sports announcer took aim at and unloaded on the gun and gun owners following an incident late last year after Kansas City Chiefs’ linebacker Jovan Belcher shot his girlfriend and then himself in front of his coach. The next week another professional football player apparently with too much to drink crashed his car and his passenger died. I might have missed it, but I did not hear Costas blaming the car for that death. It was the nut behind the wheel that caused it and the same goes for the guy that pulled the trigger.

We should look back less than a hundred years when the federal government put a ban on liquor. The government could not control the thirst of the American Public. What happened was that organized crime and the mob took over control of the streets in our big cities and gun violence was at a high.

The government has shown us that it cannot control drug use. Look at Mexico, with its ban on all types of guns. There, only the outlaws and drug lords have guns and citizens are being killed by the bad guys.

We have made schools and other public facilities “gun free zones” and that alone invites a deranged person to target that facility.

If we take away guns from our law-abiding citizens, then our homes will become targets for those bad guys and nut cases and our streets will be ruled by lawless people with guns, just like the 1930’s in Chicago.

I never was a member of the NRA until Obama was elected president. I would urge all gun owners to become members.

— Carlton