Brake to Kill

This week started with five people getting shot to death on Sunday and five people getting shot to death on Wednesday. Odds are, at the level of gun violence in this country today, five more will get shot to death on Saturday.

            The shootings occur a week after the United States Senate failed to pass one of the most non-restrictive gun regulations – universal background checks for gun buyers. The National Rifle Association has been blamed, and deservedly so, for blocking what 90 percent of the country believes is a measure, no matter how small, of safety against gun violence.

             Arguing against gun safety regulation is like arguing against brakes for cars – brakes only penalize slow drivers, or, as the NRA likes to argue, gun regulations only hurt the law abiding gun owner.

            Exactly.

That’s what regulations do.

Regulations make sure every law abiding one of us adheres to rules intended to make us as individuals and as a society, safe and legal. After all, every criminal with a gun was once a law abiding gun owner.

It’s not that this sort of reasoning escapes the great minds of the NRA’s leaders, it doesn’t. They just choose to ignore it.

Unfortunately, they ignore it at the peril of everyone else, even their own.

Can you imagine the auto industry arguing against brakes? Even while people are killed in car crashes that could be avoided but for the installation of brakes. Can you imagine Congress refusing to pass legislation requiring brakes because of the proverbial “slippery slope?”

First brakes, then seat belts and the next thing you know the government will tell us to put our children in car seats!

            Of course the auto industry would never have gotten off the ground without brakes on cars. Who would buy their products? They would be too dangerous to drive.

             Yet, guns are far more dangerous than automobiles and gun manufactures appear unconcerned about declines in profit. But that’s the beauty of gun violence. The more the violence ratchets up, the more the NRA calls for more people to have guns, and the more people think they need a gun.

             If I was a conspiracy nut I’d think the NRA and gun manufacturers are creating the violence to keep the membership dues and profits rolling in.

             But I’m not. I’m just a frustrated American who doesn’t understand why we need so many unregulated guns in this country.