Here is an opinion piece/article from someone calling for "responsible" gun laws.
It is from Feb 17, 2013.
The reason I reprint it here? Because I suspect it will disappear due to the fact that the author uses Kenya's gun laws as an example.
This to me is a prime example of how gun laws don't work. Watch, due to recent events they will (always) push for stricter laws. This is why pro-gun folks are afraid of the domino effect of gun laws. Sure, 'universal background checks' as a vague concept sounds good or "common sense" - however because they can't be enforced what legislation will follow it? Think about it - if the gun/owner isn't registered how do you know if the owner has had a background check?
BTW, here are the Kenyan gun laws: http://www.kenyalaw.org/klr/fileadmin/pdfdownloads/Acts/FirearmsAct_Cap114.pdf
Original article quoted below:
Trib.com: Give us Responsible Gun Laws
Give us responsible gun laws
February 17, 2013 12:00 am • ELLEN DUDLEY(10) Comments
I am a hunter and gun owner who is concerned about gun laws.When I lived in Kenya, gun laws required gun owners to submit to background checks and register their guns, to demonstrate their ability to use the guns, and to provide secure storage for their guns when they were not in use. If any of your guns went missing you could be fined, and, in case of gross negligence, you could lose your right to own a gun.
In the house I rented, the gun safe was set in concrete.
British and European friends in Kenya said their countries had similar laws. In those counties the issue of the right to bear arms was evidently not confused with the issue of legislating for the responsible use of those arms. Nor, it seems, did we Americans confuse those two issues when in 1934 we passed the National Fire Arms Act which, among other things, strictly regulated the private ownership of machine guns. The act was upheld in 1939 by the Supreme Court which found it entirely consistent with the Second Amendment.
How then have we, a nation that once found it reasonable and do-able to regulate for the responsible use of firearms, been stampeded to the entrenched and intransigent position that gun use legislation is nothing less than an attack on our Second Amendment rights?
We have stood by while the National Rifle Association and gun industry, in the name of defending the Constitution, have squashed debate and used personal attacks and threats to livelihoods to silence those who questioned their domination. We have not been outraged enough by their callous response to gun violence and their mantra that "Guns don't kill people, people kill people," when we know that the horror a sick person might want to wreak with a gun on the public will not have such consequences if he can not get his hands on a gun.
Sixteen years ago, when a sick person with an assault weapon massacred people in Australia, Australia passed legislation banning assault weapons and offered to purchase the weapons from assault weapon owners. Australia meant business, and millions of assault weapons were turned in. In 16 years Australia has not had another assault weapon incident and Australians have continued hunting and owning guns.
Our recently expired ban on assault weapons is considered to have been ineffective, and no wonder - it had loopholes you could drive a truck through. The very entities that could have sewn up the loopholes and helped us shape and enforce effective gun legislation, the NRA and the gun industry, were obstructive and lobbied successfully to insure a feeble law that was doomed to failure.
We citizens who want effective gun laws, legislators, members of the NRA and gun industry need to come together for the common good to construct laws that will ban assault weapons and magnum clips, keep guns out of the wrong hands, and foster the responsible use of guns.
How many more people have to get gunned down before we do? We who want gun legislation that we can all live with need to make our voices heard. We need to insist our representatives give us effective gun laws and we need to boycott those in the NRA, the gun industry and its associated industries who come to the table as obstacles rather than allies.
Dudley lives in Dubois.
