on the Governor's cool response to Mayor Emanuel's proposed state-wide gun registration, an "uphill climb" he called it.
Now, why do the pro-gun guys keep doing that? They exaggerate the supposed offenses of the gun control folks and then argue against those exaggerated claims.Emanuel, who proposed the idea on Thursday, said the registry would help the Chicago Police Department trace guns that come from outside the city. Chicago has a gun registry, but the state does not.
Sen. Larry Bomke, R-Springfield, said Emanuel is overstepping his bounds.
“I, like most Downstaters, are a little sick of the mayor of Chicago acting like he is the governor of Illinois,” Bomke said, adding the legislation only punishes law-abiding citizens and do not stop criminals from getting weapons.
What Sen. Bomke said is wrong on two counts.
First, no one is being "punished." Gun-rights fanatics coined that famous phrase as a way of misleading. When it serves their purposes they love to play the victim. Do people feel punished when they have to get a driver's license? Of course not. In the same way, law abiding citizens who don't have a gun-rights ax to grind, would not feel punished by even the strictest gun control measures.
Second, proper gun control laws would have an immediate and direct impact on the criminal's ability go get guns. This is so obvious that it becomes tedious arguing over it. Almost all guns in criminal hands originally were the property of lawful gun owners, either at the level of the gun manufacturer, the FFL gun seller or the individual. In various ways these guns are slipping into the criminal world, therefore stricter controls would positively impact that lethal mechanism.
Only dishonest and biased gun-rights advocates deny these two obvious things.
What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.
"Do people feel punished when they have to get a driver's license?"
ReplyDeleteWow, now you are even doing car analogies.
What if in addition to getting your license you had to pay a $65 per year fee for every car you intend to drive? How do you think the average motor vehicle operator would feel about that question?
You paid for your driver's license fees, now you have to pay $65 for your car, your wife's car, you son's car, because you might drive them all at least once this year. Oh, your car broke down and you needed a rental car for the week? That will be another $65. Oh, you took a business trip two weeks later and rented another car, that will be another $65 please.
Rahm's nonsense scam dos nothing to thwart crime and he knows that. It is all about punishing the law abiding citizen and to deter legal gun ownership. Do you really think that a waitress that is being stocked by her ex-husband and decides to buy a $200 handgun can afford an extra $65 Rahm fee each year just to keep it? Or do you think she'll maybe instead just fail to register it in following years? Of course if she is caught with it, she would be charged with having an unregistered gun and become a criminal. But then that is what gun control is all about, isn't it? Criminalizing the otherwise law abiding. It sure isn't about deterring crime.
Senator Bomke's only wrong in this way: The mayors of Chicago don't see themselves as governors of one state only. Their desires have reached far higher for a long time. But here's a compromise: When the Mayor of Chicago refuses to accept armed guards to defend him, I'll believe that he's sincere when he tells others that they don't need firearms.
ReplyDeleteLet's address your two assertions:
ReplyDelete1. Gun owners wouldn't be punished, and no one but a gun loon could object to even the strictist gun controls.
Look at how hard it is to buy a handgun in D.C. That's the kind of regulation that Dog Gone has proposed. Anyone who wants to buy a legal product has to go through a dense web of red tape and pass requirements that are designed to be exceedingly difficult to meet. Criminals just buy guns. You may not call this punishment, but that's your judgement, one that many people disagree with.
2. Gun control would lower a criminal's ability to get guns. (Impact must involve a blow--it's not a synonym for affect or effect.)
How hard is it to buy the kinds of illegal drugs that come across our borders? How hard is it to hire an illegal immigrant? If we can't prevent those two "goods" from crossing our borders, how will we stop a flow of guns?
In addition, your proposals ignore the total number of guns in this country already. Do you imagine that guns would instantly disappear if your proposals went into force? Getting privately held guns out of circulation would take decades, and many criminals would acquire millions of the privately owned and unregistered guns that would be then a much more valuable black market item.
I've discussed these two points before, but no one here has an answer to them.