Reverend Rick said:
The second amendment is a right not a privilege.
True, but it's not an absolute mandate from God. We have to regulate all our rights, according to common sense, according to the intent and spirit of the guiding principals of our nation, and according to the public good.
Reverend Rick said:
Gun control, does little to control criminals. It is akin to smacking one child for the actions of another.
Gun control isn't supposed to control criminals. It's supposed to limit their access to guns. Right now they can get them very, very easily, and in many cases even legally. And once they commit a crime with a gun, they suffer little social retribution for having done so. That's like rewarding a bad child for being bad, by ignoring what they've done wrong.
Most of the deaths caused by guns are not the result of hardened criminals making a concerted effort to by illegal guns on the black market and then using them to kill innocent citizens. That happens, but most killings are not of that type. Most killings are of the "idiot" variety, where someone gets drunk, or drugged up, and decides to shoot their ex-friend or ex-girlfriend or some other drunken idiot in a bar for completely irrational reasons that not even they would believe if they were sober. Or, some idiot junkie needs to get high, and robs the next door neighbor, or the market down the street, and gets scared or confused or just goes out of his mind on the adrenaline and ends up shooting someone. These kinds of stupid impulse crimes make up the vast majority of gun deaths in the U.S., and many of them would be stopped if the idiots involved didn't have such ridiculously easy access to a gun.
The whole point of gun control, is to try and keep guns out of the hands of exactly these kinds of unstable idiots. There is nothing particularly difficult about doing this, and it need not deny responsible citizens their right to own a gun. All that is required is that the gun lobby pull their heads out of their own butts long enough to recognize that we do have a real problem with guns and gun violence in this country, and that these problems can be solved without everyone arming themselves to the teeth. Believe it or not, we could solve our gun violence problem in this country WITHOUT MORE GUNS and WITHOUT MORE GUN VIOLENCE. All it requires is some smart and tough regulation, and the willingness to implement it.