Stronger Gun Laws?

Recently a link to a website was circulated on Facebook that encouraged one to sign a pledge for stronger gun laws that would “keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people and save lives”. This pledge means absolutely nothing. It has no substance and it has no purpose, other than the opportunity for the website to gather your name, your email address and your mobile phone number. Hmmm, I wonder why they need that information? My first thought was this was a pointless exercise with regards to its stated purpose. It supports stronger gun laws, but gives no indication of what those stronger gun laws should be, and it has a second, slightly less obvious intention, of maligning the Governor of Ohio, implying he had some sort of nefarious intent by signing a bill into law.

The website states “Governor John Kasich signed a dangerous gun bill into law at the end of last year that lets anyone with a permit from another state to carry hidden, loaded guns in Ohio.” As it turns out, the bill actually added a few states to the already long list of states that Ohio has a reciprocal agreement with to permit concealed carry. The person who wrote that obviously was not paying attention in civics class the day the lesson was taught on how a bill becomes law. The Governor did not suddenly decide to pass a law, sign it, and presto! Ohio automatically became a less safe State. How a bill becomes a law in Ohio is an involved process with a number of steps. To help clarify, for those who were not paying attention that day, I am providing a link to a flow chart that shows exactly how this process works. As you can see, it is quite an involved process. To imply that the Governor had some evil intent and had endangered the lives of Ohioans was simply a crock, obviously not the truth.

It also bothers me when these high-handed individuals suggest that stronger gun laws are needed but give no indication as to what needs to be done to strengthen the law. If one is to critique the process, then one should have some indication of what they desire to occur to bring about that which they seek. What specifically should be included in this law to make it stronger than those laws already in existence? Is it even possible to write a law that will “keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people “? Who are these dangerous people? Who determines if a person is dangerous? Now I might be more inclined to agree if the wish was to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. This would make more sense, should it actually have even the remotest chance of ever being possible. So far, no gun law ever written has done anything except make it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to obtain and own a gun. By definition, a criminal is a person who does not obey the law. Is it possible to write a law that would keep guns out of the hands of criminals? Is it possible to write a law that a criminal will obey?I think not.

Stronger gun laws might be a good idea if they could be written so as not to infringe on the 2nd Amendment rights of our citizens. Stronger gun laws might be a good idea if they could be written to stop criminals from acquiring guns. Stronger gun laws might be a good idea if denying concealed carry made us safer, but in fact the opposite has proven to be true. So far such a gun law has not been written. I can only say, it’s back to the drawing board for those pie in the sky advocates of stronger gun laws. If you want my pledge to support stronger gun laws, show me a law that will actually “keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people and save lives” and you will get my support. But not until then.

Those are my thoughts, what are yours?

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