This isn’t about the right to bear arms, it’s about the right to be a freak
Have a look at this Bushmaster ad for their semi-automatic rifles:
In any sort of rational debate about gun control, we would be facing the fact that the most extreme elements of the “stop any restrictions on gun ownership ever at all the end” crowd are, at the end of the day, gun fetishists.
Period.
This isn’t about self protection. No rational person has this gun hanging around by the front door or their bed, waiting to use it on an intruder. No rational person carries this around to show that they are protected. These are for one thing and one thing only: to satisfy the bizarre fetish of some people to believe that they are Rambo. That they are a prime specimen of military dudeness.
These fetishists have gotten so out of control that they wouldn’t even budge on a very simple request by Governor Rick Snyder for an adjustment to their guns-in-schools-and-churches bill this week to avoid a veto. Snyder says he vetoed the bill because it didn’t have an option for schools and other public places where concealed weapons would now be allowed to opt out; to prohibit weapons their premises.
Snyder said he was concerned the legislation approved last week would not let schools and other public facilities ban concealed weapons while letting private property owners like churches and sports stadiums do so.“I believe that it is important that these public institutions have clear legal authority to ban weapons from their premises,” Snyder said in his veto letter to lawmakers. “Each is entrusted with the care of a vulnerable population and should have the authority to determine whether its mission would be enhanced by the addition of concealed weapons.”
The bill’s sponsor, Republican Senator Mike Green of Mayville wasn’t having it.
Green said he rejected Snyder’s demand for a provision allowing public school districts and municipalities to ban concealed weapons because gun rights organizations said it could be used to overturn Michigan’s firearms pre-emption law that prohibits local firearms laws from trumping state laws and regulations.“They told us Thursday night he’d veto it if we didn’t include that language,” Green said. “We just said ‘enough’s enough,’ and we passed it.”
That’s how over the top the gun fetishists have become. They are so worried that “the government is coming for their guns” (which it clearly is not) that they aren’t willing to budge one iota to achieve some of their goals.
This has gone beyond a debate about gun control and into the land of Rambo and Dirty Harry. We have small fraction of our population, led by the nose by the National Rifle Association (NRA), that thinks any restriction on gun ownership, even sensible restrictions, are denying them their constitutional freedoms. It is a sickness and the rest of world looks at the USA and sees it as a sickness.
And it’s a sickness that’s killing our kids.
