SHOOT TO KILL

SHOOT TO KILL.

I retrieved the newspaper from the driveway this morning (12/21/12) and was shocked at the big bold headline: “GUN SALES RISE IN FLORIDA – REQUESTS FOR BACKGROUND CHECKS FOR NEW BUYERS HAVE INCREASED – ESPECIALLY FOR ASSAULT RIFLES.”

From last Friday through this past Tuesday background check requests totaled 31,149 – and that’s just in Florida. Total insanity!

My thoughts are of no influence but those of Warren Burger (1907-1995), the late Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, may resonate with gun advocates who fight against any and all restrictions.

“Americans have the right to defend their homes, and we need not challenge that. Nor does anyone seriously question that the Constitution protects the right of hunters to own and keep sporting guns for hunting game any more than anyone would challenge the right to own and keep fishing rods and other equipment for fishing – or to own automobiles. To “keep and bear arms” for hunting today is essentially a recreational activity and not an imperative of survival, as it was 200 years ago. “Saturday night specials” and machine guns are not recreational weapons and surely are as much in need of regulation as motor vehicles.

Americans should ask themselves a few questions. The Constitution does not mention automobiles or motorboats, but the right to keep and own an automobile is beyond question, equally beyond question is the power of the state to regulate the purchase or the transfer of such a vehicle and the right to license the vehicle and the driver with reasonable standards. In some places, even a bicycle must be registered, as must some household dogs.
If we are to stop this mindless homicidal carnage, is it unreasonable:

1. To provide that, to acquire a firearm, an application be made reciting age, residence, employment and any prior criminal convictions?
2. To require that this application lie on the table for 10 days (absent a showing for urgent need) before the license would be issued?
3. That the transfer of a firearm be made essentially as with that of a motor vehicle?
4. To have a “ballistic fingerprint” of the firearm made by the manufacturer and filed with the license record so that, if a bullet is found in a victim’s body, law enforcement might he helped in finding the culprit?”

Some will read this blog and ask: So okay, what is your point?

It is estimated that there are three hundred million personal guns in the U.S., just about enough for every man, woman, and child. It is also estimated that 40% of them were purchased without benefit of a background check or registration. Does that mean that there are over one hundred million guns floating around that no one knows about? The population of the United States comprises 5% of the world’s population but accounts for 50% of all the personally owned guns in the world.

The issue of reasonable guns laws goes far beyond Justice Warren Burger’s insightful words or the horrific tragedies of Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, Calif. (1989 – six dead), Columbine High School (1999 – 15 dead), Virginia Tech (2007 – 33 dead), Tucson, Ariz. (2011 – six dead), Aurora, Colo. (2012 – 12 dead) and Newtown, Connecticut (2012 -27 dead). The issue is: is this the kind of society we really want to live in? Why is it that the smallest, loudest, vilest, radical voices (the NRA has only 4 million members) are the voices that always seem to rise to the top and somehow rule our lives? I personally believe that the NRA is a legitimate gun owner’s worst enemy.

No one wants to do away with the 2nd Amendment least of all legal, responsible gun owners. But it strikes me as logical that those who do enjoy responsible gun ownership should be the first to rise up against the insanity that has invaded our culture. But far too many are silent fearing that if they speak out they too will be accused of doing what is right for our nation, and that’s the last thing the radicals want. Radical thinkers view life as something to be feared, and they want the rest of us to fear it. So let’s try a different approach: Parents need to show up – talking about child protection works – marches are not enough – change happens from the ground up – movements work when old and new work together for a common cause.

Let the debate begin.
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Robert J. Emery is an award-winning film & TV Producer/Director/Writer whose work has appeared in movie theaters and on Lifetime, MSNBC, PBS, Starz/Encore, Discovery Channel, Reelz Channel, and the Learning Channel. He is a member of the Directors Guild of America and the author of the novel IN THE REALM OF EDEN. He is currently writing the trilogy NIRVANA LOST, NIRVANA FOUND.