Following the recent Florida school shooting, the never-ending gun control debate was stoked back to fervent life, prompting the same old reactions from those who fear having their rights violated.
"Leave my guns alone! If a criminal wants to get one, he will! Ain’t no stoppin’ it — so don’t you go takin’ my guns away! You’ll hafta pry ’em from my cold dead hands!”
And therein lies the greatest misconception of gun control advocacy.
That the big bad (and by the way democratically elected) government is just lurking in the shadows, opportunistically waiting for an insidiously devious excuse such as a calculated, cold-blooded mass shooting to disarm the citizenry and promptly impose a tyrannical thousand-year reign of ruthless oppression against a disarmed populace now hapless to defend itself.
Of course none of this could be much further from the reality of the discussion at hand. Yet this misrepresentation of most sensible gun control advocates nevertheless permeates and pollutes the public and subsequent political conversations.
There’s no denying some firearms, such as fully automatics — as well as any accessories that effectively make a semi-automatic fire faster, such as bump stocks — should be heavily restricted, arguably even banned.
But at heart, the issue for the U.S. is less about banning guns or restricting responsible, law-abiding citizens from obtaining firearms, and more about tightening loopholes in existing laws that fail spectacularly to take greater pains to prevent guns from falling into the wrong hands.
Won’t always work, granted. Yet neither will motor vehicle regulations. But hey, sure beats a random, chaotic, free-for-all, does it not?
When I drive down the highway, I like to think — despite what I sometimes see — that other motorists have been adequately instructed and trained on the safe operation of their vehicle. Society all around seems to think it’s a pretty big deal too, and a person even actually has to be insured in case of a collision where people get hurt and property gets damaged.
Seems perfectly sensible; so why wouldn’t we legislate similar laws surrounding the use of firearms?
On a related tangent, the claim that criminals will obtain guns regardless of any rules does not account for the core issue behind America’s mass shootings: these attacks are almost exclusively carried out with fully legally obtained weapons by socially ostracized and disgruntled, misguided young males with no serious criminal underworld ties, which would undoubtedly be required to connect with black market gun runners had lawful avenues been exhausted.
So going back, the argument remains less about banning and more about regulating. Sadly, in some states, gun laws are so lax that a firearm can be obtained in less than an hour, thereby making redundant any efforts other states make to enforce sensible regulations, as guns can easily be bought in some areas and simply brought back to another area with stricter regulations.
If sensible gun laws don’t work, that must explain why no other developed nation with such legislation experiences anywhere near the same level of firearm related violence and death as the U.S. Sure, different cultures. But also different laws that actually take meaningful measures that take greater pains to prevent potential mass shooters from amassing an arsenal.
Sane and trained?
Fantastic! Have your rifle and enjoy your time at the range or shooting competition. May your sights be true and your rounds find the bull’s eye!
Got a violent criminal history of assault or domestic abuse?
Sorry, denied!
To really drive home the point just how ludicrous our southern neighbours’ legislators can be, a Food and Drug Administration ban on Kinder Surprise eggs is only just recently being lifted after nearly half a century.
Apparently, a little kid once must have choked on the plastic shell in a Kinder Surprise chocolate egg decades ago, which prompted the FDA to immediately ban the benign object, in turn inadvertently creating a black market for candy.
"Americans have been so eager to get their hands on the treat that 60,000 smuggled eggs were seized by border officials in 2011, according to the US Customs and Border Protection,” wrote Harriet Pavey in a November 2017 Evening Standard article.
Smuggled Kinder Surprise eggs. Apparently truth really is stranger than fiction.
Almost half a century later, the ban’s lifted — but only partially.
"Kinder eggs are making a legal comeback in the country, although they won’t be in their original form. Instead, customers can expect to see shelves stacked with Kinder Joy, a similar sweet which is deemed safer than the Kinder Surprise,” wrote Pavey.
So here we are at that really awkward moment when a chocolate treat is determined by American legislators to be more dangerous and thus in need of tighter regulations than a firearm.
Now of course if you’re like me, you might be tempted to say, "Hey! We’re in Canada, and we have sensible gun laws!”
Of course some of us think perhaps rules should be tighter, others more lax. But for the most part, our gun laws seem to be keeping us in line with other developed nations, and mass shootings remain rare.
"So, how does this affect us?”
Well, according to a Global News story covering a Canada Border Patrol Agency document, Americans are in no short supply attempting to cross the border into Canada with their firearms.
Ironically, most are usually simply unaware and bear no ill intent, and it’s unfortunately Canadians who are more likely to hop the border for a day, stock up on some easy-to-buy guns, and attempt to bring them back over the border. The same goes for America’s southern border, where many tens of thousands of American-made guns have over the years been smuggled to fuel Mexican drug cartel violence.
So America’s gun laws certainly affect its neighbours, and we do share the world’s largest, unprotected land border.
At this rate, we might just need to build a wall and have the U.S. pay for it!
- Ducatel is the editor of the Sundre Round Up, a Great West newspaper.
