Gun Control - I've got the silver bullet

My attempt to maintain the lameness of gun references in the context of this blog topic. A weak effort I realize...

I'm a firm believer in the "right" to bear arms. I own a couple guns and use them for recreational purposes, hunting and sport shooting. I don't think that right should ever be taken away from me, a law abiding, tax paying (substantial tax, but that's another post), citizen. I don't think my gun ownership makes me any more likely to commit a violent crime or be complicit in a death by a gun.

I don't think however that it should be everyone's "right" to own a weapon. Gun ownership should be earned. Earning this right in my mind would include four steps:

1. Sufficiently satisfying ownership requirements based on criminal history. Convicted of a violent crime, you no longer get this right, ever.
2. Satisfying training and educational requirements, which should be time consuming (minimum 20 hours) but not costly.
3. Satisfying a substantial waiting period for purchasing a gun, I would suggest a minimum of 21 days. There could be an expedited solution that would be costly, similar to getting a passport. Although i can't think of a reason why this would be necessary, it would provide flexibility that is typically necessary for such legislation to be effective.
4. Registering both the gun and owner and ongoing requirements to annually re-register the gun, re-satisfy ownership requirements, and satisfying continuing education requirements. People have to do this with their cars in many states, guns could be handled this way as well.

If these seem like pretty high standards for gun ownership, you are exactly right. Gun ownership should not be a compulsion. Based on the potential risks of gun ownership in the hands of the wrong people, there needs to be a commensurate amount of judgment, education, and training. This would be similar to other dangerous weapons...like CARS!

While I like the idea, I think the concept of judging the usefulness of guns as recreational is too subjective to be realistic. 2 examples:

1. Handguns - I know several people that participate in practical shooting leagues with handguns. While I don't own a handgun or subscribe to this form of recreation, it is a popular one with gun owners. Qualifying handguns as recreational would include the majority (snopes check needed) of weapons used in a violent crime.

2. Assault weapons - you may be able to use a similar argument as this one for handguns as well, but what about professions that actually use an assault weapon? Comfort and control of this is a BFOQ (tipping my HR hat to our brotherly expert in that field) Police officers, special operations officers, military and former military. What if a reservist wants to put in extra personal time to be as good as possible at his profession, should he be called to active duty? Can we realistically limit these individual's interest in career success for the sake of gun control?

In summary, give me my guns and put me through the ringer to get to earn that right. But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater by trying to eliminate gun control.

Trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to understand God's will

Ed, you wrote, "There is a reason for the struggle, a reason for the strife, and you will come out of it stronger."  That's what people who are NOT struggling through something try to tell people who ARE struggling.  They have good intentions - they are trying to provide some kind of comfort, some kind of noble reason for the struggle.  I've been on the receiving end of that kind of advice, and it's usually not very comforting at all.

I've had some extensive discussion recently with an old Navy friend who posed the question of why God allows bad things to happen.  He's a strong Christian but would like to be able to provide a reasonable answer to people that have experienced tragedy (like the loss of a child) who question God's sovereignty, God's control in this world, and God's will.  This question has been around for a long time.  Just go to Amazon and do a search on "why bad things happen to good people" and you'll find enough books to keep you occupied for a few years.  It doesn't surprise me.  When we hurt the most is when we are most likely to ask the question, "Why?"  We don't ask why during life's successes and achievements because we don't care why.  We're just happy.

I don't have a good answer, and certainly not one that will fit neatly into a blog.  All I can really offer is what I usually provide here: a few random and probably incoherent thoughts.

First, I've learned through the years that the best way to provide comfort is NOT to try to provide answers.  When I come home from work frustrated and vent to Jennifer, the last thing I want from her is to explain why.  What comforts me the most is to hear her say, "I'm sorry you had a tough day honey."  When someone suffers the death of a loved one, the best comfort you can provide is to say, "I'm really sorry for your loss."  When someone is in the grips of grief, telling them that the death was all in God's will, that it's all part of God's plan that we will understand someday in the future, there is no comfort.  The result is usually anger at a God who we are told is a God of love.  How does a God of love cause such pain?  

To make this a little more personal, why are there 15-year-old girls that have sex once in the back of a car and carry a baby to full-term, when a married Christian couple who wants to have children can't seem to make it happen?  Where is God in that situation?  There is no pat answer.  I think we can all agree to that.

We live in a fallen world.  Genesis 3 tells the story of the fall of man and how sin entered the world.  The world we live in is not the one that God would have chosen, but when WE chose sin, we ended up with a fallen world.  God created us with free will, and that means mankind was free to choose sin.  The fact is, we choose sin in some way or another every day.  It would be nice to blame it all on Adam, but the fact is, if Marc was the first man, we would be calling it Marc's original sin instead of Adam's original sin.  So our world, in many ways, sucks.  We have death, disappointment, abuse, hate, fear, etc. because of sin.  Jesus himself said, "In this world you will have trouble."  (John 16:33)  

I'm not saying that, "We brought this on ourselves" is any more of a comfort to people.  But for me personally, a huge part of the story of Jesus Christ is understanding why he needed to come to earth in the first place.  And the answer is that he came to deal with the sinful world that we live in.  I'm also not saying that all bad things are the result of personal sins we have committed in the past.  The Bible is full of stories of righteous men and women that endured terrible circumstances (Joseph, Job, Paul, Daniel, etc).  That may be what Jesus meant when he said, "In this world you will have trouble."  In other words, it doesn't matter what you do, you'll go through some shit.  But his statement immediately following was this: "But take heart!  I have overcome the world."  God knows that we're going to experience shit.  But he never leaves us when we're going through it.

If you think there are a lot of books about why bad things happen to good people, take a look at the volumes that have been written trying to describe the God himself.  Theology is the study of God, and the number of books written on God could fill the oceans.  Isaiah 55:9 says, "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."  For me, I've just reached a point in my life where I am comfortable with the fact that I will never fully understand God.  With each passing year I realize that although I keep making the box that I want to keep him in even bigger, he'll never fit in it.  Omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence are not concepts that our mortal minds can ever fully grasp.  I'm comfortable with saying, "I don't quite get it."

But in the end, I know that God IS love, because that's what his word tells us, and he demonstrates it to me all the time.  I love the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15), the story of the shepherd leaving the flock to find a single sheep (John 10) and the multiple stories of God accepting his people, the Israelites, back.  God GENUINELY REJOICES when people turn to him.  He doesn't care what you did five minutes ago or five decades ago.  He loves us so much that he is simply delighted that we've turned to him.  So Ed, he doesn't care WHY you may be drawing to him now.  He could care less.  He's just glad that you are.  The bible tells us that God delights in his people (Psalm 149).  Our pastor preached a sermon a couple of weeks ago in which he said, "God cares about you more than anything RIGHT NOW."  Psalm 103 says that God has removed our sin as far as the East is from the West.  He does not take it into account.

I'm all over the place.  I will summarize by saying that I find comfort in knowing that God is bigger than all the shit in my life, that he loves me NO MATTER WHAT, and that he hurts when I hurt.  That is where I receive my comfort.  No human situation on the earth can ever change it.  I don't think I'll ever understand completely how any of that mixes with "God's will".    I'll finsih with a quote that I like by A.W. Tozer: "The yearning to know what cannot be known, to comprehend the incomprehensible, to touch and taste the unapproachable, arises from the image of God in the nature of man.  Deep calleth unto deep, and though polluted and landlocked by the mighty disaster theologians call the Fall, the soul senses its origin and longs to return to its souce."  

Marc, shooting from the hip, as usual

This blog is about gun control.  That makes the title funny, right?

Ed, thanks for keeping the blog going as of late.  You've posted some stuff that has caused me hours of consideration on a variety of topics.  If only someone could invent some kind of technology that converts my thoughts automatically into a coherent blog post.  That would be a first for me!  I have intentions of responding to those "tough" blogs that you've posted, but contrary to every time management and productivity article in the last 20 years, I'm going to tackle the easy stuff first.

It's easy because my Facebook post that indicated I was shocked by the comments of Bob Costas during Sunday night football got me involved in an email discussion on gun control with our Uncle Jerry.  I won't post the entire email chain, but I'll post my input to the discussion:

JJ, thanks for giving me the opportunity to jump in.  I'll try not to be TOO lengthy.

If I really drill down on this question in my own mind, I come back to the question of how much authority the government should have to protect its own citizens.  I don't mean to open the "big government" can of worms, but in my mind you can lump gun control in with that issue.  Are guns dangerous?  Hell yeah they are, especially when they are used improperly.  JJ, I agree with SOME of your points, in that I think there is a line that needs to be drawn somewhere in regards to the types of weapons available to the general public (assault rifles for example).  But my original question has to do with how much authority the government should have to protect its citizens.  YOU may not think it's a logical argument, but the fact that other things, when misused, kill people IS a valid argument.  It's estimated that alcohol-related deaths are around 75K per year in the United States.  Why isn't the government trying to limit alcohol access to the "financially responsible"?  The answer is because alcohol is not the issue, the IRRESPONSIBLE use of alcohol is the issue.  Why are guns different?  That's what I think the gun control lobby needs to explain (at least to me).  Financially responsible people can misuse anything as easily as someone who is not financially responsible.  Personally, I have a hard time understanding when the government decides to get involved for "safety" reasons and when they don't.  Why do we have seatbelt laws?  Helmet laws?  Even soda consumption laws in New York City!  Why does the government feel the need to protect its citizens in this arena but not in so many others?

I don't really like your Constitutional argument either, since it's the omission argument.  The Constitution doesn't say specifically that I can have a car, but that doesn't mean they should prevent me from having one.  Just because the Constitution doesn't specifically say "a well regulated militia and everyone can own a gun if they want to do so", that doesn't mean they didn't mean to allow it.  In the late 1700's following a rebellion against jolly old England, I would venture a guess to say that nearly every single household had a gun.

I'm intrigued by your thoughts about financial responsibility.  Are you thinking that you should be required to have some type of insurance with a weapon (like liability insurance for a vehicle) as well as yearly registration, inspection, and licensing requirements?  I actually kind of like that idea.  Unfortunately, gun control advocates usually are locked on a single track: don't let people have guns.

Finally (and I promise I'll shut up for awhile), just as you find the usual pro gun lobby arguments illogical, I find the usual gun control lobby argument illogical:  Removing guns will remove the violence.  Blaming the root problem of violence on the instrument used in the violence is convenient, but it doesn't address the problem.  If you want me to concede that banning guns would reduce gun deaths, then you have to concede that banning alcohol will reduce DUI deaths.  Trying to get rid of guns doesn't deal with the real issue.  By way of analogy, in the past few years the military has FINALLY shifted focus in the fight against sexual assault to bystander intervention, because they realized that you can't stop the sickness that causes men to sexually assault by telling them not to do it.  You can only hope that someone recognizes a bad situation and intervenes to stop it before it gets to that point.  In the same way, you can try to stop the violence by removing guns, but that won't fix the problem.  

Violence in our culture... well, that's a whole different email chain!

Guns

A recent tragedy with a KC Chiefs player shooting the mother of his 3-month old daughter and then turning the gun on himself has raised some interesting dialogue among family and friends.  Dialogue that I felt were worthy of a blog post.

Now I'm going to provide my opinion and not try to influence you to agree.  I'm simply going to share my opinion and ask my brothers to provide theirs.

Where do you stand on gun control?

Me, I'm for it ... kind of.  I believe in my first amendment right to bear arms and I don't think that should be taken from me.  However, I do think that steps need to be taken in an attempt to control the violence in this country.  Gun control, in my opinion is one of those steps.

I am in favor of limiting who can own automatic weapons, handguns and any other firearm that couldn't be reasonably used for sport of some type.  Shotguns and rifles are the typically used firearms for hunting.  And the only restriction I would place on owning these types of firearms is having to register them, and having a reasonable "cooling off period" before you could pick up a gun of this type that you purchased.  Seven days seems reasonable.

Which means I'm in favor of more severely limiting the ability to purchase, own and carry weapons that are most typically used for violence.  I know shotguns and rifles are sometimes used.  But more often than not it is handguns - and automatic weapons when mass killings occur.

I haven't worked out all the details on my proposed regulations but this is my general philosophy and stance.

So what's your view?  Hit us back in the comments ...

All I Want For Christmas Is ...

FOR MY FAMILY TO BE FINANCIALLY SECURE!

Ok, I've been unemployed longer than I ever would have imagined.  I'm the primary bread winner.  With that comes pro's and con's.  When you are the primary bread winner and your unemployed the con's get really big!

As a general rule of thumb (check out snopes.com for a reality check on this statistic) a person is generally unemployed one month for every $10k in salary.  That better not be the case!  Oh, and I'm better than most so that won't be the case for me.  Doesn't everyone think that?

I've worked hard to find a job, but to date what I have to show for it is a couple of good leads and a long list of Almost's and TBNT's (thanks but no thanks).  It's a challenging roller coaster to ride.  I don't like roller coasters and this one isn't any different.

I've also worked to resurrect and grow a business of my own, HRO Partners.  Exciting right?  YES!  We work with some fabulous clients and people.  Have done some really great HR and people practice stuff.  But it isn't paying the bills.  Rather, it's just a nice supplement for my continued job search.

As a general rule of thumb (check out snopes.com for a reality check on this statistic) a start up business doesn't become financially solvent until it has been in business for eighteen to twenty-four months.  That better not be the case!  Oh, and my company is better than most so that won't be the case.  Doesn't everyone think that?

So hopefully I've made my point.  I'm clinging to statistics and believing I'm better than that.  I'm busy working to find the path that it right for me.  Many of my family members and close friends have provided their perspective as to what I should do.  I appreciate and value their opinions.  But their opinions aren't mine.  And mine (and my wife's) is the one that matters right?

I'm normally a very decisive person.  But this is a BIG DECISION and one with no obvious and apparent right answer for me.  I want to do what is best for my family.  I hope that what is best for my family is also best for me.

So ... I'm counting on Santa.  Here goes ...

Santa,

I've been a pretty good Spouse, Father, Brother, Cousin, Uncle, and Friend this year.  Not perfect, but pretty good.  So please bring my family a big bag of financial security for Christmas.  I don't care what form that financial security takes.  A great job, a great business, or Powerball winner - I'm good with any of those choices!

Love,

Eddie