The Northeastern Junior College held a debate between philosophy and criminal justice majors over whether or not more gun control laws should be enacted. The “pro” side was for more legislation and the “con” side for no more legislation.

Let me do a run down of the article.

It opened with comments from the pro-legislation side. The opener, Venus Bukowski, went straight to the Sandy Hook shooting and showed images of one of the kids. Then said the lines of “no one is trying to make guns illegal”, and “both sides recognize we have a gun problem”.

Hold your horses, Venus. The emotional card is your go to? Not logic? And while you may not want to make guns illegal, there are many who do so it becomes a valid concern. The only gun problems I have right now are the lack of constitutional carry and not enough money to get a Scar 17s.

The goals of the pro-side was to have mandatory training before someone’s first firearm purchase, eliminate the magazine size ban, and that a law should hold provisions so that educational facilities can have properly trained faculty for protection. They also kept citing that according to Gun Violence Archive, there were 783 gun deaths this year due to accidents/negligence. (If you check out the site, the number is for total accidents, not deaths). Why lie like that? Another pro-side debater claimed that responsibility should be part of our right to own guns, and that current laws to deal with safety even though the constitution says “Well regulated militia”. His proposed “safety law” would be the mandatory training.

So they have some sense- they see the magazine bans are useless and that it is a good thing for educational facilities to have armed faculty. However, they shoot their argument in both feet by lying about a statistic and ignoring the Heller decision, which made it clear that citizens do not need to be in a militia to exorcise their right that the second amendment reflects upon).

The con-side of this said that more laws would infringe upon our rights, and there are many laws already in place. They denoted that more laws would call for too much money to enact/enforce and that gun safety should not originate from legislation. The opener also referred to Russia, Estonia, and four other countries were murder rates are higher than the rate in the USA. According the Brookings Institute and the NRA, anywhere from 3,000 to 16,000 gun control laws are in place. She also cited that in 2008, all firearm incidents hit the lowest it had been since 1993. “This matters because creating new gun laws did not lower gun violence,” she said. 

Using facts and logic? Perhaps the opposition here should have gone for that route.

Also note that later on the pro-side cited more than 4,000 gun related deaths this year. I checked it out, and the site lumps suicides in, of course.

The three judge panel ruled the con side had won the debate.

Now, I know the people in favor of more safety legislation believe they are doing what is best and do not want to revoke anyone’s right to own a firearm. I see it as being influenced heavily by emotions of fear and sadness. A little boy was shot to death by a psycho. No one likes or wants that to happen. But you cannot legislate away stupid. Besides, if all you want is for a few safety laws for mandatory training that say that “those that own guns previous to the safety law being enacted would not have to take the training and new purchasers only have to take the training once”, then why even refer to someone who lost his mind. Also, I assume they approve of a registration because how else would it be known if you are being grandfathered in.

And safety laws don’t exist??? One guy said that the only laws right now refer to manufacturing, buying and selling, and transportation. Perhaps he is ignorant of laws against brandishing, of gun free zone laws, of gun ban laws, and of all of the other restrictive laws in respect to firearms that come in the name of “public safety”. And a one-time training for just new owners isn’t even going to make a big enough difference to reduce accidental injuries to zero, which is a goal of theirs.

So, the gun supporters who are in favor of more legislation lost the debate, misspoke of death/accident statistics, used the emotion card immediately with images included, and want some more useless legislation. The good side is that they still supported teachers having guns and ridding their state of magazine bans.

The gun and true second amendment supporters said that more infringement is not good. They also said that instead of more laws, the current laws need to be better enforced. They were also already aware of the Heller decision and used it to rebuttal against the well regulated militia statement.

It is great to see pro-gun people having a debate about gun laws instead of seeing the normal anti-gun rhetoric. Because while some of the arguments brought up on the pro-side were flawed, they stood more ground on reasoning than saying guns are bad. I just don’t support more gun legislation unless it is freeing me of government placed burdens on my freedoms. A gun safety course like that is pretty useless. I support everyone going and getting training and firing their guns often for practice. But a one-time training course? I hardly learned anything at the hunter’s safety course from when I was about 12 years old. And it was a long time ago. Shooting the clay pigeons that day does not make me a well trained person with a shotgun. At this point, someone in favor of training might say that this means the courses should be more often then. But now we are back at “well regulated militia” and the Heller decision- and that is the end of that discussion.

Have a nice day, and I’ll leave you today with this thought,

It is up to me to continue my training with dedication, not legislation.