Gun Control is Window Dressing!

Weekly Opinion Editorial

GUN CONTROL IS WINDOW DRESSING!

by Steve Fair

On December 14th, twenty year old Adam Peter Lanza fatally shot twenty children and six adult staff members at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut.  Before he left home, Lanza shot and killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, at their Newtown home. After shooting the students and staff members, he committed suicide.    Lanza is reported to have suffered from Asperger syndrome, an autism disorder that is characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction.  No motive for the shooting has been disclosed by law enforcement. 

Immediately, the anti-gun/anti 2^nd amendment crowd begin to use the incident to promote gun control.  On Tuesday President Obama said he would support a bill to ban guns like those used in the Newtown school shootings(AR15).  White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama supported reinstating the assault weapon ban, which was first introduced in 1994 but was allowed to lapse in 2004 by the Bush administration. U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, (D-California) has indicated she will introduce in January a bill to curb the sale of automatic- and semi-automatic weapons. Feinstein was the author of the original 1994 bill.  By the way, the weapon used in the Newtown shooting was not on the original bill, so even it would have been in force, it would not have prevented this shooting.

This is an emotional issue and the immediate reaction of some people is that guns are the problem.  Let’s take a deep breath and look at this issue logically.  Three observations:

First, strict gun-control policies will always fail to deliver on their promise to make law-abiding citizens safer by denying them the means of self-defense.  This should come as no surprise, since gun control has always been about control, not guns.  Want an example that gun control doesn’t work?  Take President Obama’s hometown- Chicago.  It is illegal to own a gun in Chicago and yet the Windy City has one of the highest crime rates in the country.  Does anyone really think those signs in store windows  banning paying customers the right to carry their gun in the store prevent those stores from being robbed at gunpoint?  When you outlaw guns, only outlaws have guns. 

Second, the root problem that caused the school shooting was a spiritual one, not one of hardware.  We have thrown God out of school and out of our society.   Sin, wickedness, depravity is in the heart before it is in the hand.  For far too long, America has been treating the symptoms of sin and not the disease.  Christians must recognize the only hope our country has is the gospel of Jesus Christ.   Instead of teaching behaviour modification, preachers should be heralding biblical repentance and faith.   

Third, any gun control campaign is really a sneak attack on the U.S. Constitution.  Liberals love to paint the Constitution outdated and impractical.  If they can somehow make assault weapon gun owners out to be criminals and void the 2^nd amendment, then we become more dependent on the government for our safety.  The founding fathers knew that government by the people would require keeping the people armed.  The original intent of the 2^nd amendment is to protect us from our own government, not to just allow us to duck hunt. 

The liberals would have you believe by taking away our guns, they will protect us from ourselves, but in fact the most deadly school disaster was not a shooting, but a bombing.  It happened in Bath Township, Michigan in 1927 when a disgruntled school board member set off three bombs killing thirty eight elementary school kids, two teachers and four other adults.  Another fifty eight people were injured.  The perpetrator first killed his wife, and committed suicide with his last explosion.   He had hoarded dynamite, but there wasn’t calls for the regulation of dynamite.  People recognized it for what it was- an act of evil by a depraved man.

Ronald Reagan was right when he said, “We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.”

 
Banning a certain type of weapon or hardware will not stop violence in our society.  It will only erode our liberties and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.  The real solution to America’s violence and moral problems is the gospel of Jesus Christ, which can change the hearts of men.  Anything short of that is mere window dressing.