No One is Taking Your Guns

It's 2016. President Obama has 376 days left in his Presidency. He recently issued a series of executive orders dealing with gun regulations and mental health treatment. Nowhere in those executive orders was there any discussion of "confiscation." In fact, President Obama has not made a move to confiscate anyone's guns. President Clinton, the last President accused of wanting to take your guns, also did not attempt to take your guns at any point. There have been countless Democratic Governors and Mayors around the country who also have not tried to take your guns. No one is going to even attempt to take your guns.

Can we please stop this stupid argument that somehow any gun regulation is a slippery slope towards gun confiscation? It's not. You're going to have your guns in 377 days, unless you commit a violent crime. Sure, we have rules on gun sales and usage, but we have rules on car sales and usage, and we don't call that "confiscation." This is a silly discussion. It's a ridiculous argument. This "Obama wants your guns" argument is either the work of stupid people, liars, or both. Anyone thinking gets that.

Answering the Critics of Obama on Guns

Yesterday, President Obama unveiled executive actions that are aimed at lowering gun violence in America. They are actions on regulating internet and "unregulated" gun sales, funding more mental health help, and forcing the reporting of lost and stolen guns during shipping, to name some. For most Americans, these are actions that make common sense. For others, the sky is falling, and we are on the road to the erosion of rights. Obviously both are not correct, and as is usually the case, this comes down to whether or not you've paid any attention to what he is doing here. A few points:

1. Yes, the President's actions expand background checks, and that is good. Let's be clear here, if you can't pass a background check on every gun sale, I don't want you to own a gun. This isn't very complicated. By forcing more internet gun dealers and other "unregulated" gun dealers to be licensed, the President is forcing them under laws on background checks. There's nothing illegal about regulating. In this case, regulating leads to a desired result. This is good.
2. There is no confiscation of guns from legal gun owners. None. In year number eight, after debating this to death, at no point has President Obama "come for your guns." That's not even in the realm of possibility, discussion, or reality. Much like Bill Clinton before him, the NRA has attacked this President and stoked fears of a "gun grab" coming, and much like President Clinton, it never happened. I'm not sure why the NRA says their members should "stand and fight," because there's no enemy coming to fight against.
3. We finally have real attention to mental health issues. Since the Newtown Massacre, we've heard Republicans float serious action on mental health as an alternative to gun control. They have yet to take any serious action on the matter. With this set of executive orders, President Obama has taken serious action to help keep the mentally ill away from guns, and in treatment. Hopefully Congress will now act too.
4. Yes, gun control is constitutional. At no point in it's history has the Second Amendment been absolute. At it's inception, it was applied to a "well-regulated militia," which was the public because we had no strong military or police force in our early days. As time went on, it was applied with limitations, much as all of the amendments are, including the first. Even today, with the most pro-gun Supreme Court Justice of all-time, Antonin Scalia, writing the last major Second Amendment legal opinion, he recognizes that the government can place restrictions on certain types of guns, and certain types of dangerous people.
5. I can't believe that all lost guns weren't reported already. Think about that for a second. A gun is a dangerous thing in the wrong hands. If your car goes missing, you report it. Hell, if anything goes missing, you report it. Why not a gun? This seems to me to be a common sense thing. I can't believe this is controversial at all.
6. Yes, the President cried, yes, it's real, and yes, that's fine. Human beings are allowed to be emotional, especially when talking about how an issue personally reaches them. President Obama has had to greet hundreds of family members who were victims of gun violence and console them. He's had to hear their stories, and look at the pictures of their loved ones. Yes, it bothers him. If it didn't, I'd be more worried.
7. The NRA's attacking response is incoherent drivel. According to the NRA, President Obama's executive actions are irrelevant. They won't stop anything, they say. If they are so inconsequential, why bother to sue? Who is the victim they are suing to represent? People who fail background checks? I'm not sure exactly who it is the NRA is claiming to represent, other than manufacturers that want no regulations at all.
8. Congress has had ample opportunity to act. Yes, the President is acting without the Congress, that's obvious to me. He's doing so because the Congress failed to do anything at all. The position of the Congress, or at least the Republicans within it, is that we have no issue with gun violence in this country. There is no other way to interpret their failure to pass anything.
9. Yes, the President has the legal authority to issue executive actions. This is pretty straight forward, yet still needs to be stated. The President is allowed to use executive orders to issue regulations. No, Congress does not have to fund them. Yes, Congress can vote to explicitly block them (though he'd have to sign the law). Yes, the next President can repeal his actions. Even so, the President is allowed to create law this way. Parts of these orders will need Congressional action, action that I doubt will happen with the deadbeat Congress we have. Even so, there's nothing illegal about a President instructing federal agencies on how to enact the law.
10. No, none of these actions or others would stop all gun violence. That's true as gospel. The pro-gun nuts tell us all the time how gun control measures wouldn't stop this shooting or that one. They're right. Background checks wouldn't stop all shootings, nor would bans on certain types of guns or ammo, or even more prosecutions, harsher prosecutions, and more cops. Nothing short of 100% confiscation would stop all shootings. No one's willing to pay the price of that, in dollars, freedom, manpower or energy. Confiscation isn't going to happen, so no action would stop all shootings. If an action stops one or two though, that's one or two lives that we save. That's well worth the action's price.

And with that, I think I've said my peace.

Some Basic Gun Facts for the Gun Nuts

Let's establish a number of things about guns-

1. The U.S. leads the world in mass shootings. We've had more than a mass shooting a day. They happen everywhere. Gun death in general is much more common here than anywhere else too. We're way ahead of the world in guns and gun deaths. The U.S. has the highest gun ownership rate in the world.
2. States with more gun control have fewer gun deaths. This includes all forms of gun death- homicide, suicide, accidental death, etc. It is absolutely true that homicide specific rates do not correlate directly to gun laws. That is moving the goal posts fairly far though, as accidents and suicides are still gun deaths.
3. The "good guy with a gun" myth does not hold up to scrutiny. For one, sometimes who the good guy is gets murky. It's more likely gun ownership will kill you than save you (both are actually rare, though). It just doesn't hold up to scrutiny. 
4. Mass shooters don't really "target" gun-free zones. Many of the "gun-free" zones cited by conservatives aren't even "gun-free." 
5. A gun in the home doesn't make you more safe. Women in domestic violence situations are at high risk. Over one accidental death a day happens, many involving small children (but we don't know exactly how many), from guns.

Gun statistics are difficult to gather, but they exist. It is true- guns and crime do not move together, based on gun control policy, generally (during the assault weapons ban period, crime went down, but that isn't clearly from the ban). It's also true that having more guns available has meant more gun deaths. Mass killers prefer to use guns too, at least here. If there were less guns, it stands to reason there would be less shootings. That does not mean less violent crime- nothing supports that. I'm not sure that is a good argument to not regulate gun traffic.