by Ken King

While the media seems only to be interested in who our next President will be we really ought to be paying attention to what Slick Willy is trying to do now.  Mainly he is trying to get the legislature to mandate absurd laws with regard to handguns.  It has failed in the past but with the recent death of the six-year old girl in Michigan he has renewed his efforts.  Using emotion to drive thought, he is once again seeking to make owning a handgun more difficult (or illegal) with reactionary new laws.

I say reactionary because the push comes when the media gets wind of one of these senseless killings caused by a weapon that falls into the hands of a criminal or a child and they elevate them to national importance.  If there is any area where the government (at all levels) needs to focus is in assuring that criminals that possess or use firearms are sent to prison for full terms and are not allowed to plea to a lesser crime or to receive probation.  Another area is when a gun owner allows a child to obtain a loaded firearm.  That owner needs to be responsible for any harm or damage caused by the gun. There is no need to further restrict my constitutionally secured right to keep and bear arms because someone else misused a gun.

I wonder if Clinton, or any of his staff, has read the current laws already on the books.  There are 21 pages of (8 1/2” X 11” type 10 font) Federal laws dealing with what is or is not a firearm crime.  This includes firearms obtained by youth and criminals.  Additionally, there are five pages dealing with the punishment one could receive for violating these laws.  Now he wants law-abiding citizens to have their rights further restricted thereby lessening their ability to protect themselves.

Clinton says that, "Every single day, there are 13 children who die from guns in this country."  Congress has found that some 6,000+ people use guns to counter an attack upon themselves or their property each and every day.  Considering that at best there are only approximately 150,000 to 200,000 law officers on duty at any given time to protect 270 million of us makes me wonder who these new restrictions would benefit, the criminals or the law-abiding citizen.

As Congress is tasked to create laws for the “general welfare” and not special interests, they shouldn’t even be looking at this issue.  There are a lot more important things for them to do than to create new gun laws that won’t do anything to curb incidents like this.  Maybe they could communicate with the governments at state level to have them start prosecuting on the Federal level and giving those that break the laws the punishment they earn