Domestic Terrorism
If the Bushies really wanted to deal with terrorism, they would push legislation that would establish a national program of ballistic fingerprinting. Under such a plan, every gun would be test-fired before it was sold, the lans and grooves on the bullet filed in a national data bank. This would create a unique identification for each firearm. If this had been done years ago, the guy killing people in the Washington area might have been identified after the first shot.
However, the first response of the White House, underscoring the venality of these morally-bankrupt deviants, was the tired mantra that we don't need new laws, just to enforce the ones already on the books. A few hours later, perhaps jolted by a re-reading of the political tea leaves, they announced "We have asked the ATF to have their experts look into and explore the issues involved to determine if this would be an effective crime-fighting tool."
Their knee-jerk response, mindless but the rule, is the common rant that ballistic identification is just another step on the road to confiscation. They are so tightly wrapped in their interpretation of the Second Amendment that their eyes cross. And this "thinking" is rife throughout Washington. The Almighty Ashcroft, for all his bluster about hunting down evil-doers, won't make use of the information he already has, refusing to cross-check federal data on gun owners against that of immigrants. (With the AG, it's a whacko religious thing.)
On Capitol Hill, our misrepresentatives have for decades caved to the pressure of the NRA and other far-right nut clusters who, coincidentally, stuff their campaign pockets with bloody lucre at election time.
I believe in gun registration, as do most sane gun owners -- we register our cars, after all -- and I also believe a fair number of people shouldn't be allowed to get close to a firearm, e.g. crackpots and people who have demonstrated a propensity toward violence. Law enforcement people and district attorneys across the country agree; who, in their right mind, wouldn't?
Our nation was settled in many areas at many times, for better or worse, with guns. Today, we reasonably use guns for sport and protection. Living out in the wilds, a gun is protection against dangerous animals; some people apply the same concept to our cities. The fact is that American government is never going to take away our guns; there are too many people who would oppose it, at the ballot box and otherwise, including most of the police who would, theoretically, be charged with enforcement.
And when most rational people unstrap and think about it, they acknowledge that there's a whole lot we can do about snipers shooting up the suburbs before we ever have to worry about confiscation.
Ultimately, most people who don't have a practical use for guns will dispose of them or let them rust in the closet, when we don't feel a need for them. But in the meantime, we should be making every effort to disarm the dangerous folks. The depravity of the Bushies and those they represent to suggest that everything is all right, firearms-wise, when they could be making significant strides to protect the American people is a disgrace to human decency and intellect.
And that's SetonnoteS...I'm Tony Seton.
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