Want a gun? Show us your militia membership ID

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” – Second Amendment, U.S. Constitution.

I’ve often said that any gun owner who wants to hide behind the Second Amendment to legitimize owing a military-style assault weapon should be required to show which “well-regulated militia” he or she belongs to. That’s not a joke. I’m serious. It’s what our founding fathers had in mind when they attached this amendment to our Constitution.

There’s a reason why the National Rifle Association leaves out the first part of the amendment when it displays the rule on the wall of its headquarters. They have perverted the intent of the Second Amendment to support their own political agenda, and twisted its meaning into what they want it to be. That can only be done by ignoring that whole pesky “regulated militia” thing.

One of the current crop of political memes notes that when the Second Amendment was adopted, guns could only fire one bullet at a time, and citizens were required to join militias to help kick the British out of the 13 colonies. Of course, things have changed drastically since then, so I suggest that the government today issue official membership ID cards to authorized militias, and that members be required to present these cards when they show up to buy an assault weapon and the large capacity magazines that go with them.

Now let me step back for a minute and qualify my position on gun control. After 241 years of virtually unrestricted gun rights, I’m not stupid or naïve enough to believe that we will ever totally eradicate gun violence in America. I’m afraid we’ve come too far for that to occur. I do, however, believe that we should immediately start taking steps in that direction to accomplish whatever measure of good can be achieved.

I endorse the following steps:

1. Ban assault weapons except for police and the military, which are currently the only “regulated militias” we have.

2. Enact a longer waiting period to buy a gun and more extensive background checks focusing on, among other things, mental health issues. (Incredibly, our current administration thinks that the mentally ill should be able to buy guns. That may be because their leader is crazy himself.)

3. Place severe restrictions on buying guns at gun shows or, if possible, ban guns shows altogether.

4. Protect the right of people to buy handguns for personal protection as well as hunting rifles, but do everything possible to investigate and educate the purchasers of these guns and make gun safety training a mandatory requirement.

5. Enforce tougher laws and enact stiffer penalties for any crime in which a gun is involved and for unlawful sale of guns.

And that’s just off the top of my head.

Listen:

I get a flu shot every year that’s effective against some types of flu but not all of them. Why bother? Because I just might catch a strain that it is effective against, and the shots don’t cause me any side effects, so there is no good reason not to do it.

Similarly, I can see no logical reason to oppose a ban on assault weapons but there is a logical reason to support it, because it might prevent one person from pulling off one mass shooting in the future. There is no logical reason to oppose expanded background checks for responsible gun owners, but there is a logical reason to support them because they might find something that keeps a whacko from getting guns.

To say that we don't need to do anything to address the gun issue is like saying we don't need flu shots because they don't work on all strains of influenza, and then sitting at home and suffering with a strain of flu that the shot could have prevented. In other words, the best argument against reasonable gun laws seems to be, “We can't save everybody, so why would we want to save anybody?” Tell that to the victims in Las Vegas, who probably would have preferred to be saved.

While it’s true that stricter gun laws may not stop gun violence, saving a few lives is better than saving no lives at all. If you want to walk from your house to the corner pub, you’ll have to take the first step and then the next. Otherwise, you’re just sitting at home thinking about going somewhere and wishing you were already there.

Here’s one last point:

Reacting to the shootings of a U.S. congressman and others at a baseball field in Virginia last June, House Speaker Paul Ryan took to the House floor to say that “an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us." I submit that the December 14, 2012, shooting murders of 20 innocent school children and their teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut was not just an attack on those little children, but an attack on all of our children. You could say the same thing about any of the mass shootings in America, but Sandy Hook seemed somehow different because it was little kids.

Another thing I say often is this: “If Sandy Hook didn’t make us want to do something about gun violence, then probably nothing ever will.” In the wake of Las Vegas, if you feel the need to offer thoughts and prayers about anything, I suggest you pray that my previous statement isn’t true.