PA Bill Number: HB829
Title: In preliminary provisions, further providing for definitions;
Description: An Act amending the act of April 12, 1951 (P.L.90, No.21), known as the Liquor Code, in preliminary provisions, further providing for definitions;
Last Action: Signed in House
Last Action Date: Jul 3, 2024
Gun violence and magic wands :: 11/21/2018
Will there ever be a solution to the firearms violence that has swept our country in recent years? Thousands of scholars, police, legislators and ordinary citizens have been working on ideas to reduce gun violence. But I don’t hear of many persons betting their grocery money on when the shootings will stop or even diminish.
But we can always hope, can’t we? In lieu of real-life steps that might or might not make a problem better, there’s always MWA – the Magic Wand Approach.
That’s my nickname for the dream world we can take refuge in while we’re waiting for God, Congress, science, psychiatry or other genius-filled sources to come up with ideas that might stop or slow the gun-related bloodbath we wake up to each day.
In no special order, here are a few Magic Wand solutions for our gun problem. You will have heard of some of them earlier, I’m sure.
1. Make 90 percent of all firearms magically disappear into thin air. Pffft!! The remaining 10 percent would be left in the hands of police, security guards and other persons whose responsibilities demand the carrying of a weapon.
2. Rewrite the Second Amendment of our Constitution to end the squabble about what the nation’s founders actually had in mind when they wrote it about 229 years ago. The amendment refers to the importance of a “well-regulated militia.” To many Americans that suggests trained, disciplined warriors such as the many National Guard units throughout our land. But to other citizens the amendment opens the door for placing millions of firearms in the hands of pretty much anyone who feels like owning one.
3. Let’s re-hire the people who made our longstanding war against illicit drugs so successful, and put them to work on the gun problem. That should fix things in a hurry.
4. Prohibit the National Rifle Association and similar entities from contributing cash or other emoluments to any member of Congress, for any reason whatsoever. That’s the most unlikely magic wand I can think of. The gun lobby is the heart and soul of our firearms culture, and without the lobby’s greasing the palms of our elected officials, the power of the gun makers and gun lovers would be sharply reduced.
5. Buy back the guns. Pay gun-owners to turn their weapons over to police or other established authorities, who would then destroy the weapons. This idea has met with some success in local trials, but its use on a nationwide scale is unlikely, for an obvious reason: where is the buy-back money going to come from?
6. With the help of a miracle, let’s convert our American culture into one closely resembling that of Switzerland. In that land, like our own, thousands of households contain at least one gun.
Many of them were issued to males aged 18-34 as they enter mandatory military service. When they are discharged, they are free to buy and keep their weapons. Citizens must have permits to own their guns. Swiss law forbids gun ownership for convicts or persons addicted to alcohol or drugs, as well as anyone who “expresses a violent or dangerous attitude.”
The Swiss love their guns, gun clubs and shooting competitions. But for various reasons their homicide shootings are at rock bottom levels.
7. Can we identify and counsel potential shooters? Let’s pretend that one day most or all firearms are removed from the hands of disturbed persons who might suddenly do harm to innocent victims. Would that stop the random shootings that we face today? Maybe. But that still leaves motor vehicles, pipe bombs, knives, poisons, baseball bats and dozens of other methods of doing harm to our fellow humans.
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Let’s go back to Magic Wand No. 5 (above). As I write this column on Nov. 13 it is announced that Amazon plans to spend billions of dollars opening two new distribution centers. Suddenly this idea comes to mind: Amazon probably has enough spare cash to (A) buy all the firearms in America and convert them into plowshares, kitchenware and other harmless objects, and (B) buy the National Rifle Association and put it out of business forever.
Is this crazy? Am I dreaming? Of course I am. But it’s a harmless escape from the nut-house atmosphere Americans live in each day as we forge onward in our march to make our nation great again.
https://www.tbnweekly.com/opinion/columnists/article_b7271c4e-ecf3-11e8-b855-87e0ce11a85e.html
