PA Bill Number: SB99
Title: In county boards of elections, further providing for expenses of county boards and of primaries and elections to be paid by county, expenses of ...
Description: In county boards of elections, further providing for expenses of county boards and of primaries and elections to be paid by county, expenses of ... ...
Last Action: Re-referred to APPROPRIATIONS
Last Action Date: May 8, 2024
Ken Carr: Banning guns would not eliminate guns, evil :: 11/26/2014
As a conservative libertarian liberal retired law enforcement officer, I feel the need to address numerous points in Mr. Ensley’s editorial.
First, the notion that “Every legal opinion for 200 years denied individual gun ownership was a right...” is just factually incorrect. If that were so, the case noted would have never been taken up by the Supreme Court. It took it up because of conflicting or ambiguous court rulings from around the country that preceded it. The Supreme Court had never ruled on the specific question of whether the second amendment affirmed an individual right to “...keep and bear arms.”
Further, Mr. Ensley is willing to take the chance that only criminals will have guns after a ban. He need only look across our southern border to see that outcome in real-time. Additionally, “ ... if we make it illegal to own a handgun, eventually there will be no handguns.” I presume he would make the same argument about so called “assault weapons.” This is a wholly absurd notion. Since he would allow law enforcement and military to still have such firearms after a ban, they would still exist. A black market of epic proportions would be created to fill the void. Again, look across the southern border. Thefts from military and law enforcement stockpiles. Attacks on military and law enforcement personnel. Yeah, bans on things have really gone a long way to removing those things from society — alcohol, illegal drugs, bank robberies, sexual assaults, texting while driving. I’m glad those things no longer exist in our society.
Mr. Ensley would graciously allow hunters to keep rifles and shotguns since “ ...those weapons are ineffective tools in a mass shooting.” Austin’s University of Texas sniper used two hunting rifles in his killing spree: bolt action and pump action hunting rifles. The Washington, D.C., Navy Yard shooting began with a pump action shotgun, continuing with a handgun taken from a downed security guard. The D.C. area was practically paralyzed for days when the “DC Snipers” terrorized the area. Yes, they used a so-called “assault rifle,” but they fired one shot at each shooting, something that could have been accomplished with my grandfather’s bolt action, 3-shot deer rifle. A ban on handguns and so-called “assault weapons” would not make mass shootings less likely.
Mr. Ensley’s characterization of gun owners as “freaks” serves no purpose other than to cause us to dismiss him entirely. His condescension and arrogance is well known but his unveiled threat that “We’re coming for your guns. And someday, we’ll take them” is childish. And, since he would repeal the second amendment, he might as well go after the fourth and fifth as well, since any firearm confiscation scheme would certainly violate both of those. But that’s OK, I guess, as long as he’s still got his first amendment to cover him. And he can write about the “War on Guns” in the future. And how it isn’t going as well as expected.
A firearm, any kind of firearm, is a tool. Nothing more. Nothing less. It can be used for good. It can be used for evil. Individuals make the decision which way that goes. Until the human animal is rid of whatever it is in our genetic makeup that causes us to do evil things, we will always find a tool to help accomplish that.
Ken Carr of Tallahassee is a retired law enforcement officer.
