About the Minneapolis church tragedy, yet another mass shooting in a church. My heart goes out to that community, and to Americans everywhere living under the weight of this vile reality. This post was already written and scheduled before that event occurred.
As for those now trying to twist the story into a trans issue because of the shooter’s identity, all it really shows is the urgent need for better mental health care for trans individuals. To denigrate, stigmatize, or deny care to that community is not only cruel, it is criminal.
Mass shootings are overwhelmingly a male problem, rooted in guns, culture, & untreated trauma. A rare case involving a trans person doesn’t change that.
This isn't a trans issue. Don’t scapegoat a community...fix access to guns.
Former GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy on the Minneapolis shooting: "We're going to have a conversation of freedom versus protecting children. How many school shootings does it take before we're going to have a conversation about keeping firearms out of -- it's always a young white male"
But also, there needs to be better mental health care, for all Americans. Something painfully pointed out by the current president's problematic mental health status and that of many of his followers, supporters and yes-men types he has surrounded himself with which is NEVER good for ANY leader, especially one with an autocratic orientation.
This topic was already on my mind after a recent visit to a local gun store, where I noticed a case filled with suppressors.
I've been a gun owner since the 1960s. Helped teach hunter safety courses back then. I've been a armed bodyguard. I'm a military vet. I taught my kids about guns. They may own some now.
This could get attention...
Cars are not a right...but sanity is, logic is, and reason has to be.
I see common sense as necessary in any society. We need opposing sides, we need debate, and we need both sides of an argument pushed and tested. But to become extreme and remain there, against all reason and sanity, makes no sense by definition. And yet that is what the modern gun culture has spawned.
The fundamental goal of any society, and any government worthy of the name, is to protect its citizens and the nation as a whole. The point is not to force individuals to fend for themselves except in reasonable circumstances, but to relieve them of that constant burden.
We already accept this principle in many areas of life: public health, infrastructure, disaster response, education. Citizens should not have to shoulder every risk alone.
The idea that a “good” government is one that continually does less and less is irrational. A mature, functional government does not push responsibility back onto the people it serves. It handles the things no individual should have to face on their own.
Arming citizens and insisting they remain perpetually responsible, and fearful, for tasks that government can and should manage, such as basic public safety, is not strength. It is failure.
Worse, it edges toward autocracy: the idea that citizens must remain armed not because their government protects them, but to guard against the government itself. History shows how fragile that logic is. Authoritarian regimes may tolerate heavily armed citizens for a time, but only until power is consolidated. Once disarmament comes, resistance is impossible, and by then it is too late.
The irony is stark. Today, many who claim the need for private arsenals also support leaders and movements that openly seek authoritarian control. That contradiction exposes the flaw in the argument. Weapons in private hands are no guarantee of liberty when the very government those citizens empower is the one eroding it.
We have allowed ourselves to become twisted up, chasing single-issue purposes without considering the whole.
Cars and Guns
It seems obvious to me: if society demands training and a license to drive a car, why not apply the same standard to firearms?
Driving is not a constitutional right. It is a modern privilege, regulated because cars did not exist when the Constitution was written. As cars became part of American life, we decided they were too dangerous to leave unregulated. That is why you need driver’s ed, testing, licensing, registration, and insurance to operate one legally. We accept this because it keeps roads safer.
Now imagine the opposite. What if driving had been written into the Constitution as a right?
By the logic of today’s gun advocates, we would need no driver’s ed, no test, no license, no registration, no insurance. Anyone of any age could climb into a car, drive drunk, untrained, or reckless, and claim the Constitution protected their “right to operate a vehicle.”
That sounds absurd. And yet, that is exactly how guns are treated in America.
The Constitutional Twist
The Second Amendment begins with:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…”
For most of U.S. history, courts interpreted that as tying guns to militia service, not unlimited individual ownership. It was not until 2008’s District of Columbia v. Heller that the Supreme Court redefined it as an individual right. Even then, Justice Scalia admitted:
“Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited… it is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”
Even the most conservative reading recognizes regulation as part of the deal.
Cars vs. Guns in Practice
Cars: A modern privilege. Regulated with training, testing, licensing, insurance, and renewal.
Guns: A constitutional right. Some background check paperwork, but no universal training, no licensing, no required proof of safe use.
If America treated cars the way we treat guns, the roads would be a slaughterhouse.
Arguments from the Gun Lobby
Gun advocates often claim most “anti-gun” people are simply uninformed. That is too convenient. Many citizens may not know every detail of firearm law, but the larger problem is that our system allows easy access to powerful weapons with little or no training. That is what regulation could fix.
They also like to strip away whole categories of deaths to make the numbers look smaller. Suicides “don’t count,” gang killings “don’t count,” and soon the toll appears trivial. But suicides do count, because firearms make attempts far deadlier. Poverty and gangs do not excuse homicide, and those lives count too.
Another favorite point is that criminals get their guns “illegally,” so laws will not help. Yet those black-market guns come from legal markets first, through theft, straw buyers, or loopholes. Better regulation would choke that flow. Claims that “hundreds of thousands of crimes” are prevented each year are shaky at best, based on self-reported surveys rather than actual crime data. And the idea of a gun as an “insurance policy” ignores the evidence that keeping one in the home raises the risk of suicide, homicide, and accident more than it prevents crime.
In the end, these arguments are less about facts than framing. By redefining the numbers, narrowing the definitions, and dismissing regulation, they protect an absolutist view of the Second Amendment. If we can demand licensing, training, and accountability for cars, we can demand the same for firearms, because every life in those statistics matters.
Suppressors: The Surreal Example
Walking into a gun shop and seeing suppressors on display today brought this contradiction home. At first, the idea sounds noble: protecting hearing, reducing disturbance to people or animals. But the flip side is darker. A tool that makes killing in a public space less noticeable is dangerous, and that danger outweighs the benefit.
Yes, suppressors are federally regulated under the National Firearms Act. You need a background check, a $200 tax stamp, and months of waiting. But once approved, you can take one home with no training required.
A handful of carefully licensed individuals owning fully automatic weapons, assault rifles, or suppressors might not be a major concern. But the general population? That is another story.
A device designed to muffle gunfire, marketed in pop culture as an assassin’s tool, is treated more casually than a car muffler. Used responsibly, suppressors could make sense for hunters. But paired with military-style rifles in a country with no universal gun training, it becomes reckless.
That is not just reckless. It is surreal.
The Madness of American Exceptionalism
Other developed nations treat guns the way we treat cars, with training, licensing, and renewal. The result is far fewer shootings.
America clings to the idea that freedom means no responsibility. But freedom without responsibility is not freedom. It is chaos.
If cars, which kill over 40,000 Americans a year, require licensing and regulation, why can’t we demand the same for firearms, which kill tens of thousands more?
Closing Thought
The real question is not whether Americans can own guns. The real question is whether Americans can handle them responsibly.
If we accept rules and licensing for something as ordinary as driving, then we can, and must, do the same for firearms. Anything less is negligence written into law.
Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!
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