Recently I corresponded with members of our Congressional delegation. Since my wife and I live in Mississippi’s third district, our delegation includes the two Senators and Congressman Guest. I encouraged, beseeched really, all three to work to outlaw civilian ownership of assault-style rifles and large capacity magazines. Such weapons are almost always the tool of mass murders, the victims of whom are frequently school children. They also have been the machine of mass killings at concerts, in theaters, churches, work places and at parades. In fact, crowds are vulnerable anywhere they gather. Assault style rifles with large magazines are specifically designed to kill humans. They are weapons of war that have no legitimate civilian use. In fact, they have long been illegal for hunting any other animal species. My message to our Congressional delegation, take away the tool!
Senator Wicker’s office responded fairly quickly with a brief, courteous but noncommittally reply that he would keep my views in mind. Senator Hyde-Smith’s office did not respond. No matter. I’m pretty sure I can guess her position on banning assault weapons. Congressman Guest’s reply pledged his allegiance to the second amendment, as if it were holy writ it seemed. To his credit, he did provide some specific legislation he believes will stem the tide of mass shootings in schools but outlawing assault rifles is off his table.
To be sure, the sickness in our national soul motivating mass murderers is a syndrome of societal and individual pathologies that will doubtless need to be addressed by multifaceted approaches. The Congressman’s letter implied he would support measures to make schools harder targets. He didn’t mention protecting other places where crowds gather. All of the measures he proposed may in fact be part of the eventual set of solutions but will require additional government spending both locally and nationally. Banning assault weapons would be considerably cheaper while also limiting the death-dealing one individual could do. It’s the low hanging fruit.
It’s interesting the Congressman is willing to add to government spending for programs that will surely be needed to address the social sickness behind mass killings. Yet he seems to be in lock-step with Speaker McCarthy in demanding spending cuts in exchange for raising the federal debt ceiling. The Speaker has said his House majority will not agree to raising the debt ceiling unless spending cuts he specifies are included in the deal. The last time I wrote in this space I described the folly of defaulting.
Banning civilian ownership of assault weapons won’t stop the majority of gun killings most of which are one-on-one events in which a hand gun is the weapon. However, assault rifles are far more efficient killing machines than are hand guns which is why they are the tool of choice for mass murderers. Ban them, then we can begin to do the much harder work of dealing with the all too mundane, everyday killings.
When Madison scribbled the sentence that became the second amendment with the adoption of the Bill of Rights in 1791, firearms were single-shot, muzzle loaded weapons. They could not be used for mass murder. By the way, banning civilian ownership of assault rifles and large magazines would do no harm to the second amendment. As a devout lover of our republic and democracy, Madison would doubtless be grief-stricken by the cancer on society metastasized by his sentence. In fact, Madison’s last words were an answer to a niece’s question, “What’s the matter, Uncle James?” With his final breath he said, “Nothing more than a change of mind, my dear.”
It is abundantly clear many members of Congress aren’t going to change their minds about assault weapons. Until they do, the blood already on their hands will only continue to accumulate with each new blaze of muzzle flashes from assault rifles. They have blood on their hands because they have the power to do something about it yet they do nothing. They have that power, you and I don’t. But that’s not quite true, is it?
We voters have blood on our hands too. We keep electing candidates who refuse to change their minds about assault weapons. Our only recourse is to vote them out of office. If you believe private citizens should not be allowed to own assault weapons, be a single-issue voter. That issue is the real pro-life issue because it’s about all our lives.
Patrick Taylor lives in Ridgeland.
