Sorry I had to do the spoiler thing in the headline, but it puts the lead to Iowa State volleyball player Madison Ward’s editorial – New Iowa firearm laws miss the mark – into its proper perspective. Here’s the wind-up: “I very much wish I could see the world as I did when I was a child or that world was the reality. When people were just people, not threats, and the only weapons I knew of were the Nerf kind that would irritate, not harm. Although leaving the mindset of a perfectly peaceful world was a gradual one, it was still rather mind boggling to think that a human could have it out for another. But none the less, with each year it becomes steadily more apparent that there is more danger in the world than I had really known. The one light of hope, I had previously thought, was the government and its obligation to protect the public, but even now, that is starting to fade.” The thing of it is is . . .
This could just as easily be the start of a pro-gun piece. You know; when I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. I wanted all the guns to go away. When I became a woman, I put the ways of childhood behind me, picked-out a handgun and get on with the business of protecting myself and my family. But no. But first: the aforementioned admission of ignorance.
I have never owned a gun or shot a gun nor do I have a desire to do so. That was just the way I was brought up and has resulted in my lack of support for firearms with two exceptions. Number one would be a gun specifically for the sport of hunting, which I am not a fan of either, but to each his own, and number two would be for protection in the home. That being said, I should address the fact that guns cannot be proven to be purchased for those two specific reasons. People can totally lie about their motivation for buying the gun at all, which brings me to my current state of dissatisfaction with our government. All of the Republicans and a good chunk of Democrats in the Iowa House have moved to make ridiculously idiotic changes to the gun laws here in Iowa.
As Karen Carpenter sang, calling occupants of interplanetary craft. What human would argue that people with a legitimate need for a firearm should be denied their gun rights because other people lie about their need for a gun? The concept is alien to anyone capable of rational thought.
Ward’s against removing Iowa’s 72-hour “cooling off” period for firearms purchases – because Everytown for Civilian Disarmament says it prevents suicides (no mention of delaying life-saving self-defense). And she wants to name and shame Hawkeye State gun owners.
The other changes include making the list of who owns a firearm private — it is currently public information — and a person under 14 years of age could shoot a gun with adult supervision. I truly believe that the list of firearm owners should remain public strictly for safety reasons. If, for example, you were dealing with regular unwanted attention from someone you would have the ability to see if they owned a gun and know if they were of that kind of threat toward you so you could take appropriate action and seek help from authorities. Owning a gun should not be a secret. After all, if you want to own a gun and you are going about it the proper way, why should you want to hide it? That to me is a clear sign of something being askew.
So Ward doesn’t own a gun, hasn’t shot a gun, and has no understanding of history. Or, generally, the tendency of governments to impose tyranny on its citizens (hence the Second Amendment). Specifically, oh, I dunno, the post-Katrina gun grab? Mexico? The Holocaust?
We live in a violent world, one where we pretty much need to watch our backs at all times as sad as that is to say. And although we live in Iowa, a state with a relatively low crime rate, that does not mean we should be playing fast and loose with weapons. Not now, not ever.
We live in a violent world, one where we pretty much need to watch our backs at all times as sad as that is to say. And although people living in Iowa live in a state with a relatively low crime rate, that does not mean the government should infringe upon citizens’ natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. Not now, not ever. There. Fixed it for you. Sooner or later, you’ll understand.