My response to liberals like Ms. Beam.
Posted on 02/18/2009 2:00:36 AM PST by marktwain
As far as dichotomies go, my brother-in-law and I pretty much fit the bill.
There is no one in my life more different than me than him.
He's a former Marine, an avid hunter and sport shooter, a guy who does honest work with his hands and doesn't talk more than he has to.
And if I hadn't married his brother and he were asked to describe me, he would probably use a term like "bleeding-heart liberal" or "hippie." I wouldn't go that far, but you know, it's all relative.
Still, when I saw him recently, we found common ground on a topic I never expected: Gun control.
Like some of the recent writers to the Mailbag, he's nervous as heck that President Obama and all those Democrats in Congress are going to "take his guns away."
Around my mother-in-law's kitchen table, he launched into a list of exactly the kinds of firearms and magazines and ammo that he uses, and why he feels they're threatened by certain legislators.
I couldn't recite the list if I tried, but it was important to him, so I listened. My brother-in-law is an extremely responsible gun owner. He treats his personal firearms with the same respect and safety precautions that he did his Marine-issued ones.
And he doesn't want to be treated like a criminal.
"It's just…" he said, pausing. "It's just that there's nothing I love more in life than shooting. And they want to take away the thing that matters most to me."
Though I've only once been to a shooting range, and I'll never hunt and never own a gun, when he put it that way, I could understand it.
But here's where it got interesting: He didn't argue that his individual right to bear arms is more important than gun victims' rights to safety — end of discussion. Instead he said he understands where people like Rep. Bobby Rush, who proposed a broad-sweeping gun control bill in Congress last month, are coming from.
Rush represents the South Side of Chicago, and named the bill after Blair Holt, a Chicago honor student who heroically shielded a friend during gang shooting on a public bus in 2007 and died in the attack.
Blair Holt's father, a Chicago police officer, has dedicated himself to curbing gun violence against minors in Chicago — where 33 other students were killed in the same year as his son.
That's a world away from my camo-clad brother-in-law, but he recognized the deep social currents underlying gun debate in this country.
It's not just taking guns out of the hands of criminals, he acknowledged, because by the time they're criminals, it's probably too late.
It's more about poverty, inadequate education, and a lack of the sort of responsible parenting he and my husband received.
Something needs to be done, he said, it just runs deeper than guns alone — and he doesn't want to be punished by a remedy that only scratches the surface.
That's where we parted ways, argumentatively speaking.
If enacted, the Blair Holt gun control bill would require, among other things, that all handgun owners obtain a license for ownership and that all firearm sales go through a licensed dealer.
I doubt the bill in its current form would ever pass, given that nearly half of all American households have guns, and it would be a bureaucratic and much-protested mess. But I do think requiring a gun owner to comply with similar laws as, say, a car owner, is not such a bad idea.
My brother-in-law worries that any step toward tracking guns is a step toward taking them away.
Still, I'm hoping that if gun control change does come with new leadership that it can encompass the sort of compromise we made, while setting our differences aside.
Christina Beam is a former education reporter for the News Republic. She can be reached at christina@
christinabeam.com
I put her in the same category as I would any other enemy of the US Constitution. You cannot ‘compromise’ something that is given as a RIGHT in the Constitution. She is as dangerous, or moreso, than the most ardent gun grabbers. This lady will trade YOUR freedom for a little bit of false Obama security. In the end, both of us will be enslaved.
Yeah. It’s okay for guys in camo who live out in the woods and hunt to have certain firearms for sport hunting - but we gotta keep ‘em out of the cities, especially places like the South Side of Chicago which is just full of, you know, ignorant, unEDucated violence prone minorities who do not have the pedigree and upbringing that little miss Christeeeena has.
Well, ok by me then. Just list which other rights she would support having a license for and which must go through a licensed rights broker.
‘You cannot ‘compromise’ something that is given as a RIGHT in the Constitution.”
Minor nit on your post. The Constitution doesn’t GIVE us those rights. It prohibits the govt from infringing on those pre-existing rights.
My response to liberals like Ms. Beam.
Its not even given as a right by the constitution.
Its a God given right PROTECTED by the constitution
Hunters were allowed to have smooth bores with type
and quantity of ammunition controlled.
Rifles and hand guns were only for the police, military
and thugs.
Sorry Christina Beam, you can stand in the middle. I will be shooting that direction from my side.
The common ground occurs when he agrees with her on one point.
She can’t quite bring herself to agree with him on other points.
Typical liberal - compromise is when you accept their position.
one wonders how many of these 33 students who were kiled by bad guys were targeted because they were students, and forbidden to carry guns on campus, and would be alive today had they been able to defend themselves.
blamign poverty is disengenuous because poverty is no reason or excuse to shoot someone.The real problem is ignorance. Teach children about guns, rather than Heather’s two daddies, and maybe you’ll see something.
So according to the little reporter girl if you don't work with your hands what you do isn't honest? I see the hard core socialist distrust for anyonw who works with their brains surfacing here
But I do think requiring a gun owner to comply with similar laws as, say, a car owner, is not such a bad idea.
Every useful idiot who supported tyranny and worships the power of the state feels the same way. Well here is a compromise. End all restrictions on type of firearm, quantity of firearm, and allow concealed carry without a "license" from the state. Then I might consider what the other side wants maybe. I might consider a limit on the number of RPG or 81mm rounds I can store in my house to 30 or so.
You are correct. Every “compromise” on gun control has always been about us giving up more of our rights. A compromise should always include us getting something for giving something.
Her six feet under it...
LLS
It's not just taking guns out of the hands of criminals, he acknowledged, because by the time they're criminals, it's probably too late.
It's more about poverty, inadequate education, and a lack of the sort of responsible parenting he and my husband received.
Something needs to be done, he said, it just runs deeper than guns alone — and he doesn't want to be punished by a remedy that only scratches the surface.
Naive take on the agenda behind H.R. 45. IF Christina's brother-in-law "agreed" with her on the above, he was probably just being polite to his brother's lame-brained wife.
A little research would probably find a significant majority of these "students" to be thugs, perhaps carrying an illegal gun themselves, who were killed by competing thugs in the course of their thug activities.
The emotive word "students" is used precisely because it implies they were all innocent children, students killed by guns rampaging out of control.
Christina beam is a typical liberal.SO TRUE,just a tool.
With the LibTards, it’s never been about rights or freedoms, it’s always about control, pure and simple.
The only compromise she makes here is that she doesn’t openly despise and condemn him for having a contrary opinion.
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