Control Politicians, Not Guns

[Wehrwolfen]

Control Politicians, Not Guns​

By Cal Thomas
January 15, 2013



If laws were enough to deter criminal behavior prisons would be empty.

The latest effort to "control" guns in America is as likely to deter someone intent on breaking the law as outlawing lust would affect one's libido. What's in a heart can't be controlled by restricting what's in a hand.

Following the Newtown tragedy, President Obama vowed to seek the passage of an assault weapons ban and hastily assembled an administration-wide gun control task force, an effort that amounts to little more than a political act designed to impress what Rush Limbaugh calls "low-information voters." Government must be seen doing something to keep mad men from shooting children and moviegoers, even if that something will likely prove ineffective.

"Where there's a will, there's a way," the proverb goes, and someone who has the will to kill with a gun is going to find a way (and a gun) no matter how many laws are passed. Consider Chicago where numerous anti-gun laws appear to have done little to stop gun deaths.

President Obama put Vice President Joe Biden in charge of the task force. Biden calls his gun control effort a "moral issue." Does Biden suffer from selective morality? For him, same-sex marriage and abortion don't appear to be moral issues, as they are for his Catholic church, but gun control is.

{snip}

The Second Amendment was written to protect citizens from tyrannical government and to preserve our liberties. It's not primarily for the protection of hunters and target shooters, though they are included. Those politicians who wish to ignore the Constitution are the ones who need to be controlled, not law-abiding gun owners.

Read more:
www.townhall.com

 

[PaulS1950]

If people could be controlled then we would have a much bigger problem than we have now. If the politicians are a problem, and I believe there are part of the problem, then why have them? Do we elect politicians so that we have someone to blame when it goes wrong? If we do away with politicians we will have to take responsibility for our own actions. I am OK with that but I doubt most people in the country will be.
We would have to be informed, well grounded and put the country's needs above our own, again that would be fine by me but what about the rest of the people in the country.
We could institute an on-line voting network or use the current polling network and vote once a year just like we do now only instead of voting for representatives in Washington DC we would be voting on the passage of bills into law. The office of the president could be reduced to the catagory of an amassador to represent the will of the people to foreign diplomats with no powers to make decisions or effect the progress of laws. We might be smart to initiate a new "constitutional court" to review bills before they were sent to the vote just to make sure that they are within the bounds of the constitution. The court could be made up of one person for each of five states that use the constitution and writings from the founding fathers to decide on the constitutionality of each bill - they would not therefore have to be anything more than private citizens serving on the bench for a limited time. The pay for all public services could be based on the mean average wage of those they serve.