Another mass shooting, another set of bullshit

The Republican candidates for the presidential nomination send their thoughts and prayers to the victims and their loved ones.  The best ever response to that was this newspaper front page.

Prayers are not the answer.  Thoughts are not the answer.  Wishing is not going to work.  As my late father often said, "wish in one hand and pish in the other and see which one fills up first."  We need a complete solution if we hope to reverse and ultimately stop mass shootings.

For statistical purposes the FBI defines a mass shooting as one that involves four or more people being shot.  Now that puts the murder/suicide of a family of four where one parents kills the other three family members and then themselves on the same level as what happened at Sandy Hook, or this week in San Bernardino, or in that theater in Aurora, Colorado.  That may not much sense but then again does anything involving statistics make sense when we're talking about the death of human beings.

Like it or not, statistics tell us that the number of gun deaths in the U.S. has been on a decline since 2007.  In that year there were 4.2 gun homicides per 100,000 people in our nation.  By 2013 that number had fallen to 3.5 per 100,000.  Meanwhile the number of these "mass shootings" as defined by the FBI has been on a dramatic upswing.

Just about any gun can be used to engage in a mass shooting.  A six shot revolver can be used to kill six people without having to reload.  With speed-loaders, you can reload that revolver in mere seconds.  But that doesn't mean they are as "efficient" in terms of the ability to kill as an assault rifle.

Even if we limit the size of magazines for an assault rifle to ten rounds, there is still no useful purpose for that kind of weapon other than to engage in combat or to kill large quantities of people.  They aren't needed for hunting unless you're a really lousy shot.  That can be addressed by practice rather than replacing a hunting rifle with an assault rifle.  They aren't good for home defense unless your home is under attack by a squad of soldiers.

This is the weapon of a soldier.  It isn't the weapon of choice for home defense.

So, let's confiscate all of them in our nation.  Those in the hands of law enforcement agencies and the military remain where they are.  The rest get taken through eminent domain.  Any and all arguments that their present owners "need" them are nonsensical.  You can't stop a tyrannical government with a few hundred thousand assault rifles in the hands of an unorganized, unregulated militia.  Our U. S. military has almost the entire world outgunned.  If they were to be illegally unleashed on the U. S. civilian populace, they could not be stopped.  This isn't a Revolutionary War scenario.

You want a "well-regulated militia?"  Then let's borrow a concept from the Swiss.  All males who reach the appropriate age are subject to conscription.  But in a nation whose population is just over 8 million, they have 200,000 able bodied men who keep their issued military weapon in their homes.  A few years ago they stopped allowing them to keep sealed boxes of ammunition in those homes.  But they are armed.  Yet their murder rate is the 9th lowest on the planet.  Only Monaco, Lichtenstein, Singapore, Japan, Iceland, Kuwait, Bahrain and French Polynesia have lower rates.

There is no good argument for individuals who aren't part of law enforcement or the military to have assault weapons.  None.  If someone has one, please feel free to share it.

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U. S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced that in 30 days, all combat jobs in the U. S. military will be opened to women who can meet the required standards.  If a woman can make it through just over 61 weeks of intense training, she can join the Navy SEALs.

Finally, equality will be the standard.  Pass the tests, serve in ANY military specialty, any unit.  So now that we've finally achieved this great victory for equality, it's time to fix another inequity.  Time to change the laws under which all males must register with the Selective Service System when they turn 18.  That law needs to read all individuals must register on or before their 18th birthday.

There is no logical reason to exempt women from this requirement now that all military specialties are open to both men and women.  Equality works both ways.