We Couldn't Even Do This

It's somewhat unbelievable that some of the gun control measures in the Senate last week were not passed. That the Senate was unable to pass measures that would have required background checks for people purchasing guns online and at guns shows is especially unnerving.

The Senate couldn't find the guts to pass a common sense law that something like EVERYONE in America supports. Someway, somehow, our politics have become so polluted and convoluted, that we can't do things that are a slap in the face to obvious.

The failure of the Senate to pass the bill is all the more ironic given that the bill itself is the very crux of the argument FOR guns. The pro-gun argument, I believe, goes something like this: Law abiding citizens should be allowed to own guns in order to protect themselves and other against criminals. It therefore follows of course, that steps to make sure criminals don't obtain guns are more or less aligned with this argument. It doesn't do anything to impede the rights of "law abiding" citizens to own guns by asking them to pass a background check. Anyone who maintains that only law abiding citizens should have guns and that the need for those guns is self-defense, would willingly submit to this argument and the background check that comes with it! The failure to see this line of thinking reflects either severe cognitive dissonance or something much worse.

I've made my opinions on the gun debate abundantly clear in earlier posts, so I won't launch into another tirade about how our gun laws and our gun culture are out of control, but I do want to lament the fact that if we can't even take simple steps that almost all Americans support, and that are in fact the centerpiece of the argument FOR guns, then we are truly a society in trouble. The failure to mandate background checks for online and gun show purchases is just the latest sign in an increasingly troubling trend of our collective failure to take even the most basic and obvious steps to fix the problems our nation faces.

Perhaps as usual, the news source with the best coverage of this is "The Onion," a remarkable publication whose humor is often harrowingly accurate.