Far too often, people go out of their way to show they have no business ever owning a gun.
by Shimbo
In case you needed any more proof that maybe, just maybe we have a problem with guns in America, please turn your attention to Exhibit 6,772:
George Byrd IV, a 31-year-old convicted felon, was accused shooting into a neighbor’s window, because it was the only way he knew how to unload the gun in his possession.
Initially, Byrd denied firing the gun, particularly because doing so was a violation stemming from being found guilty of felony burglary when he was 17. However, during his arraignment, he admitted to firing the gun because, he was “unfamiliar with guns and didn’t know how to unload ammunition.”
Not in any way surprisingly, a search warrant for Byrd’s home turned up a bunch of bullets, a .357 revolver, a 12-gauge double barrel shotgun and an M77 long rifle.
Needless to say, absolutely no one believed that load of horseshit, so Byrd is currently being held on $20,000 bond.
Only a fool would buy the line Byrd was trying to sell, but the point is clear: the law, in and of itself simply isn’t enough as it is to stop the stem of criminals having access to firearms. In practically every state, being a felon denies the privilege of owning firearms of any sort legally. However, due to the sheer number of guns readily available, it’s hard to keep those guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them.
Year in and year out, the NRA does a magnificent job of deflecting focus on those who are truly liable for the massive proliferation of guns in this country: Manufacturers.
When Australia said enough was finally enough, they didn’t do what gun nuts here in the U.S. fear will happen by banning guns, no they simply made guns harder to buy. The 1996 Australian reforms made gun laws stronger and uniform across the country. Semi-automatic rifles were prohibited (with narrow exceptions), and the world’s biggest gun buyback yielded nearly 700,000 guns removed from circulation and destroyed. More importantly, part of the deal included reducing the number of gun manufacturers, leaving one or two domestic manufacturers of firearms to exclusively supply guns to the military.
Did the increased gun control solve all of Australia’s gun problems? Absolutely not. In fact, there were incidents such as the Monash University shootings in 2002 and the Hectorville siege in 2011 that many saw as proof that gun control in Australia was an abject failure. But was it?
One thing that people fail to discuss when it comes to gun deaths is the specter of suicide. In Australia, firearm suicides fell from about 22 percent of all suicides in 1992 to 7 percent of all suicides in 2005. Immediately following the Buyback there was a fall in firearm suicides which was more than offset by a 10 percent increase in total suicides in 1997 and 1998. Regardless of your position on guns, this makes a difference.
The point here is that if the gun problem in America is ever going to be solved, it has to be tied to the reduction of available guns, which is admittedly not easy. There are more than 2.2 million guns currently in circulation in the U.S., considerably more than what existed in Australia even at its height.
The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution makes bearing arms a right. Taking away that right isn’t going to solve our ongoing gun problem, however, taking a look at truly reducing the availability of guns on the market through federal buyback programs with immediate destruction (not selling them overseas), in addition to increasing restrictions on gun manufacturers are a step in the right direction, one that could possibly limit idiot criminals like George Byrd IV from even having guns that he would lie about knowing how to use in the first place.
Hashim R. Hathaway (Uncle Shimbo) is the host of the Never Daunted Radio Network, and proud father to NeverDaunted.Net. You can reach him on Twitter @NeverDauntedNet