Gun control! It’s frightening! They’re coming for your guns! They’ll start with the ARs! It’s a slippery slope! They’ll take ’em all!
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
The Second Amendment has been debated and litigated ad nauseam. (I suggest reading the Wikipedia history.) However, I do not intend here to debate the amendment. I do, however, argue the amendment does have limits and it doesn’t say that guns cannot be regulated!
Gun regulation is not gun control. (The NRA will argue differently.) Regulation is a reasonable objective. In an ordered society, almost everything is regulated to some degree. Gun regulation is frightening only to the paranoid. It’s not coming for your guns! It’s not a slippery slope! It’s not taking them all, not even taking the ARs!
I am a retired cop, having served in two sheriff’s offices. I offer some reasoned elements of a reasonable gun regulated framework, a paradigm shift.
To begin, at the federal level, all guns should be grouped into; (1) sporting shotguns, (2) sporting rifles, (3) sporting handguns, and (4) assault rifles (AR’s). Assault rifles are not sporting. They are designed to kill people!
Then, capacity limits should be established for each group. Capacity limits are critical as I discuss below.
The groupings and capacity limits should be assigned by Congress to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to determine. (ATF duties and responsibilities are also described in detail at Wikipedia.)
I submit this would be no Second Amendment violation; only grouping and capacity limits. (NRA will, again, no doubt, disagree.)
Now, in light of the continuing attacks by shooters bent on human destruction, law enforcement has begun advocating and instructing the concept of Run, Hide, Attack (or similar terms) to those who may find themselves under attack. It means run if you can. Hide if you can’t run. If you can’t do either, and getting shot, is imminent, fight. Attack. But how does one attack a high-capacity AR?
One hopes the shooter has to change magazines (commonly called clips in the civilian world) and that may provide the chance to attack or run. That’s the importance of limited capacity. The more an attacker has to stop to change magazines the more chances to attack or run. Scary, I know. But attacks are happening almost every day, everywhere — at school, the mall, an event. It could happen to you!
Next, it is imperative that assault rifles (and the other groups) must be maintained in a semi-automatic condition. It should be illegal, a crime, to own or possess any gun in an automatic condition.
The assault rifle is a weapon of mass destruction. They really should only be in the hands of highly trained military and police. But they’re not. However, fortunately, 98 percent of assault rifle owners are responsible, law-abiding, solid citizens. Their rights should be protected.
But – and here’s the tough part – an assault rifle owner should be licensed by ATF to possess and control it. Current and new owners should be required to license that weapon. And when that owner elects to sell or give it to another qualified person, he or she must notify ATF and a comprehensive background check conducted. No, this is not a slippery slope. They’re not coming for your guns!
Federal legislation should push other parts of gun regulation, such as age of purchase and possession, to the states to decide, primarily because the states have differing environments and desires, and hunters.
No doubt state legislation is necessary, such as levels of school security and mental illness issues, again because of environment, desires and states rights,
Finally, no amount of federal and state legislation will totally stop the carnage, but reasonable regulation can reduce it. It will not violate the Second Amendment and it will give citizens and children under attack a chance to fight back and survive.
L. Dean Carr
L. Dean Carr, West Jordan, is a retired chief deputy in the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office and a former undersheriff in Summit County, having served 47 years in law enforcement. He has three sons serving at the chief and supervisory levels and together they have served at every level and in every assignment.