PUBLIC FORUM: Guns do nothing to influence how they are used

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January 3, 2013

PUBLIC FORUM: Guns do nothing to influence how they are used

Anonymous Pharos-Tribune Thu Jan 03, 2013, 05:59 AM EST

— We were supposed to be a nation in mourning; instead we are a nation quarreling. Ever since Sandy Hook tragedy, anti-constitutionalists have raced to microphone and camera in order to accelerate their process of dismantling the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Ever since that tragic day, calls have been issued to put gun control debates back into the forefront of the public discourse. So let us reason together.

Whether acquired for hunting, target sports, protection, or a collection, a gun sits in a closet, in a drawer, under a bed, in a safe, or wherever placed. It does nothing to influence a person about how it will be used. It is passive yet this is the object that becomes the target of calls for legislative control every time there is an issue that anti-constiutionalists can manipulate into emotionally driven reactionary responses. So let us consider instead some things that could be targets of legislative control that that are more rationally driven. While the gun is a passive object in the sequence of events that leads to a criminal act. Several other influences are overtly actively driving forces. Virtually every form of entertainment – television programs, movies, music, video games – contain increasingly violent themes. The same sector of our culture who will be carrying banners for gun control create plots, lyrics, and graphics that invade us with vulgarity, grotesque imagery, and excessive violence. They call upon our culture to lay aside fear, hatred, and vengeful attitudes and to replace them with love, peace, and goodwill. Yet they produce products that impress upon us anything but love, peace, and goodwill. They mock and devalue those who express compassion toward others in response to the grace and love of Jesus Christ. They consistently portray good as evil and evil as good. And when these influences are pounded firmly into us to the point where someone snaps, then let us by all means, blame the gun. From the perspective of logic and rationalism, we begin to comprehend what might need to be the target of legislative controls.

Charles A. Layne

Bunker Hill

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PUBLIC FORUM: Guns do nothing to influence how they are used

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