Enough is Enough is Enough – Time to Reinstitute the Assault Weapons Ban

FEBRUARY 15, 2018 BY BEN WITHERINGTON

I don’t know about you, but as a teacher, and after eighteen attacks on school children in less than two months this year, and after the AR-15 assault rifle has been used in some ten school attacks to kill many of our innocent children over the last few years, it is time to say to the gun dealers, to the NRA, and to Congress and to our President—- ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! At a minimum, the lapsed assault weapons ban needs to be reinstituted immediately. These are not hunting rifles, these are not like pistols used for personal protection, they are weapons made specifically for military purposes and should only be in the hands of law enforcement, and the military. Period.

No fair or reasonable interpretation of our ‘Bill of Rights’ could ever find a justification for allowing ordinary citizens to buy these sorts of weapons on the open market—- NONE! The right to a ‘well-ordered militia’ has nothing to do with this at all. Imagine our Founding Fathers saying ‘we think it’s a slippery slope to ban ordinary citizens from owning cannons!!’ Ridiculous.

It is time as well to give up on the mythological arguments like: 1) guns don’t kill people; and 2) the solution to violence in our society is more guns in more hands! Neither of these propositions can stand close scrutiny, especially in a society full of mentally ill and fearful and violent people who nevertheless can still get their hands on such weapons. Take a look at what happened in Australia when more strict gun laws went into effect. Gun violence went down dramatically, and stayed there. All of the usual arguments against better gun control laws are bogus. They are excuses, and I would urge the responsible gun owners and NRA members in our country to be the first to stand up for an assault weapons ban, and while we are at it, against the legal purchase of gun clips and gun stocks that allow multiple rounds to be fired continuously.

I am calling on my own Senators, Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell to stop their silence on this issue and do something about it. They should introduce legislation during this current session of Congress to deal with this issue. Enough is enough is enough.
It is one of the most telltale signs of the state of the soul of a society in regard to what it allows to happen to the most vulnerable members of that society— our children, the elderly, the infirm. I was taught a long time ago that my rights end where someone else’s life begins. And if one’s stand on guns is complicit in allowing the murder of our children, then something is terribly wrong, and we need to sacrifice a supposed right, for the sake of the life of others. After all, life is the most basic commodity in everything. Without human life, we cannot even talk about human rights. Protecting life is far more fundamental than protecting the rights of the living. Enough is enough.

Read more at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/bibleandculture/2018/02/15/enough-enough-enough-time-reinstitute-assault-weapons-ban/#F6P0zdFQ9T4FKQRw.99