By Karen Rubin
Why is it that a woman who is seeking an abortion is presumed to be an irrational, selfish, hysterical Jezebel incapable of making her own judgments or life decisions, but anyone looking to buy a gun is presumed to be “a law abiding good guy” with an inviolable right to possess a weapon of mass destruction?
Gun rights fanatics claim the Second Amendment gives them a right to bear arms unequivocally “infringed,” conveniently skipping over the qualifiers that bearing arms should be in the context of “well-regulated” (the only place in the Constitution that uses “well-regulated”) and “militia” (for defense of the nation in the absence of a standing army). They ignore the fact that the Founding Fathers, whose concept of “arms” was a single-ball musket, could not fathom the assault weapons capable of killing dozens in a seconds.
The Supreme Court has declared that a woman has a constitutional right to abortion but that hasn’t deterred states from imposing obstacles that all but ban a woman from exercising her constitutional right to autonomy.
So those gun violence prevention activists who have been constantly frustrated by this country’s willingness to accept a terrorist scourge that takes 33,000 lives a year and injures 100,000 more (more have been killed by guns since 1973, when Roe v. Wade giving women the right to abortion was decided, than in all the wars America has fought since 1776), and who have been forced to live as though they were in prison and allocate resources that should be spent on teachers, roads and research to more and more security in order to allow the freedom of others to wield guns and put everyone in fear for their lives, should use the same techniques as the those who would deny women their freedom:
• Require national background check – a real one that doesn’t limit to three days when the records are expunged and the seller automatically gets to buy a gun
• Require certificate of training, licensing, registration (as for voting) and re-licensing (like driver’s licenses) every five years; create a national registry
• Require a mental health examination before buying a gun and after any major life crisis, like losing a job.
• Require health insurance companies cover mental health counseling on par with medical conditions; increase access to mental health (since those who claim “guns don’t kill people, people do” and that the epidemic of gun violence that occurs at rates far in excess over every other industrialized country despite no difference in the rates of mental illness, is the fault of mental imbalance).
• Require every gun purchaser for each purchase to undergo counseling on the dangers and horrors of gun violence, requiring the gun purchaser to return multiple times over a 72-hour period to sit through videos and lectures on the likelihood a loved one will be shot in the home with their own gun
• Outlaw online and private purchases; all gun, ammunition and accessory purchases must be through licensed, regulated gun shops, which are required to report every sale meticulously and be required to buy back guns
• Tax the purchase of guns and ammunition for the money to establish a Victim’s Fund, and to repay municipalities for providing security to schools, houses of worship, shopping malls, concert venues; public meetings
• Require any gun purchaser to have insurance like a car, covering health care for victims and self, property damage
• Enact a Red Flag law enabling family members or law enforcement to petition a court to intervene and temporarily suspend someone’s access to guns if there’s evidence that person poses a serious threat to themselves or others. Bar anyone found to have committed domestic violence to possess a gun.
• Restore the ban on assault weapons, bump stocks, ban high-capacity ammo clips
• Require proper security of guns in the home; make parents or guardians liable for criminal prosecution, including negligent homicide, if a minor gets access and uses the gun to commit a crime
• Require all guns to be manufactured as Smart Guns, which cannot be operated by anyone but the registered purchaser, much as an i-phone.
• Impose restrictions on gun shops – licensing, inspection, reporting requirements, zoning, security – so that they are forced to close, or that buyers have to travel great distances.
• Make gun manufacturers and gun sellers liable for the misuse of the guns they sell and the marketing, as every other manufacturer and seller is; if a gun is sold for hunting or personal protection but used to commit mass murder, they should be held accountable.
Surely those who claim to want to protect the sanctity of life, as those who would overturn a woman’s reproductive rights claim they are, would advocate on behalf of this gun violence prevention agenda as strenuously as they advocate to strip women of their rights.
The common denominator to all of these gun tragedies is the ease with which perpetrators get rapid-fire guns and high-capacity ammo clips. Let’s abort guns.
Friday, June 7, is National Gun Violence Awareness Day and the start of Wear Orange Weekend, honoring the lives of Americans affected by gun violence and elevating the cries of every American demanding an end to this public health epidemic of gun violence.
On Wednesday, June 12, Reachout America is hosting Trenelle Gabay , whose husband, Carey Gabay, a lawyer for Governor Cuomo’s Empire State Development, was fatally shot attending a parade in Brooklyn. The luncheon, at 12:30 pm at Veatch House, Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 48 Shelter Rock Road, Manhasset, is free to paid members (you can join at the door, $45).
