To our 3rd District candidates, my father used to pose the question: “When you find yourself in a hole, what is the first thing you do? Stop digging!” It seems to me that our national representatives are still digging when it comes to some form of responsible gun ownership. We have tried doing effectively nothing for almost 30 years and it is clearly not working. In fact, things are demonstrably getting worse. So, let’s try something different. My suggestion? Treat guns like automobiles. Register them, become properly trained and get a license. Then keep that training and license up to date.
Let’s test the “unrestricted ownership” theory with an experiment. For 10 years, implement registration and licensing and see if conditions improve. If they don’t, then I will be the first to stand up and say, “That didn’t work. Let’s try something else.” And to those that believe that registration and licensing will have no effect, I say: You may believe that, but you don’t know it.
In the end, however, when it comes to gun violence and mass shootings, our national representatives are down here with the rest of us in a deep hole furiously digging. To them, I say: “For the sake of our children and your constituency: Stop digging!”
