27 March 2018

Why?






"It's not cars that kill people, it's the people who drive them."

True enough, but we nevertheless have laws that are designed to reduce the likelihood of drivers killing others and themselves. So we have legislative requirements for manufacturers to equip their products with seatbelts, airbags, headlights, brake lights, mirrors, and dozens of other devices to make vehicles safer.

And then we require the drivers of these now-safer vehicles to demonstrate proficiency in operating them. They need to pass a test to get a license, and then we punitively forbid them to drive under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or fail to click their seatbelt, or change lanes without signaling, or exceed speed limits, and more.

Do some complain we are infringing upon their freedom by these rules?  Yes, they do, but we know better than to pay attention to those people.

And if the manufacturer or owner or operator of a vehicle infringes on any one of these hundreds of requirements, they are held accountable not only to the government that imposes fines or more severe criminal penalties, but by personal injury lawsuits as well. It was private litigants who eventually got us seatbelts, ignition systems that did not quit, tires that did not fail, gas tanks that did not explode on impact, and more.

'It's not guns that kill people, it's the people who shoot them."

Also true. But where are the same kinds of rules we have for cars in an effort to reduce the slaughter? Why no rules re trigger locks, gun safes, licensing and training requirements for owners? We don't allow drunks to drive, why do we allow them legally to carry loaded weapons? We don't allow upstanding citizens to market cars without brakes and horns, why do we allow them to sell deadly weapons to criminals at gun shows?

This is a national calamity. It is not the Russians or the Iranians who are killing us. As Pogo said, "We have found the enemy. It is us."

We have no legal internal wars. You don't need a military-style AR15 semiautomatic assault rifle to protect against home invasion--it is not that kind of weapon. A pharmaceutical company cannot make the false claim that aspirin cures cancer without incurring substantial civil liability. Why do we allow a gun manufacturer to say an AR15 is necessary for home protection without the same consequence? Why can a tool manufacturer be civilly liable for damages if it sells a table saw without a blade guard, but a gun manufacturer can be immune from liability if it sells a gun without a trigger lock? Why do I need liability insurance to own a car and yet I can own a far more dangerous semiautomatic military style rifle, with a 30-bullet magazine, without it? Why do a majority of our legislative leaders repeat the nonsense that any of these regulations would violate the Second Amendment when any sentient reader of the Amendment and its interpretation by the current Supreme Court knows that is false?

Why did it take the protests of teenage kids to escalate our attention to the real answers to these questions?