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Americas gun problem has something in common with pornography: it may be hard to define, but Americans know it when they see it.

Its a complex topic many wish to solve with simple solutions. Assault weapon bans are currently popular. Who can blame anybody for wanting to rid the country of a soulless, inanimate object they hold responsible for so much death and grief?

The increase in mass shootings is why public opinion polls show a dramatic uptick in support for gun control measures. Yet there is no actual definition of a mass shooting (whenever a news item quotes statistics, ask what definition is in use), or of an assault weapon, for that matter.

READ MORE Andy Bloom: American tragedies how does this mess end?

Congress wrestled with that question in 1994 when it passed the ten-year Federal Assault Weapon Ban. The debate included charts, Venn diagrams, statistical analyses, personal anecdotes, authentic weapons, and toy copies.

Congress passed a ten-year ban on the manufacture, transfer, and possession of eighteen specific models of weapons and others with military-style features. Also prohibited in the assault weapon bans were high-capacity magazines that held more than ten bullets. The law included a grandfather clause for weapons already in the owners possession.

Analysis conducted after the ban expired in 2004 suggests it didnt have much impact. At best, the data is inconclusive.

A study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Texas A&M University in 2016 concluded that the 1994 assault weapons ban did not affect mass shootings. The study looked at all mass shootings in the United States between 1982 and 2012 and found that the number of mass shootings did not change significantly during the years that the ban was in effect. Other projects found similar results.

Proponents say mass shootings were lower during the ban, but they cant control other societal variables, which they usually say is the explanation for crime. Further, the sample size is too small to be significant. Some suggest the ban would be more effective if implemented longer.

Prohibition lasted thirteen years in the U.S. and wasnt becoming more effective by the time it ended because bans dont work.

The Controlled Substances Act was passed in 1970. The following year, Richard Nixon declared a War on Drugs. The University of Pennsylvania estimates that by 2021 (the 50th anniversary of Nixons declaration), the U.S. had spent $1 trillion fighting that war. Hows that going?

What bans have worked? Prostitution, gambling, speeding? Why would anybody think assault weapon bans would be different?

That doesnt mean we shouldnt have laws. First, we have laws. Murder is pretty much illegal. Murderers can receive the death penalty from the federal government and in 27 states. However, governors have imposed moratoriums in three, including Pennsylvania (in February, Governor Josh Shapiro announced he would continue Tom Wolfs policy and sign reprieves). Second, we already have gun laws. Third, this involves a constitutional right.

Friends remind me that other countries ban firearms altogether and dont have gun crimes. These countries also dont have our Second Amendment which, at the same time, these friends tell me they dont want to infringe.

The place to start isnt by shredding the Bill of Rights. Not even if it makes some people feel better.

The Bill of Rights limits the federal governments power: It cant limit free speech, establish a state religion, stop assemblies, quarter troops in private residences, etc. The Second Amendment prevents the government from infringing on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. It was so important that the framers put it directly after freedom of speech, religion, and assembly. The Supreme Court has ruled that it is an individual right unconnected to militia service.

The Second Amendment isnt the only attribute that separates the United States from every other country on earth the years I spent working internationally taught me how unique we are.

As more heinous crimes committed by evil people happen, pressure will mount on Congress to take action any action. Theres a good chance Congress will pass a law banning assault weapons, however it defines it now.

Handguns are used to kill far more Americans than assault weapons. Further, it isnt difficult to convert many types of firearms into semi-automatic weapons.

Once the Second Amendment is malleable enough to ban one type of firearm, and gun deaths remain high, its not a reach to imagine the calls to ban more guns or Congress agreeing.

Gun control advocates like to use words like common sense. We should use common sense before resorting to yet another ineffective ban. Perhaps people against the ban can find room to compromise, such as:

Then maybe people inclined to ban weapons can agree on a couple of other common sense measures to try first, such as:

Assault weapon bans will have a short-term placebo effect and make some people feel better at the expense of constitutional rights. Ultimately, it wont make anybody safer, and giving up constitutional rights stands to make everybody less free.

Bad people do bad things. The human mind has an unlimited capacity for thinking of evil ways to hurt others. Whether its converting another gun into a semi-automatic weapon, using a vehicle for mass murder, a knife, sledgehammer, or ax, or turning a truck or an airplane into a lethal weapon, it will take more than banning one type of weapon from stopping mass murderers.

The place to start isnt by shredding the Bill of Rights. Not even if it makes some people feel better.

Andy Bloom is president of Andy Bloom Communications. He specializes in media training and political communications. He has programmed legendary stations including WIP, WPHT and WYSP/Philadelphia, KLSX, Los Angeles and WCCO Minneapolis. He was Vice President Programming for Emmis International, Greater Media Inc. and Coleman Research. Andy also served as communications director for Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio). He can be reached by email at andy@andybloom.com or you can follow him on Twitter @AndyBloomCom.

Read more:
Andy Bloom: Assault weapon bans won't make things better - Broad + Liberty

Letters to the Editor| The Columbus Dispatch

I read with interest the article April 27 article "GOP megadonor Richard Uihlein bankrolls push to make it harder to amend Ohio constitution."

I'm sure the out-of-state billionaire, who's generational wealth goes back to before the civil war, is "just" looking out for the best interest of Ohio's working people. Wink, wink.

More: GOP megadonor Richard Uihlein bankrolls push to make it harder to amend Ohio constitution

Douglas Berger, Toledo

Has anyone else had this problem? Given the pressure towards authoritarianism (former President Donald Trump) in America, I though it necessary to be more engaged in democracy.

Thus, I called my state representatives, Sen. Andrew Brenner, District 19, and Rep. Beth Lear, District 61, to ask for an executive summary of their activity. I received no response on two separate occasions.

Also tried Ohio Legislation website and received, let us say, the typical computer-generated response with no substance.

Is this how democracy is supposed to work?

Randall Holton, Westerville

I am going to make a radical suggesting concerning gun control: rescind the Second Amendment and replace it with a more reasonable Amendment that will allow law-abiding citizens to have access to some types of guns, restrict some problem citizens and some types of guns.

The intent of the Second Amendments was to allow for, A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,, We have taken the Amendment completely out of context in allowing me to keep and bear (any kind of) arms and also not be in a Militia.

At the time the Second Amendment was written, our firearms were rather primitive.T

oday they are high powered rifles or pistols with the capacity to quickly deliver several rounds of ammunitions.There is no need for these kinds of arms in the possession of our citizens.

Those arms are for making war and not for killing our own citizens.

Richard Riley, Dublin

This conversation, as you put it, has been going on for years, with no success in changing the course of gun violence across America.

From the editor: From the editor: Its time to talk about gun violence

To most of our ears, the conversation is nothing but rhetoric and white noise.

Ill be curious to see what you uncover, but more importantly, if your work effects change.

Tom Sussi, Columbus

See more here:
Letters: Silence is not how democracy is supposed to work - The Columbus Dispatch

What happened to youth sports being fun, and learning lessons on winning and losing? Today, youth sports are about zero-tolerance policies for kids who are as young as 10 and 12 for not showing up to a game, even though the life lesson and opportunity they would miss the game for outweighs the game. Notice how I use "game" so many times? Because that is what youth sports are. Games. Now, though, parents and coaches are all about creating the next great professional athlete or living vicariously through their kids. Youth sports is harming kids, and not nurturing them. Travel baseball, travel soccer, travel basketball. All of it is just for the money. Sad and ridiculous.

Ben Kroeger, Canton

I take issue with Mackinac Island Fire Chief Jason St. Onge, in the May 3, 2023 Free Press front page regarding two fires caused by e-bike batteries on the Island ("Mackinac Island residents, historic businesses warned of e-bike battery fires.") My issue is that his comments and broad brush strokes against all e-bike batteries are inflammatory. I am disappointed that the Free Press offered no insight from e-bike manufacturers but instead slapped this story on the front page. As a result of the uneven coverage of the issue, more municipalities and/or businesses will ban e-bike batteries. E-Bikes already are VERY misunderstood by a lot of the general public and now add the batteries to that and you may very quickly shut down a growing and viable means of recreation for many many people.

Betsy Taylor, Beulah, Mich.

If the government can mandate safety features like seat belts and air bags before a car is sold, illegalize flavored e-cigs and the like (but not marijuana gummies) to protect the kids, then surely they can demand social media platforms and gaming sites not to operate unless they can assure protection for children.

Gary McDonald, Rochester

I agree with Lawrence Rosenstock who wrote a letter that appeared in the April 30 issue of the Detroit Free Press, "Transgender Daughter Wants to be Left Alone."

I have a 14-year-old transgender girl in my family who now is her authentic self, happy and successful in school. She is a beautiful person, supported by school staff, friends and family. She too just wants to be left alone, enjoy her life and be treated like any other girl. It's as simple as that!

Rene Vander Eyk, Rochester Hills

On April 29 of last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed rules to end the sale of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars. The FDA has had a full year to take comments and now it is time for action: The Biden Administration must finalize these rules to protect youth in Michigan and across the U.S., and address health inequities in our country.

Tobacco is still the leading cause of preventable death and disease in Michigan, killing over 16,000 residents each year. More than 17% of adult Michiganders smoke, and 25% of high school students use a tobacco product. On top of that, smoking costs our state more than $5 billion in direct medical costs and over $11 billion in lost productivity each year, placing a state and federal tax burden of over $1,100 on each Michigan household.

This is a tremendous opportunity to save lives and reduce the toll of tobacco on the health of Michiganders.In the first 13-17 months of removing menthol cigarettes from the marketplace, one study estimates 923,000 smokers nationwide would quit.

Join the American Lung Association in urging the Biden Administration to finalize the proposed rules and end the sale of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars by August to save lives and protect our youth by asking President Joe Biden to finalize these rules at Lung.org/Stop-Menthol.

Amanda Holm, Livonia

The gun lobby's interpretation of the Second Amendment is one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word, fraud, on the American people by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.

The real purpose of the Second Amendment was to ensure that state armies the militia would be maintained for the defense of the state. The very language of the Second Amendment refutes any argument that it was intended to guarantee every citizen an unfettered right to any kind of weapon he or she desires. Those words are from the former conservative Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger regarding the gun lobby and the National Rifle Association. It appears fitting, considering the current actions or non-actions of the Republican Party when it comes to gun legislation, to have this description of the Second Amendment: The money of the gun lobby, being necessary to the survival of politicians, the right to madmen to slaughter children shall not be infringed. This must be their position and what they believe. Why else would there not be any meaningful policies and action to end all this unnecessary gun violence?

Jim Jeziorowski, Wayne

Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters or letters@freepress.com.

Read this article:
Letters to the editor: Something's gone very wrong in youth sports - Detroit Free Press

A hundred years ago, migratory birds were being wiped out at an alarming rate, with mega-serious population declines. Legal restrictions were duly processed, at the national level, limiting the gauge and number of shotgun shells that were legal. Today our shotguns for hunting such birds are legal, as they are plugged to three shots max. The populations of migratory birds have recovered.

The point is: Restrictions on the Second Amendment have precedent and are current.

In my opinion, we need a well regulated militia. Todays version would be a registry. I would want it to be non-governmental, as in private.

Ponder a law that, by 2026, an owner of a military grade assault rifle would need to register it with proper ID. If its stolen, report it. If not, it is, officially, legally yours.

Trevor Hall Jr. Orlando

While searching for tickets for an upcoming event at Hard Rock Live at Universal CityWalk, I see shows for Bebe Rexha called Best Fn Night Of My Life, Ted Nugent called Adios Mofos, comedy shows by Dane Cook, Anthony Jeselnik and other shows that are arguably adult-centric. Yet, the only one indicating that it is age-restricted to 18 and over show is one by Jinkx Monsoon, a noted drag queen. I can say with almost 100% certainty that the chances of any minors attending the drag show are pretty limited, compared to those likely to attend any of the other shows mentioned with content that may warp their young impressionable minds. The hypocrisy is laughable if it wasnt so obvious who is being targeted here.

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Get latest updates political news from Central Florida and across the state.

Alex Jimenez Winter Park

I want to thank Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican-led Congress for making Florida the freest state to have a homeowners insurance increase of $1,000. Where are the retirees like myself to find a 33% increase in our insurance coverage?

Maybe if theyd spend less time in attacking our schools, LGBTQ and trans community and Disney, they could address our insurance problems and needs. All that freedom sure doesnt pay my bills.

Boyd Rasmussen Casselberry

Our state has been experiencing the effects of climate change and I worry about the future and the climate extremes that coming generations will experience. April is Earth Month, and the theme this year is Invest in People and the Planet. So, I wonder why big banks like Bank of America, Chase, Citibank and Wells Fargo are still investing in the expansion of dirty fossil fuels that are causing such climate destruction. According to the report Banking on Climate Chaos, these banks have invested more than $1 trillion in fossil fuels since 2016.

The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report says that feasible, effective, and low-cost solutions are readily available but arent being scaled up at the necessary speed. This spring, the big banks should adopt the pending shareholder resolutions on climate change at their annual meetings, commit to accelerating their investments in clean energy and divest from coal, oil, and gas.

Tom Caffery Orlando

Go here to see the original:
We've restricted 2nd Amendment before | Letters - Orlando Sentinel

Those of us who are not gun fetishists are supposed to "keep our powder dry" on the subject, but it must be said: The Second Amendment is as antique as a muzzle-loaded long gun, and should be treated as a historical artifact.

We're not supposed to even whisper such things because the NRA and right-wing extremists have sensible Americans including many gun owners so bullied and cowed that we feel we are only allowed to hope for sensible gun-safety legislation around the edges of their highly profitable assault on American lives.

We've said it before, but it is always worth repeating for the millions of younger people coming to voting age each year who may not have considered it before: It doesn't take a grammarian or a constitutional scholar to tell you that the opening clause of the Second Amendment is obviously conditional:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Meaning, so long as a militia of citizens is necessary (and a well-regulated one, at that), then what follows is true. But only if that first part pertains.

It no longer pertains and hasn't since the modern National Guard wasformally established in 1916. We've got the Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, Air Force and even that Space Force thing, as well as the National Guard, with members who swear an oath to both their state and their federal governments. (I note that dual allegiance for all the anti-federalists still lurking out there, seething about some "tyranny" of the federal government, while at the state and local levels you busy yourself with taking away voting rights, reproductive rights, public schools and public libraries.)

The six branches of the armed forces, including the National Guard. No other militia need apply. It's covered.

If you want to help protect the interests of your state and your nation, assist citizens during emergencies, understand tactical maneuvers and carry a gun (and learn how to operate it), you can sign uphere orhere. Join the Coast Guard. Or you can become a police officer. It turns out we need better ones. Your service will be deeply appreciated, if only by lip service from the right-wingers who drone on and on about how much they love the military and the cops.

So, the need for a well-regulated militia, crucial to the early history of the country, is no longer in play. We need to rewrite the amendment, dispensing with the oddball capitalization and punctuation, to fit the times:

The right of the people to serve in the armed services or the National Guard, or to serve as law enforcement officers if duly qualified, shall not be infringed.

I dropped the prefatory clause, since everyone ignores it anyway. And that word "militia" has gotten especially confusing of late. Now the thing is up to date.

But don't take my word for it. After the Parkland, Florida, school shootings of 2018, former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens wrotean op-edin the New York Times describing the Second Amendment as "a relic of the 18th century" and arguing it should be repealed. Former Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger, a conservative appointed by Richard Nixon, said in 1991 that the NRA's reading of the Second Amendment was "a fraud" and said that if he were writing the Bill of Rights today he'd flat-out dump it.

We've got the Army, the Navy, the Marines, the Coast Guard, the Air Force and even that Space Force thing, as well as the National Guard. We're covered. No other "militia" need apply.

The current batch of right-wing Supreme Court justices sponsored by the Federalist Society have furtherdiscredited the high court by pretending they can peer into the hearts and minds of the founders as a way to keep the country hobbled on this issue. It's always worth noting (especially, again, for younger voters) that the Heller decision, in which Justice Antonin Scalia simply divorced the "keep and bear arms" part of Second Amendment from any connection to militia membership, was in 2008, not way back at the founding of the republic.

We don't live in colonial times, people. We live in these-here times days of conspiracy theories, white nationalism and so-called government leaders who do all they can to prove government cannot work, who praise despots and work with them to undermine democracy, who call journalists "the enemy of the people" and dehumanize their political opponents.

OK, none of that is entirely new to American history, but today we live in a country where there are more guns than people, where there are more mass shootings than days on the calendar, where Fox News has gun-clutching people living in a constant state of paranoia and fear, whereyoung people are increasingly paying with their lives.

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

If we could somehow summon up Franklin or Madison or Hamilton to speak to us on the gun issue, I imagine they'd have a lot to say.One suspects the founders would take a look at modern handguns and assault weapons, learn how they operate and tell us a bit more about the intent of the Second Amendment. They would say, I think, that the citizens' right to safety and the pursuit of happiness far outweighs any imagined individual right to own a weapon of war or carry any kind of gun in public.

Those who claim to be both "pro-life" and "pro-gun" should be aware that the rest of us consider those terms absurdly paired and we see through the marketing fluff of "pro-life" used in place of "anti-abortion," as well as the "pro-life" willingness to let women die in childbirth an abandon kids to lives of poverty. But in this country, where politicians of a certain stripe are busy teaching us that up is down and facts aren't facts, and where the NRA owns many of those politicians, we see people being gunned down every day in every venue one can imagine shopping centers, grocery stores, movie theaters, concerts, hospitals, churches, schools.

The vast majority of citizens want sensible gun regulations now. Parents and younger Americans of all political stripes are frustrated and deeply unhappy with gun culture, with all its simmering fear and dread about the next news bulletin and days of fruitless discussion of the shooter and his motive, and the hopelessness created by talk of the "slippery slope" if we take any action to stop the carnage.

This is what political operatives on the right have done so well for decades: They work the refs and move the goalposts until any objections to their aims are no longer recognized as legitimate. That "well regulated Militia being necessary" becomes (courtesy of the NRA and Scalia) no militia need apply becomes a tradition with deep roots in our culture becomes a God-given right.

It would be laughable if it weren't so tragic, and if guns weren't now the leading cause of death of younger Americans.

Young people recoil at the Second Amendment argument even more than they cringe at that out-of-fashion furniture their parents have piled up in the basement and are now offering them. Thanks, but no thanks.

We parents would like our children (and grandchildren) to be safe when they are at the movies, in a mall, in church, at school. All of us would like to feel safe in public spaces. We don't need to hear a single damn thing froma criminal organization like the NRA or from politicians in the pockets of that criminal organization.

The Second Amendment is an antique curiosity laughably outmoded for our times. It's time for it to go.

We must say it precisely because we have been so bullied for so long into believing that we must not or cannot say it.One day, if we can keep our democracy intact against the frantic efforts of the self-proclaimed American "patriots," younger Americans will band together to do what they did with laws against marijuana and will do in short order with restrictions on reproductive rights: They'll put the Second Amendment right where it belongs, in the dustbin of history, already piled way too high with spent shells and needless deaths.

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about America's epidemic of gun violence

Read more from the original source:
The Second Amendment is a ludicrous historical antique: Time for it to go - Salon