Guest writer

Price of freedom

Tell the truth about firearms

Jonesboro, Columbine, Newtown, Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, Charleston, Aurora, Lafayette, Chattanooga, Tucson, Roanoke ... the list goes on and gets longer.

After each, some politician always says, "How sad. How tragic." But now is not the time to talk about gun control. Let the families grieve, and bury their dead.

If the president speaks on how frequent these incidents are, or how senseless, that's just Barack Obama playing politics so he can send his Muslim, Kenyan and Socialist UN Army to take your guns.

Just once I would like to hear one politician who isn't terrified of the NRA and ties to the purse strings of the gun industry and its lobbyists stand up and tell the truth: The profits of Colt, Smith & Wesson and Glock are more important than the 90 percent of the people who believe in stronger background checks or limited-capacity magazines.

The price of freedom: Twenty 6-year-olds in Newtown, a dozen people in Tucson and Aurora. Nine people in a church.

Let their families grieve. Let them bury their dead.

After Lafayette, the governor of Louisiana put on his best "I am so shocked" expression, and said, "We never would've imagined it would've happened in Louisiana or Lafayette."

Really, Governor? Really? Louisiana, with some of the highest gun-crime statistics in the nation? You never dreamed it could happen there?

A more truthful statement would be, "Well, I guess it was our turn. At least it wasn't an elementary school. Could've been worse."

The arguments the NRA and others use to scare people are just priceless:

They're going to take your guns.

There are over 300 million guns in America. The logistics alone of sweeping through 50 states would take longer and cost more than rounding up 11 million people and deporting them.

They're going to make guns illegal.

That would take a constitutional amendment. Passage by two-thirds of the House and Senate. Passage by 38 of the 50 states. I am so Democrat I bleed blue, and I wouldn't go for that.

This one I really love:

We need guns to protect us from the tyranny of the government.

That one has some smidgen of truth. But the government has B-2 bombers, Apache attack helicopters, Predator drones with Hellfire missiles, M1-A1 tanks, aircraft carriers, and nuclear weapons. If the government really wants to get tyrannical, I doubt that a bunch of beer-bellied, camo-fatigued rednecks with AKs and M-16s will hold back the wave.

In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Second Amendment inviolate. The right of the people to own and keep firearms is not up for discussion.

However, Justice Antonin Scalia, that bastion of all things conservative, wrote that while ownership of firearms cannot be infringed upon, the government does have the ability to control certain aspects of ownership. In 1934, the court put restrictions on the sale and possession of fully automatic weapons and outlawed shotguns with barrels sawn off. Justice Scalia said that on Fox News.

Fox News, y'all. Look it up.

Just tell the truth. Enough with the lame platitudes and simplistic excuses of "families grieving" and "burying their dead." Say it. Get over it. It's the price of freedom.

Deal with it.

It's a shining example of a free society. Prepare for it. Buy bullet-resistant vests for you and your kids. Teach your kids to "duck and cover." Buy your own gun. Better yet, buy five or six. And ammo. Lots and lots of ammo.

Pay the price. Accept the cost. Get over the grief and move on. Colt, Smith & Wesson, Glock, Remington, Winchester, Bushmaster--they all have shareholders demanding a return on investment. Lawyers need money. Doctors need money.

Even the casket-makers and undertakers gotta eat.

Get over it. Nothing will be done. There is just way too much profit to be made.

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Joel Easley lives in Scott.

Editorial on 09/03/2015

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