Voice of the People, Jan. 25

January 25, 2013
  • Paranoid premise
Paranoid premise (JOHN OVERMYER)

Paranoid premise

The simple fact is that no one in a position of legitimate power is trying to abolish the Second Amendment or come to our houses and take our guns away.

That's not what this discussion is about.

Those who cite the fallacious and paranoid premise that efforts to put better controls and restrictions on gun ownership are creating a "slippery slope" (leading to complete disarmament of citizens and the advent of some sort of totalitarian government takeover) betray a completely inadequate understanding of both American and world history and of the characteristics and examples of totalitarianism in the 20th century.

The National Rifle Association's straw-man arguments in the wake of this debate and the largely unoriginal arguments by its supporters (voiced in online memes and secondhand punch lines recycled in social networks and online comment sections) are doing nothing more than tipping the balance of American public opinion toward sensible gun-control measures.

(So I find said behavior to be perversely positive).

I support the Second Amendment.

But I also root against the pig-headed fundamentalist gun-fringe whose (weakening) grip on American politics has done nothing but stifle much-needed debate on an exceedingly important topic. That fringe group's sun is setting and when it does, I, for one, think we'll find not a decrease in our rights as citizens but, rather, huge gains in our collective quality of life and personal liberties.

Matthew Butz, Chicago

Gun regulation

Thank you for the detailed and frightening Jan. 16 editorial on the ease with which an ex-felon was able to illegally obtain 43 guns. This was just one more example on how the regulation of guns in our nation is sorely in need of strengthening.

We have the right to go to church, to school, to the mall and to the movies without the need of armed guards. Our young people have the right to live their lives without being caught in gang crossfire.

The president has presented the proposals for increased regulation that came from the vice president's task force. I do not believe any of these proposals violate the Second Amendment.

I have written to Illinois' U.S. senators and a representative to ask them for their support of the president's agenda. I have written to state officials to ask them to follow the examples set by New York State to enact stronger laws at the state level. I look forward to whatever city-level proposals that Mayor Rahm Emanuel will bring forward. I call on my fellow citizens to contact their own legislators. Remove illegal guns and regulate legal ones.

Eileen G. Soderstrom, Chicago

Gun control

Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman's "Obama's Potemkin gun-control plan" (Commentary, Jan. 17) reads as if it came right out of the playbook of the National Rifle Association-gun manufacturer industrial complex.

He missed the point.

The current public outrage is a reaction to a massacre done by a person without a criminal background.

The elementary school in Connecticut is only a recent example of several mass shootings, some of which were cited by Chapman but which also include Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois (which he did not mention).

These shooters would have slipped under the radar of a criminal background check.

They would not have stood out in the crowd since they did not appear to others to be mentally ill.

The common denominator in each of these shootings was the ease of obtaining a "weapon of mass destruction."

Common-sense restrictions on guns with automatic-firing mechanisms fed by high-capacity ammunition clips should outweigh the "inconvenience" to "law-abiding gun owners."

Ronald Kallen, Highland Park

Citizen soldiers

Whenever I hear the Second Amendment invoked, the only portion that is routinely cited is "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." No one seems to remember that the first part says the following: "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state." Have we seized the right and ignored the responsibility of those who chose to own firearms to serve the state as citizen soldiers? In order to have a well-regulated militia, it seems the very least that is required is the registration of both the owners and their firearms so that the state knows on whom it can call to form a militia.

Jane Schenck, Western Springs

Clueless Obama

The president's comment that not raising the debt ceiling was like going out to dinner and then not paying the bill shows he is simply out to lunch. He took a credit card along that he knew was maxed out and now he demands that the credit card company raise the limit because he's planning to be out to lunch again tomorrow, and the next day . . .

Mike Wahls, Spring Grove