Background Checks Bite the Bullet

Lots in the news regarding background checks and fire arms! Madam Opinionated isn't a fan of any average joe having a bunch of guns for anything but hunting, but Madam Opinionated also understands that background checks, though they may help to some degree, aren't the best defense against firearms getting into the wrong hands. Here are some reasons why:

1. The rights hands can easily become the wrong hands. All it takes is a series of unfortunate events to turn an otherwise law abiding, wonderful citizen into a rampage killer. Even the seeminly meekest of us have that button within us, and if it is pushed, any one of us are capable of such atrocities.

2. If you have a gun, the more likely you are to use it. You may percieve threats that aren't there: a person walking up to your car, for example, you are more likely to see as a threat. A confused person could enter your home and you are more likely to kill them than to call the police. Any one of these situations can be scary, but with a firearm, they are more likely to become deadly. Remember Tatiana Duva-Rodriguez? She decided she was going be a vigilante and shoot some Home Depot shoplifters. Not only was she untrained in using the weapon, but she turned a minor event into something that could have been deadly. She didn't understand the concept of "imminent danger of death or great bodily harm," and neither do others.

3. Calling someone "mentally ill" and banning them from buying a weapon stigmatizes those who are mentally ill and not violent. It is possible to have bipolar disorder, be in treatment, and have no history or intent of violence towards yourself and others, but these checks don't address that. Nor does it address someone who has no history of mental illness but then crosses that breaking point.

4. You can have no criminal history, yet have every intent to commit a crime. You could be, on paper, a model citizen but are going to use that weapon to hunt your spouse, for example.

Background checks address none of these issues, and won't make it any harder for those people who don't pass the checks to get a weapon, anyway. It doesn't address untrained persons. It doesn't address persons looking for a fight, like George Zimmerman. Could more in-depth checks help? Possibly, as long as they don't stigmatize the innocent.

More thought needs to be put into this, but it's Madam Opinionated's opinion that America needs to change it's attitudes on guns. We love them too much, and it's evidenced by the the outrageous number of deaths per capita we have compared to other countries.

We need solutions, and it's MO's challenge to any of you to help find real solutions to the gun problem because as is, it's just not working.