{"id":63918,"date":"2016-01-19T11:58:31","date_gmt":"2016-01-19T16:58:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=63918"},"modified":"2016-01-19T11:58:31","modified_gmt":"2016-01-19T16:58:31","slug":"matthew-hess-veterans-should-lead-push-for-more-secure-gun-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=63918","title":{"rendered":"Matthew Hess: Veterans should lead push for more secure gun laws"},"content":{"rendered":"

This fellow, Matthew Hess, has published an opinion piece in the Marine Corps Times<\/a> urging veterans to get behind more gun control. Hess claims to be a former Marine Sergeant who is now a freshman attending Columbia University in New York City. He says that we should get behind the President’s latest round of executive orders and even go as far as supporting a new assault weapon ban, whatever an assault weapon is.<\/p>\n

Most of us agree that we have a gun violence problem in the United States. There is no simple answer to this problem, and we cannot afford to pretend it is only a mental health issue, just as we cannot pretend it is only a gun law issue. But we can start by making it more difficult for criminals to obtain guns by requiring background checks on all gun purchases. We should be willing to at least consider other forms of gun control, such as prohibitions on military-grade assault rifles, like those used in San Bernardino. I support my friends in their desire to protect themselves and their loved ones, but I do not trust every person in America to own a gun. Veterans \u2014 with their weapons experience and training \u2014 have a responsibility to lead the fight for more secure gun laws.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, you know, if supporting the President’s edicts would stop criminals from getting guns, if strengthening background checks limited criminals’ access to firearms, if banning scary-looking black guns would reduce crime in this country, maybe I could get behind it. But, the truth is that it’s all smoke and mirrors. Scary-looking black guns are already banned in California, yet the San Bernadino shooting still happened. Criminals will still deal in firearms in darkened alleys and parking lots. It’s really just one more step in the journey to ban all guns. When these measures don’t do anything to quell gun violence, the argument will be that nothing short of a complete gun ban will work. <\/p>\n

And, oh, by the way, sergeant, it’s not up to veterans to decide who gets trusted with guns and who doesn’t. The Fourth Amendment says that no one gets to lose their rights without due process. An opinion that you don’t trust “every person in America to own a gun”, really doesn’t matter. I’ll be the first to admit that there are indeed irresponsible gun owners out there, there are also irresponsible automobile drivers, irresponsible drinkers, irresponsible pedestrians. At some point, we have to start accepting that gun violence is a result of people behaving badly. Veterans are already saying that, out loud and in public. Haven’t you noticed?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This fellow, Matthew Hess, has published an opinion piece in the Marine Corps Times urging veterans … Matthew Hess: Veterans should lead push for more secure gun laws<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gun-grabbing-fascists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}