Rami Ungar The Writer

I wanted to hold off a little on writing this post, but now I find I can’t hold back anymore.

Yesterday, President Barack Obama announced a number of ideas he wants to implement in order to stop the wave of gun violence our country has been plagued with this past year, and that has been building up for years. Among the ideas he put forth, created in part by Vice Presdient Joe Biden , are required criminal background checks for all gun sales; reinstating the assault weapons ban; banning armor-piercing rounds; providing mental-health services in schools; and establishing a federal gun-trafficking statute, among others.

Unfortunately, getting any of these proposals through our famously dysfunctional Congress is going to be tough, which is why President Obama ordered 23 executive actions, including requiring federal agencies to hand over relevant information for background checks; providing better training for law enforcement and first responders; and requiring the CDC to research the causes and prevention of gun violence, among others.

Of course, there are those who immediately cry foul over these new proposals, the NRA being the loudest (I’ve got a nickname for these guys that uses the same acronym, but I’m not going to say it so as not to offend any readers who are possibly NRA members). The NRA’s president, Wayne LaPierre, has accused Obama of attacking guns and forgetting children, and the organization’s advertising division (or propaganda machine, depending on which angle you look at it from) has released an ad saying that the President doesn’t want to protect kids other than his own by giving Sasha and Malia Secret Service protection in schools. Has it ever occurred to these guys that other people’s kids are not always at risk for being used in terrorist plots? Obviously not.

There’s also the guy from Texas I talked about in an earlier post, the guy who wants to impeach Obama if he makes any moves on guns (good luck with that). And Governor Rick Perry of Texas says that instead of gun control measures, we should “pray for protection”. Um, I think praying and spirituality is nice and all, but I’m pretty sure the gun control proposals might be God’s answer. You want to wipe your butt with it? And honestly, prayers are not going to shield you from a mentally unstable shooter’s bullets if, God forbid, he should point his gun at you.

There’s a rocky road ahead, whatever the case, for these gun control proposals of President Obama. However I think they should be passed. Otherwise Republicans in the House and in the Senate might lose many of their seats as the people become more pro-gun control. Well, let’s see what happens, and hope for a better future, whatever the outcome happens to be.

The shooting at Sandy Hook that took 20 children and six adults was a tragedy that should never have happened. But thankfully, it seems that something good may be coming out of the tragedy: today, New York leaders passed the first new gun control laws since the tragedy in early December. The bill was signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Republican who has embraced gun control and made it a central part of his agenda, saying “At what point do we say, ‘No more loss of innocent life’?”

Frankly I agree, so I’m glad that the new law comes with so many provisions meant to protect our citizens (not take away guns as 2nd Amendment fundamentalists believe). In addition to an assault weapons ban that prohibits the further sales of any guns with one military feature and the registration of those already in private ownership, the law requires immediate background checks, bars assault weapon sales over the Internet, and, because of the shooting of firefighters in Webster last month, lengthens the sentence of those convicted of shooting first responders.

Plus, the number of rounds in a magazine has been decreased from 10 to 7, put tougher restrictions on the sales of ammunitions and guns and, in what I see as a very good move, requires therapists to notify authorities if they feel a patient made a credible threat to use a gun illegally would be required by law to report it to the authorities.

That last part I see as the basis for a new episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

As other states are considering bills with new gun control measures, I hope they follow New York in example. I’m talking to you, Ohio Governor Jon Kasich. Seriously, you signed a bill that allows firearms in the garage of the statehouse. Do you want to play a video game or reenact a movie scene in the statehouse garage with actual guns? Are you insane?

However, not everyone seems to be thrilled with the new spirit of gun control. Representative Steve Stockman, a Republican from Texas whose last term of office was in the 1990s, says that he’s willing to go as far as filing articles of impeachment if President Obama threatens his Second Amendment rights with new gun control legislation. Hate to break it to you, Mr. Representative, but the last time you were in term, there was an assault weapons ban, and the world did not end and the 2nd Amendment did not die during the ten years it existed. If anything, it came out stronger after the law expired.

Oh well. Here’s to a safer country and less lunatics running around trying to kill us or arm us all.