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By Joanna DelBuono
Brooklyn Daily
In light of yet another massacre — this time in Wisconsin — Mayor Bloomberg, along with fellow “ban the gun” proponents, are again calling for stricter gun laws. I do agree something has to be done about this, as there are far too many shootings, and the streets of our cities are becoming littered with shell casings and wet with the blood of innocent victims.
But how much stricter do we get? And is stricter really the answer? If they didn’t have guns, wouldn’t these insane criminals find other ways to kill people?
Shooting might be a great method to take out a lot of people at one time, and it certainly facilitates drive-bys (it’s hard to commit one of those with a bat), but there are many other ways that a murderer can take a life.
Here’s a thought— instead of banning the guns, maybe Mayor Mike should push for implementing a plan that would raise the cost of a weapon so high that no one but the one percent could afford it, then make the cost of ammunition ridiculously prohibitive so that one bullet would be worth more than an ounce of gold?
After all, Mayor Bloomberg has banned, locked-down, raised, surcharged, and taxed everything else in this city for our own good, why not firearms?
But we all know that isn’t the answer either.
Criminals will always find a way — whether its with a gun, a knife, a fork, or a club — if someone wants to take another’s life, the choice of weapon is inconsequential.
The answer doesn’t lay in governmental control, nor stiffer penalties, nor banning guns, it lays within our own nature and our own control.
The politicians can orate, submit bills, and get their air time until the crack of doom. They can strategize, legalize, and penalize, but until the basic nature of society changes, none of it will mean a thing.
Government does not have the ability to mandate common sense and common decency, nor can it regulate respect for life. Government can ban the guns, make obtaining a gun more difficult, and make the penalties harsher, but it can no more stop a mad-man from committing murder than it can stop the sun from coming up in the east.
Not for Nuthin, but the time has come, said the Walrus to the Carpenter, for us to accept the fact that the power to change is solely and wholly within us, not the government, and until that day comes nothing is going to change — we will still eat the oysters.
Follow Not for Nuthin’ on Twitter @jdelbuono
Joanna DelBuono writes about national issues every Wednesday on BrooklynDaily.com. E-mail her at jdelbuono@cnglocal.com.