The Congressional Gun Control Debates.

On Wednesday (10/4/13) and Thursday (11/4/13) US Secretary of State John Kerry attended the G8 Foreign Ministers meeting in London, UK. Today he has travelled to South Korea for a short diplomatic tour that will also see him visit China and Japan. The main topic of conversation will no doubt be the US' continuing provocation of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK). However as has been clear throughout this long running saga the US is attempting to use the DPRK as a metaphor for me and it's nuclear ambitions as a metaphor for the removal of the US protection of Chris Brown.

In order to confuse matters even further the US Congress led by the Senate is using this as an opportunity to have a lenghty debate and likely vote on new gun control measures. This debate has at it's heart the argument about liberty versus government control that is central to debates going on in nations such as the DPRK, China and other south-east Asian nations such as Myanmar (Burma) and Vietnam that are the key targets of the US' "Pivot towards the Pacific" policy. To give you an idea how complicated and confusing the Congressional gun control debates are they're not actually debating a single bill so much as a series of bills led by the Manchin-Toomey deal. This is a problem because it creates a very real danger that a new law will be passed with very few members of Congress knowing what they've actually voted for.

Therefore I should start by pointing out that I am wholly opposed to any new assault weapons ban or a ban on high capacity magazines. Firstly this is because anyone carrying out a mass-shooting like the Sandy Hook massacre would have had more success using low velocity,  low calibre handguns which are simply not covered by these proposals meaning that they will do nothing to reduce the risk of future massacres. Secondly in many rural areas of the US where a police response can be up to an hour away sadly you do need that level of firepower in order to protect yourself and your family. Finally whether you believe it or not it is the presence of these types of weapons that makes America's enemies think twice about invading and the US' own government think twice about forcing through unpopular policies. Therefore it is the right to own these types of weapon that underpins the principle of the second amendment.

However the key issue in gun control proposals is that of expanding background checks to all gun sales including gun shows and Internet sales but excluding private sales. This I have much less of a problem with because it's long established that if a person is convicted of a criminal offence society can punish them by removing some of their rights such as their right to liberty. Removing a violent criminal's right to bear arms just seems like a thoroughly sensible idea. However this does still create the problem of where society draws the line about which criminals will lose the right to own weapons and how long for. For example does that fact that in 2003 I was convicted of causing minor criminal damage in which no-one was injured and no significant damage was incurred mean that in 2013 I should still be prevented from owning a gun?

Then of course there is the issue of mental illness being a bar to gun ownership. Having worked with a great deal of acutely mentally ill people over the years trust me there is no way you want them having access to firearms. However as I think I pointed out that the time of the Aurora shooting roughly 1 in 4 US adults will suffer from some form of mental illness at some point in their life but the vast majority of them will go on to make a full recovery and will never become part of the acute category. Therefore considering that mental illness is still not at all well understood the question is where does the law draw the line over when mental illness becomes a barrier to gun ownership and how long for. For example Adam Lanza who carried out the Sandy Hook massacre suffered from a form of high functioning autism which is considered a mental impairment rather than a form of mental illness. As high functioning autistics are no more or less likely to carry out this sort of atrocity I can not see how a legitimate mental health background check would have been able to prevent Lanza from obtaining the weapons he used to carry out his massacre especially as I don't believe he actually owned any of the firearms he used.

Finally there is the issue of how the information gathered in carrying out a background check is stored and used in the future. That's because while I have absolutely no problem with someone being checked at the point of sale to see if they are eligible to own a firearm I have serious problems with that information being stored so it can be used to create a register of exactly who owns what firearm because that very much undermines the principle of the second amendment.

Unfortunately I won't have time to research or comment on these important issues in more detail because I using this upcoming weekend break in Rihanna's tour to go down to Brighton an stay overnight. Therefore I will an try to review Rihanna's San Diego concert tonight although I'm unlikely to be able to review the Las Vegas show until Sunday (14/4/13) at the earliest.  I'm actually seriously considering cancelling but I can't really miss the opportunity to go out drinking in Brighton the weekend after Margaret Thatcher died even if the big party looks set for London's Trafalgar Square on Saturday at 6pm. However the irony is that following the Poll Tax riot Trafalgar Square was extensively re-designed to make it the perfect place to contain a riotous crowd. Therefore those attending should probably focus on partying rather than rioting.


13:20 on 12/4/13.