Gun Control As A Health Issue

We need to redefine the gun control debate to an issue of health because of the death of over 30,000 Americans every year from the use of guns. 63% of the deaths were suicides and 36% were from homicides.

With the level of deaths from automobile accidents, we legislated seat belts, air bags and crush zones to be built into cars. With the level of deaths from smoking and second hand smoke, we legislated warning labels, raised the age for selling cigarette and added a tremendous amount of taxes onto the price of a pack of cigarettes.

So, why not use the legislation that President Obama is proposing to reduce the number of deaths by guns? And I’m not taking about taking away handguns and rifles that have a low magazine capacity.

There’s also an interesting Constitutional argument that I’d like to make for gun control. The leadership of the National Rifle Association wants a specific construction of the 2nd Amendment to allow for all guns to be available for purchase.

Now, if you look back to 1776 when the 2nd Amendment was included in the Constitution, people were using muskets, which took an expert 15 seconds to reload and their accuracy was very poor (This is why during the Revolution when the American and British soldiers were firing at each other they were only a very short distance apart).

So how about turning the clock back to what the Founding Fathers were dealing with when they enacted the 2nd Amendment and require modern assault weapons to have a 15 second timer on them before another round can be fired!