Unheralded

RON SCHALOW: Why Skip Some Background Checks?

After several years of watching British cops shows on Netflix, something finally dawned on me. Years is generally the time it takes for me to have a good dawn.

Anyway, like American cop shows, a detective is running down a suspect, and he — or she — has the criminal, punter or wanker basically cornered, but they have to go into an old dark brick warehouse at midnight to make the arrest. Their partner begs them to wait for backup, but they never listen. Never. Except the British police don’t carry guns, which makes me extra anxious.

Are you crazy? Don’t go in there alone! Your cool Scottish accent won’t save you this time.

In spite of the strict gun laws in England, it would stand to reason that more unarmed cops would be killed by gunfire than armed ones. After all, Americans are constantly being told that gun control of any kind doesn’t work. And criminals can always get their hands on a gun.

So, finally, I looked it up, and it isn’t even close. Between zero and two English cops are killed by gun violence every year. The United States, about 50. Even considering the smaller population, the police in the UK suffer a minuscule number of gun deaths compared to their American counterparts. This isn’t to say that any death isn’t a tragedy. All are.

But the police in England do have the option of calling in an armed squad (like our SWAT) when the suspect is known to be armed, and I have a hunch they make that call more in real life than the bulletproof actors on TV.

And the numbers relating to police shootings translate to the civilian population. Very few (compared to the United States) deaths happen due to gun violence, from police — or others. British cops tend to look for a nonlethal option first. As an example, if a disturbed individual were to start wildly waving a long knife in midtown London, the police would be more inclined to surround the person with riot shields until the knife wielder was immobilized versus shooting him.

Citizens can still own a shotgun and/or a long gun for hunting, but they need to jump through some hoops. But no automatic or semiautomatic weapons are allowed, and the government works hard to keep them out of the country. A 1996 massacre of young schoolchildren was the last straw. The people demanded change. England is just an example of one country that changed its laws to deal with gun violence.

Evidently, there is no last straw in the United States, and nothing I could write will change this attitude of acceptance. Many have tried. And the chances of common sense prevailing in the land of Trump are nil. Even less than nil in the state of Rick, Roscoe and Oley.

But let’s argue, anyway. Our NRA parroting legislators are back in Bismarck.

But Schalow, you stupid lib@#$% moonbat loon cuck, “The United Kingdom is an island, so it would be easy to keep banned weapons out of the country.”

You don’t have to swim there, you mook. Smuggling isn’t the easiest way to make a living, but goods of every kind enter England by land, boat, plane, ferry, etc., but the penalties for possession are very harsh, so low demand makes an illegal gun distribution enterprise less appealing. How would you know, anyway?

We can’t even get our Democratic senator to vote for Universal Background Checks, when 90 percent of the people of North Dakota want it.

But Schalow, you stupid lib@#$% moonbat loon cuck, “Everyone who buys a gun has to go through a background check.”

No, they don’t. Many gun show sellers don’t run a background check, and you can buy a weapon from Rob across town without being checked. Does Rob care if you have a freshly carved swastika on your forehead? Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t trust Rob’s judgment.

The easiest way to find a private seller is on a website like Armslist.com. It allows you to sort by city, the kind of gun you want and what type of seller currently owns the weapon. I’ve contacted many of those in the “private seller” category to ask them if they needed to do a background check before handing over the pistol. The answer has always been nope, so quit lying about it.

In the movie, “Back to School,” Rodney Dangerfield heads into his office and delivers the throw-away line to his secretary, “Ophelia, hold some of my calls.” Performing background checks on “some” gun buyers makes the same amount of sense.

And another excuse that always appears when gun control is mentioned online. It’s like the NRA acolytes have some sort of radar.

But Schalow, you stupid lib@#$% moonbat loon cuck, “This is America, not England, and if criminals want a gun, they’ll find a way to get one. They don’t care about laws. They don’t care about background checks.”

Can we at least try to make it more difficult? Not all criminals are super bright. Was Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook killer, streetwise enough to purchase all of the firepower he brought into the school on the black market? I’m not. Did he even have any money? Could he have pulled off a burglary? Doubtful. If the not for the stash his mother kept unlocked, all he had was some twisted fantasy. Not every mass killer is a mastermind, and not every killing has to be considered “mass” to be a tragedy.

And a person doesn’t need to be a hardened criminal to participate in the violence. I won’t say most because I don’t know the numbers. But many gun deaths begin with a domestic abuse situation or an innocuous argument that escalated. Or road rage. Then, there are the curious kids, who can’t keep their sticky fingers off the loaded pistol laying on the coffee table. Also suicide.

But Schalow, you stupid lib@#$% moonbat loon cuck, “You can’t pad the numbers with suicides. If people are suicidal, they’ll do it another way if no gun is available.”

That’s not how it works. Suicide is very often an impulse decision, and having a handgun within reach makes a quick impulse irrevocable. Good job on making assumptions about something so complicated, though. Nitwit.

There are plenty of people who should not own a gun — especially an easy to carry pistol — including those with certain mental illnesses, although it is an overused excuse for thousands of deaths. PTSD is an issue, too. Maybe we should quit purposely putting people in situations that cause PTSD.

Then, there is this:

But Schalow, you stupid lib@#$% moonbat loon cuck, “What is it that you don’t understand about the words, “shall not be infringed.” Huh?”

I understand that the Second Amendment of the Constitution doesn’t put any restrictions on age, mental state, vision, intellect, ex-cons, machine guns or any type of arms. None. Yet, since we don’t live in 1802, we’ve made a number of infringements, or laws, for purposes of public safety. What is it that you don’t understand about the words, “well regulated militia,” huh?

Currently, we have Rep. Rick Becker pushing a bill in North Dakota that would allow anyone 20 or older and not otherwise excluded from gun ownership to conceal carry without a permit. What problem is being solved? I have no idea.

He was (maybe still is) calling it a Constitutional Carry Bill, which would make one think that it would replicate the Constitution, but it’s replete with infringements. The representative doesn’t find it amusing for the stupid lib@#$% moonbat loon cuck to bring up the flaws, in case you were wondering.

Regardless of Becker’s feelings, his pandering to the far right is shoving us in the wrong direction.





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