Hey, you know what’s really hard to write about? Gun trauma. I didn’t think it would be this hard and so sorry for not posting anything substantial yet.
Last night my town had a forum to talk about regulating gun ownership in my town. I didn’t go for three reasons. First, I knew it would be flooded with boring out-of-town pro-gun carpetbaggers. Second, I wanted to watch The Biggest Loser the State of the Union Address. And third… y’all are crazy, and you have guns.
I had no idea when I became an inadvertent anti-gun activist how well organized and hostile you pro-gun people are. And I am addressing you as you, because judging from my traffic and the amount of hate mail I’ve gotten, the great proportion of my audience was sent here by pro-gun activist sites. Many of you sent me links to propaganda sites to encourage “balance” and “dialogue”, but the only one I visited that wasn’t straight up horseshit crazy was http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/ That site is actually kind of funny and interesting and reason-based, and makes me hopeful that maybe reasonable people can have an honest debate and disagreements about this stuff someday.
For today though, I would like to spend my three minutes before the board to say this: The second amendment does not say anything about selling guns, and it’s well within the right of local governments to regulate commerce via zoning ordinances. A gun shop does not belong ACROSS THE STREET from a preschool. According to the Tribune, a dozen gun stores have been robbed recently in Illinois. John Garcia had a good report on the recent gun store robberies on the WLS website:
Gun shops are natural targets for thieves. The rash of burglaries is renewing calls for a statewide law requiring more stringent management of gun shop inventories, prompting some municipalities to take action now.
The owners of Downrange Sports in New Lenox say 15 guns were stolen in two December robberies. New Lenox police say low-quality store surveillance video shows a group of four men entering the store through a broken window and quickly making off with the guns
“It’s not a good thing for the community. It’s not a good thing for the area,” said New Lenox Chief Police Bob Sterba.
The gangs are targeting gun shops, and I don’t want that kind of crime coming into my neighborhood, across from my child’s school. We already zone for bars, liquor stores, etc. Those are legal businesses, selling a legal product, but they don’t belong everywhere. Gun stores don’t belong everywhere. The Constitution does not say you can you buy and sell guns everywhere.
Posted by Everyone Knows it's Windy