Of Cards and Guns

The reason I keep talking about cards is that you have claimed that the Republican and Democratic parties do not collect dues or issue membership cards, and I find that hard to believe. What about all those delegates who will be attending the national conventions, aren't they party members? When I joined the Republican Party back in '74, I don't remember if they issued me a membership card, but I do remember paying dues for one year, I believe it was $20, which was a lot of money back in those days. When I went to the state convention, I must have had some kind of ID to gain admittance, but I don't remember if it was a badge or what. Of course the policies could have changed since '74, but I doubt that they stopped accepting memberships. How could any national organization function without making a distinction between members and non-members?

Speaking of memberships, I thought I made this clear before: I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the National Rifle Association. My father was a member, and I read the magazine they sent him every month. When I tried to join myself, they told me I had to be at least 21 years old. When I did turn 21 I figured that, since they didn't want me when I wanted them, I don't want them now, and I never did join.

I don't think I realized before my army days that a lot of this country is run by the cult of the personality instead of the rule of law. Well there was that blue jean incident with the Sawyer Student Council, but I thought they were doing it wrong, and I still do. After all, I had learned about the rule of law in that same school! I don't remember having a problem with the way they ran the ROTC at Gage Park, they never asked me to do anything illegal.

Speaking of illegal, it has been illegal for civilians to possess machine guns in this country since before we were born so, if that nut job in Florida used a machine gun, he must have obtained it illegally. Shooting 50 people in a bar is also illegal, and he didn't have a problem breaking that law either. How would the passage of one more law have prevented the incident?

There has always been some shooting going on in this country, but I don't remember there being so many of these mass shootings where the perpetrator turns the gun on himself at the end. Of course not all of these mass murderers are Muslims, but they're all nuts because only crazy people commit suicide. We have discussed this before, and you said that there is no way for mental health professionals to identify somebody like this before they do anything crazy. Then what are we paying them for?

You may be right that no concealed carry permit holder has ever prevented one of these mass shootings by being in the right place at the right time, at least I have not heard of one. On the other hand, the paper work we do when we buy a gun from a licensed dealer registers the make, model and serial number of that gun in our name. The alleged intent of that law was that, if a gun was found near a crime scene, they could trace the gun to its last owner of record. Has any of that information ever been used to actually solve a crime? Maybe it has, but I have not heard of that either.