A new manifesto: "Lack of Common Sense"

(CBS News) When Thomas Paine wrote the essay "Common Sense," it rallied the American colonists to take on the greatest power in the world and what resulted was the United States of America.

Maybe what we need these days is an essay called "Lack of Common Sense." How else can we account for the current state of affairs?

Of course, there are legitimate reasons for people to own guns, for both sport and protection. But doesn't common sense tell us we must keep guns away from people like the Colorado shooter?

Don't we all agree on that?

Finding a solution to fix that won't be easy. But if that is the goal, shouldn't that be where we start the discussion? Where's the common sense in not starting there?

This is not about ideology; it is about the safety of innocent people, and going to the movies without fear of being killed.

It's like so many of the issues these days. The one thing gone missing from the argument is common sense.

Why? Because we've allowed the lobbyists and the partisans and the ideologues and, yes, the people who make money out of politics, to take control of the argument and shift it, from common sense to endless hairsplitting, meaningless rhetoric and ideological talking points designed to avoid blame - and fatten campaign war chests.

Common sense doesn't really fit when the goal is not what's good for us but what's good for my side.

We remember Thomas Paine saying in another essay, "These are the times that try men's souls." But maybe we have forgotten what it took for the courageous people of his time to do what they did.

Here's a clue: It wasn't a fear of getting beat in the next election.

[David1753]

Every country mentioned in the discussion having fewer mass killings have socialized or subsidized medicine which provides better mental health care than the US. Until we address that problem be it guns, bombs, machetes poison....it will continue. In a perfect world there would be no guns....this is not a perfect world.

[j791]

Oh look what we have below, it's WhereisOT and his/her meaningless ramblings.

[j791]

After reading all the posts I have noticed that the anti-gun posts for the most part are from people who either do not own guns or have very little knowledge about guns. Here is a fact, surveys all agree that people want fewer gun laws not more which is a complete change from the 1980s when people wanted more gun laws. Now all these anti-gun people need to ask themselves why they are a growing minority? Why are the majority of the people for guns while only a few liberals support fewer guns? Let me guess, the majority is all wrong and the liberal supporters just have a more common sense huh? Yeah, I don't think so but nice try!

Silly, politically motivated, (and God knows motivated by what else), serves to maintain the stupid and embarrassing inaction that guarantees these things will continue to happen.
More than anything, our government system is based on Reason and Reasonability. Individuals outarming there local police and having dumd-dum bullets, high cap magazines, and assault weapons has NOTHING to do with Reason. The suppression of research by the NRA is tantamount to murder and treason. Guns make the pathetic feel more powerful and to prove it the unstable demonstrate their power.
Save all of your rhetoric and manage to convince the relatives of the Newtown 26 that people should have any of these type weapons.
If you can convince half of them I'll believe the rest of your nonsense. These peoples' right to Life and the Pursuit of Happiness has been subjugated to gun industry profits and crazy people's desire to have the biggest deadliest toys around. That's not freedom that's license.
BTW, I'm not liberal or a gun banner. I am a Reasoner and I know that people like you and other loud mouths at either extreme end of the issue are to be paid close attention to...and then turned away from to head in the opposite direction. The majority of Americans are Centrists and can Reason the truth when pressed. Some just have to remember to go opposite from both extremes.

[fiddlestickawshucks]

CONSTITUENTS LOGIC COMMON SENSE

Three words not in the vocabulary of Congress or Obama.!!


POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

TWO WORDS THAT SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM OUR VOCABULARY FOREVER.!!!

[ktcgrizzly]

"Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one:" thomas Payne - Common sense
If you are going to reference Tom Payne then I hope at least you read his essay. He rallyed the american people to an armed conflict with and oppresive government bent on regulating and taxing everything in sight.
If you think more regulation is the answer, history has proven you are wrong. Perhaps actually punishing a real criminal might be a novel approach. It seemed to work a little better when society was able to identify the real cause of crime, instead of shifting the blame to a myriad of liberal causes. The man or woman who commits the crime should be held accountable. period

[steeepe]

Although I don't think that the 2nd amendment's intention was for everybody to have weapons when we have a standing military, I support gun ownership for self defense, recreation, and hunting. The NRA apparently refuses to draw any lines. They want everybody to have whatever they want wherever they want. That's just reckless and insane. We can't own bazookas or anti-aicraft guns or missiles or machine guns. Some lines are already drawn. In the interest of public safety, we should restrict clips and certain types of weapons. I mean, we can't even have cherry bombs anymore because somebody might lose a finger, but we're not concerned about these semiautomatic weapons? Ridiculous!

[NinthSt78]

They look nice on the bookshelf, but Ben's bi-focals are probably still foggy.

[dsmasterson]

Question: If carrying guns was liberalized and made legal such that most (all?) people carried guns, what would've happened in that theater? Would the original shooter have pulled out his guns, started shooting, only to have everyone else in the theater shoot back at *specifically* him? Or would the theater have erupted into a hail of bullets with even more people dieing in the crossfire?

[j791]

Let's think about this...a guy with an AR-15 assult rifle, body armor, gas mask and is standing in front of a large crowd begins shooting at everyone. Do you really think the crowd is going to wonder who the enemy is? Is it the guy with the wife and two kids holding a handgun really going to draw fire from someone who confused him as the shooter? People that think more injuries would have occured if everyone had guns need to tell that to the families of the 12 dead and 70 wounded...some for life and then ask how many lives could have been saved HAD people starting shooting back!

[ktcgrizzly]

I can only reply from my own experience. Many years ago the counter men at an auto parts store I went to all carried guns. One day a man tried to rob them at gun point, only to be staring at 6 guns pointed at him. He was orderd to drop his gun and leave. Which he did after wetting himself. THe police determined the gun was stolen and never found him. In this case the armed citizen worked

[pdchapin]

First, the idea that you can allow hundreds of millions of law abiding citizens own hundreds of millions of guns and some how keep them out of the hands of nuts is silly. You either arm or disarm everybody and live with the consequences. No gun control legislation proposed in this country would be more than a minor inconvenience to either the good guys or the bad guys. You want to reduce gun violence you need to remove guns from society wholesale. It's worked in other countries.

Second, when the 2nd amendment was written, state of the art firearms where single shot musket loaders that took 20 seconds or more to reload. It simply wasn't physically possible to shoot up a public space. You shot one person then everybody else in the area jumped on you since they knew you were effectively disarmed. Times have changed and the rules need to reflect the new reality.

Third, there has never been a successful popular uprising in an industrialized nation. The idea that people need guns to resist the government is silly. If you can get enough people angry enough at the government of an industrialized society to over throw it, you have enough people that you don't need to use weapons. The governments of eastern Europe fell without violent revoluton. The except was Romania and in that case the army turned on the government rather than a popular resistence (assuming you consider communist Romania an industrialized nation in the first place).

[j791]

Points well taken, either arm or disarm. The law says firearms are legal which means the decision is to "arm" and we all know that will not change any time soon. Therefore, the rest of your argument is mute.

[jimpast60]

Well let's just assume that "Assault rifles have only one purpose; shooting people" is true. Then why should each citizen have the right to buy them? It is because our founding fathers had the common sense to realize that there is no government, no system of laws, however well intentioned, that ultimately does not either: (a) become the oppressor rather than the protector; or (b) simply disappear. In either case, citizens need to protect life and property by themselves. And they are going to need something other than all a lot of hot air.

[skeezix06]

That sounds like you're suggesting you would go to war with your own government. Isn't that the definition of anarchy?

[skeezix06]

You're suggesting overthrowing the government. That is anarchy.

[JoelCopeland]

Correct, jimpast60. Government control evaporated and declined into chaos in the face of Hurricane Katrina. Police were confiscating legally owned guns from their owners, while looting was rampant; police shot people they "suspected" of looting without making any attempt to arrest; police abandoned their posts in the face of the disaster, leaving thousands at the mercy of the lawless. Just a few years ago, folks; right here in the good old US of A. Don't believe for a SECOND that onerous restrictions save lives. You'd be dead wrong.