Gun Control Advocates: Not my right? Prove it.
Gun control doesn’t work. We’ve seen that fact proven true time and time again all around the world. “Reducing guns reduces crime”, that fallacious statement has been perpetuated throughout the debates and is completely without merit. In fact, both the National Academy of Sciences and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) have found no evidence that any gun control law anywhere in the US has been effective in reducing gun violence. Is anybody surprised?
Enacting gun control laws to prevent criminals from committing violent crimes is akin to posting signs in campsites barring wild carnivorous animals from entering and attacking people. The problem is one in the same: Savages don’t stop to read the signs!
Someone who is intent on breaking a law will break a law. If someone is angry enough to commit a murder, will they not commit another, much lesser crime of obtaining and using a banned weapon? Let’s assume, for a second, that we can succeed in eradicating all firearms from our population. Will that not merely increase the number of murders by Knife, Rock, Bat, Crow Bar, Rope, water, and other “dangerous” weapons? After all, won’t the people with murderous intent simply use the virulent weapon available at the time to achieve their devious purpose? If not guns, then what? Surely something deadly. What do we do if guns are out of the picture? Do we ban pools of standing water? Do we outlaw knives? Does baseball become a “PAST”-time?
Next, if we disregard the asinine assumption that we can control every firearm with a full ban, then there is a gaping hole in the entire debate. I had a realization today, though it stemmed from a prevailing thought I’ve had for some time now: what will the ban do to control the access which criminals have to the tools they desire to aid in the safe commission of crime (“safe” meaning the safety of themselves, not you or I, the law abiding citizen)?
In England, the politicians promised that a full gun confiscation process would eliminate or greatly reduce the threat to common decent citizens. They claimed that with fewer guns, there would inevitably be less crime. That ideal has proven to be the furthest thing from reality. Repeatedly, newspapers, magazines and news channels have reported that crime has done nothing but rise – steadily – since the bill to ban guns was passed. This is true for the UK, Australia, and our own D.C. In fact, gun violence was on the decline before the ban was put in place. Since then, crime rates have reversed to an upward trend.
So what does this all mean? Let me put this as clearly as I can. Criminals – people who don’t follow laws – now listen closely, DON’T FOLLOW LAWS. That’s right. We make laws, they break them. We make more laws to prevent them to break laws, and they break those too. In the case of gun control, this process only serves to aid the criminal, not deter him.
Let’s take a look at the most common scenario in gun control:
Jim buys a gun, legally. He likes to go shooting with his son, and wants to protect his family from criminals like Rob. Politicians see Rob committing crimes with guns, so they decide to stop Rob in his tracks—by enacting new laws, laws such as those that require background checks for purchases at a gun shop or gun shows, laws that require a waiting period for firearms purchases, registration requirements of firearms, and even outright bans on some or all types of firearms. Jim, the LAW ABIDING CITIZEN complies with these laws. By the end, he turns in all of his guns to the proper authorities for fear of being in breach of a law. Jim is not a criminal, thus he is eager to comply with the laws, even though they represent a tremendous risk to himself and his family. Rob, on the other hand, is a punk creep criminal who wants nothing more than to take easy street and take what he wants with little or no cost to himself, even precious life. Rob doesn’t comply with the new law, but instead keeps quiet, and walks around daily committing crime armed and dangerous, now knowing that the risks to his commission of crimes, even while armed, are exponentially reduced. Rob now sees a fresh field of fruit to pick at will. That fruit? The precious lives and efforts of hard working, law abiding citizens who have chosen to live peaceably and lawfully in their country.
So again I ask, what will a gun ban or gun control law do to cripple the ability of a criminal to act criminally with a firearm? If nothing, (or nothing significant), then the only person that law is affecting is the honest, hard-working citizen that is now left helpless and hopeless in defense against evil minded perpetrators of crime in our society. Self defense is a God Given Right, and my individual responsibility. If you cannot provide a suitable replacement for that right to be fulfilled for myself by myself, then your law does nothing but destroy freedoms which keep our nation strong.
Don’t tread on me. If you’re not a criminal, then you’re just treading on yourself, too.