Recently a colleague offered the observation that anti-gun or gun control laws are blatant and obvious failures. He pointed to the crime rates in Chicago, D.C. and New York as examples of areas with severely restrictive gun control policies and yet record-breaking violent crime.
My friend wondered aloud how any rational or thinking person, even if they didn’t like guns, could support gun control or call for more restrictions based on the mountain of evidence that such laws do nothing to curb violence or criminal behavior? To the contrary, studies such as “More Guns, Less Crime” provide ample evidence against gun control.
We chatted for a bit and I pondered my response. The point that my compatriot had missed was that gun control laws do indeed work, just not in the manner advertised to the masses. Legal restrictions on the ownership of certain arms and the requirements for registration and permitting establish a government sanctioned precedent. That precedent or narrative is that firearms and their ownership should indeed be constrained. Keep in mind, however, that the state always exempts its employees from firearms restrictions.
That aforementioned lawful precedent buttresses the hoplophobic argument that guns are inherently dangerous. The fewer guns available to the public, the safer everyone will be.
Keep in mind that a narrative is not necessarily based upon fact but upon the wishes or desires of the story teller. Think about the non-stop rubbish produced in Hollywood. When the subject of firearms arises in any cop drama or whodunit movie, the actors spout off lines about the gun being “registered” or the person in question possessing a “permit” to own a gun.
To watch this tripe you’d believe that firearms registration and gun permits are the rule throughout the United States. The actual truth is that only a very few states have such regulations on the books. But you see, the facts do not matter when you have an agenda and are attempting to establish the narrative.
Consider if you will Great Britain. For more than a decade there has been near complete disarmament of the citizens. Yes, while it is still technically legal to own a very limited number of firearms. The narrative has taken hold; “Guns are bad and only a mentally disturbed person would want one.”
I have a good friend who hails from Great Britain and he explained to me that in England to publicly admit to being a gun owner or gun enthusiast is tantamount to confessing proclivity for rape or pedophilia. “The people are so afraid of guns it’s as though owning one will eventually turn you into a mass murderer.” He elaborated.
Do your research and you will find that violent crime, particularly home invasions have not been on a decline during the last twenty years in the UK, just the opposite, they are on the increase. The 1997 Firearms Act (Great Britain) effectively outlawed citizen ownership of all modern handguns. However, in 2009 the UK Daily Mail ran a story that “Gun crime” had risen 89 percent during the previous decade. Again, this is more factual evidence that gun control laws do not reduce crime.
So, if gun control laws and legal restrictions do not stop or prevent violent crime, why do so many ostensibly intelligent people support them and cry for even more? The answer is really quite simple. Gun control laws reduce the ability of the law abiding to protect themselves and foster the notion that an individual should not even attempt to provide for their own safety.
Every gun restriction act is tied to the notion that only armed state employees should be relied upon to halt criminal acts. “You don’t need a gun, that’s why we have police.” So the story goes. An armed state is good. An armed populace is bad. Once again, despite evidence to the contrary, 9-1-1 is offered to the masses as the magic potion to heal all that ails you.
The establishment media falls into lock step with the state and uses phrases like “gun violence” and “assault weapon” to paint the object as evil. The sycophants tout even more “reasonable” restrictions on top of the previous restrictions that produced no positive result.
As we have witnessed, the under-educated and ignorant fall for the misinformation campaign and are not satisfied to be disarmed themselves. These useful idiots willingly crusade for the disarmament of their neighbors.
Where they successfully disarmed the citizen, the gun control activists create a climate where the law-abiding either cannot or are afraid to exercise their God-given right to self-protection. Faced with ever-increasing violence and crime, rather than admit failure, the disarmed masses clamor at the feet of their masters and screech for more state control.
You see folks, gun control absolutely does work. Gun control laws turn those who may have been strong and independent citizens into weak and subservient members of the collective. Gun control laws give legal standing to the notion that the armed state is superior to the disarmed populace. In the end that was the unspoken goal of gun control all along.
Paul Markel
Paul, Do a program on what America would look like with out citizens right to bear arms and we were completely disarmed? student of the gun for life.
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freedom is not free or given by the gov.
Rspiker2, just look at Australia or Great Britain to get an idea of what the United States would look like disarmed or mostly disarmed.