Posted on 03/22/2007 9:38:00 AM PDT by Ultra Sonic 007
I was quite pleased when I read the cover article of the February 18th, 2007 edition of the Birmingham News. Despite the somewhat critical title – “Metro area loaded with concealed guns” – I’m glad that greater Birmingham is home to more concealed handguns than in many other metro areas around the United States. This pleases me because I am a firm believer in the Second Amendment and the American citizen’s right to defend himself with a firearm. After all, in an area with a greater amount of concealed firearms, criminals have to be more cautious when deciding to rob someone.
However, there was one point that I had to take issue with. Peter Hamm of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence claims near the end of the article that crime has dropped in states with stricter laws on firearm possession. I have to respectfully disagree with Mr. Hamm; despite the intentions of gun control, such a policy will eventually lead to greater crime. All you have to do is look at England or New York City.
England’s stringent gun control has allowed for a tremendous rise in crime, and enacting the same kind of legislation on Birmingham will only result in the same outcome. New York City’s gun control laws are counterbalanced by strict policing and an infringement on the liberty of an individual. Both approaches to lowering crime are flawed, as the best way to fight criminals is to empower the ones they prey upon. To enact gun control legislation in Birmingham, thinking anything different will happen other than a rise in crime, is to be without reason.
A home is generally viewed as one’s bastion of protection. It is a place where one retreats from the hustle and bustle of daily life to relax. Such a bastion, however, would be far more susceptible to invasion, so to speak, in England than it would in the city of Birmingham (or most American cities, for that matter). According to a report on a comparison of English and American crime rates released by the U.S. Department of Justice, robberies rose eighty-one percent in England and Wales between 1981 and 1995. During that same time period, robberies in the United States fell twenty-eight percent. Over that time period, the rates for assault, burglary, and motor vehicle theft all rose in England; at the same time, the United States saw a decrease in those particular crime rates. Although this may surprise the Brady Campaign, this increase in crime occurred despite the presence of very strict gun control legislation.
As the Daily Telegraph of London admits, England possesses “the toughest gun control laws in the world.” Despite this, “They have actually proved strikingly ineffectual. Gun crime has doubled since they were introduced.” This is not surprising; criminals, as a whole, do not care to obtain firearms legally anyway. If their means of obtaining a weapon legally are constrained, they will simply resort to more illicit means. Gun control laws only constrain the ability of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves from such vandals; enacting similar legislation in Birmingham would not mitigate crime, but would instead encourage it.
However, New York City – considering its size and population – has a stunningly low crime rate. This occurs despite stringent gun control laws, indicating that perhaps gun control is capable of success. Birmingham is a city riddled with crime, and emulating New York City may seem like the way to go. However, there is an important factor to consider when determining the impact of gun control on crime. As the New York Sun points out;
The Gun Control Act of 1968 barred felons from purchasing firearms, instituted new age restrictions to keep guns out of the hands of children, and required dealers to be licensed, among many other provisions. And violent crime rates shot up in the years after its passage, including an increase of seventeen point-seven percent in New York state between 1969 and 1970.
Crime only started to fall around the early 1990s in New York City, which has endured some form of gun control legislation since 1911 when the Sullivan Act was passed. Even in 1993, New York’s homicide total was 2,400, and it was the country’s leader in violent crime rates. It wasn’t until Rudy Giuliani became mayor that crime finally began to decrease. His zero-tolerance policy titled “Broken Windows” – on the basis that criminal who sees a building with broken windows will assume that no one cares about that building, and then proceeds to break more windows – initiated a crackdown on petty crime. The overall crime rate of New York City proceeded to drop by forty-four percent. Its murder rate fell by sixty-one percent. Not only that, but his stance against welfare dependency and a revival in job numbers contributed to the decrease in crime.
Unfortunately, this crackdown on crime brought with it an abridgement of an individual’s right to protect himself, putting the burden of protection on the city government. As a consequence, the city government obtained the ability to take away any and all individual liberties if it had desired to do so. Gun control legislation didn’t bring down crime for New York City; instead, it increased. It took authoritarian measures to bring crime down, and such measures are contradictory to the spirit of individual liberty guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. In the long run, emulating New York City wouldn’t be beneficial for Birmingham either; the possibility of civil liberties being violated is too great.
The very position of gun control may seem appealing at first; gun violence is unpleasant and results in many deaths, and depriving the cause of the violence seems like a logical step. As Roger Rosenblatt – a contributing editor and essayist for the New York Times – postulates that Americans are sick and tired of the celebration of gun violence, pointing to an obsession with “gun-violence entertainment” that has permeated American society for so long that people are becoming bored by the very thought of guns. However, Mr. Rosenblatt’s position seems to contradict itself; he readily admits that evidence exists pointing toward greater crime as a result of gun control. He even showcases the example of Switzerland, “where there is a gun in every home and crime is practically nonexistent.” So his suggestion that the total abolition of firearms will one day occur looks improbable by comparison.
For such a thing to occur in America, several things would have to occur. The Second Amendment would have to be abolished. All law-abiding individuals would have to be willing to surrener their firearms. All importation of firearms from foreign nations would have to be blocked. To ensure the protection of the populace, the police would have to be given far more power. Different tactics would have to be utilized to fight a criminal with a gun that’s been illegally smuggled into the country. The very idea of gun banishment sounds highly implausible for America, as the nature of the Second Amendment is one that gives the individual a right to defend himself from those who would deprive him of his other rights. After all, the first step many dictatorships and tyrannical regimes take is to disarm the populace; then they can no longer fight back. With all rights come those who abuse those rights, Mr. Rosenblatt; punishing the law-abiding for the actions of those who do wrong is absurd.
Although gun control seems like an admirable policy at first, its flaws are paramount and impossible to ignore. It punishes law-abiding citizens and criminals at the same time. I admire the Brady Campaign’s aim at stopping gun violence. However, there is a flaw in their approach. Criminals would not care if they break another law by obtaining a firearm illegally. It would only affect the vast majority of citizens who use firearms responsibly to defend themselves from those who would seek to deprive them of their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Second Amendment was put into the Constitution for that purpose; citizens of England and denizens of New York aren’t that lucky.
England’s crime rates have risen as a result of its gun control policy, and its citizens are the ones paying the price. In New York City, it was not gun control that reduced crime; the measures that were eventually enacted to combat crime were contradictory to individual liberty. To combat crime in the city of Birmingham, gun control is not a suitable solution; granting the individual citizen the ability to protect himself would be far more effective.
Can also be used as material against Rudy Giuliani's gun control positions, should one desire to do so.
The Birmingham mentioned is Birmingham, AL, not the Birmingham of England.
2nd Amendment bump.
The Second Amendment does not give individuals the right to defend themselves.
God does that.
The Second Amendment protects the individual right to defend oneself.
More like the Phallicy of gun control.
Yeah, I could've worded that better. :/
Nicely done.
I lived in Birmingham with my parents in the early 60s during the hottest summer of the civil rights movement.
At that time, the city fathers used gun control as a racist tool. They would set up card tables outside of city offices where an adult white man could be 'deputized'. They would give him a tin badge that said, 'Deputy Constable'. With the badge, he could carry a concealed weapon.
Blacks need not apply
Many of the gun control laws on the books across the country have racist roots.
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