Posted on 10/18/2002 2:38:27 AM PDT by The Raven
It was perhaps inevitable that the recent sniper killings in the Washington area suburbs would be seized upon by advocates of gun control. Like so much in the agenda of the political left, gun control arguments would collapse like a house of cards if people just stopped to think through what is being said, instead of being swept along by emotional rhetoric.
Start with the very name "gun control." Do gun control laws actually control guns? Why would someone who is obviously willing to repeatedly break the laws against murder be unwilling to break gun control laws?
Gun control laws do not control people who are in the business of breaking laws. Gun control simply disarms their potential victims, making crime a safer occupation, and hence one that can be indulged in more widely by more people.
Gun control laws would no more have stopped the current sniper than they stop innumerable other gun crimes in places with some of the strongest gun control laws in the country. Even the latest nostrum of the gun controllers -- ballistic "fingerprinting" of each gun that is sold -- already exists in Maryland, where this orgy of murder began.
There is no record of anyone's ever having been convicted of any crime as a result of this procedure. People who know something about guns -- which many gun controllers do not -- have pointed out how easy it is to change a gun's ballistic "fingerprint." But the real bottom line is that this law has no track record of working.
If you are going to look at the record, then empirical studies have already shown that allowing law-abiding citizens to own and carry concealed weapons tends to produce less violence, not more. Some communities have gone the opposite direction on gun control -- requiring each home owner to have a firearm in the house -- and this has led to fewer burglaries in such communities.
In the Falls Church sniper killing, the sniper was spotted by some people on the scene as he shot an innocent woman in a shopping mall. If we had an armed citizenry, do you doubt that they would have shot him dead on the spot?
Killings seldom start where someone else is known in advance to be carrying a gun. Have you ever heard of one of these supposedly "senseless" killers opening fire on a gathering of members of the National Rifle Association? They always seem to have better sense than to do that.
While many members of the public are swept along by the emotional rhetoric of the gun control advocates, we need to also look at the dishonest arguments and bogus statistics used by those advocates to try to promote their agenda.
There are, for example, their widely publicized statistics on how many "children" die from guns each year. To get these numbers, gun control advocates include young people whose ages reach up above the legal age of 18 for adulthood. That way, the killings between teenage criminal gangs get counted as "children" killed by firearms, as if they were toddlers who found a loaded gun in the house.
Gun control laws might reduce the much smaller number of genuine children killed in genuine accidents. That would have to be weighed against the lives saved when widespread gun ownership reduces violent crime. But we need honest numbers and this the gun control crusaders clearly do not intend to provide.
Other misleading statistics used by gun control advocates include statistics on lower murder rates in selected countries with strong gun control laws, as compared to murder rates in the United States. What these advocates studiously avoid mentioning are higher murder rates than ours in other countries that also have strong gun control laws (Brazil, Russia) -- or lower murder rates in some countries, such as Israel, where guns are more widely available than in the United States.
Guns are not the problem. People are the problem. Weapons matter primarily when the wrong people have them and the right people don't. It is the imbalance in weapons that creates the danger.
This is not rocket science. We should not even have needed the studies which have shown that gun control laws don't work. What we really need to do is stop and think.
Commom sense, especially concerning "evil guns", is in short supply.
He's right, of course. And the tendency of some politicians to dance on the graves of victims to gain votes, was entirely predictable. I attack this subject also, in my latest column, "Ballistics and Bullsh*t." See below.
Congressman Billybob
I've never understood how MADD had such an effective campaign against drunk driving by focusing on drivers instead of cars, and the "gun grabbers" don't see the fallacy of their argument.
Thank goodness for clear-headed thinkers like Thomas Sowell.
Sowell has a disease called "common sense". If only he could infect liberals with it. Is there a bio-agent for this?
God bless Thomas Sowell!
I have also tried to 'infect' liberals with the 'common sense virus' to no avail. I actually had a coworker challenge me to bring in the statistics proving that crime goes down when guns are held by free and peaceful citizens. I thought I was making progress.
When I brought the information in the next day, this man actually said to me,
"My mind is already made up. Don't confuse me with the facts."
This cry has been the mantra of the liberal left for decades.
Well, okay, centuries.
Following Mr. Sowell's shining example, I will not be deterred. I will keep on breathing my 'common sense virus' on my coworkers, my neighbors, my family members, and anyone else I can get next to. Statistics are in my favor.
My statement to the HCI/CommieMommie types is "Look how you have disarmed the citizenry, someone should have shot this piece of trash with their gun."
The media will encourage the gun grab movement, they would never ask why someone hasn't shot this guy yet.
Virginians, at least in the counties surrounding Washington City, have been arming themselves. Meanwhile, in the Glorious Peoples' Democratic Republic of Maryland, Maximum Leader Glendenning had forbidden the discharge of firearms in the counties surrounding Washington City. I'm not at all clear on what effect that will have, other than putting the Prince George's County Trap and Skeet Center out of business.
Actually... I do.
First of all, I'm quite 'armed' myself. However, I hate to imagine a panic scene at a mall where 2000 gun-carrying people draw their little weapons and begin shooting at whomever else they see is shooting. The gunman might very well be downed but he could be only one of many.
I agree with the article but, Mr. Author, please do be careful with your example. A badly chosen one can easily collapse your entire argument.
Although the statistics are indeed on your side, as Lott has amply demonstrated, I dislike getting led down this particular road of argument by the anti-rights crowd. "Safety" is not a valid argument for impeding a Natural Right because safety is often a goal at odds with freedom. One could make the argument that free speech and popular elections tend to cause stress and disruptions to society, with the concommitant potential for social violence, and that therefore these freedoms should be curtailed or even eliminated for the sake of public safety. But few people make such an argument, nor should they make such an argument with respect to the 2nd Amendment. Unfortunately, depth of critical thought is not usually the hallmark of the liberal mind.
It's an oxymoron...
"Although the statistics are indeed on your side, as Lott has amply demonstrated, I dislike getting led down this particular road of argument by the anti-rights crowd. "Safety" is not a valid argument for impeding a Natural Right because safety is often a goal at odds with freedom."\
You are absolutely correct. I am extremely frustrated that the denying and disparageing of our "rights" are continually debated in the political arena.
Gun control should be argued in the context of an enumerated right: "...shall not be infringed." What part of "shall not" is not understood?
But, not only is there a constitutional question of the enactment of federal legislation for mandatroy "arms fingerprinting" from the perspective of the 2nd amendment, there is constitutional question raised about this type of federal legislation from the perspective of the 5th amendment.
The 5th amendment states:
"...nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation."
A federal regulation to require arms manufacturer's to incur the expense of "fingerpringing" their products, for the public use of that information in future arms crimes, have to compensated for this use of their private property to accomplish that public use.
It takes money from the owners of the arms manufacturer's, whether that is an individual or a group of individual's known as stockholders, to build the testing facility, hire the personnel to perform the test and manage the record keeping.
Because half of the voting public (generally women) will always vote for safety over liberty, in spite of constitutional prohibitions to the contrary, the political argument can never be won for liberty over safety.
Will the politicians and anti-gun people be happy when the latter is finally true? England and Australia fell to this liberal thinking; crime is up in both countries with the innocent being defenseless and if some hapless citizen still has a gun and uses it to defended himself against a criminal, the hapless citizen is charged with the crime of discharging a forbidden weapon.
At this point in time, Americans are armed and with the good common sense of the Thomas Sowells in this country, will remain so. If you haven’t done so, join the NRA today and learn to shoot responsibly by taking gun classes and if your state permits it, get your license to carry a concealed weapon. We are the Homeland Defense.
One country of which is Japan. True, I very rarely read of a shooting here, but stabbing, beating and poisoning seem to work just as well.
I thought the ban didn't apply to ranges?
Statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.
FACT: NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN, BUT ALMOST EVERYONE HAS AT LEAST ONE DOCTOR.
Please alert your friends to this alarming threat. We must ban doctors before this gets out of hand.
In the interest of public health I have withheld the statistics on lawyers for fear that the shock could cause people to seek medical attention.
Maybe it doesn't. I heard no such exception from the 'droids on Channel 9, but I should know better than to think they would get the whole story. Excepting ranges from the ban would make sense, but when did ML Glendenning ever make sense?
And, outside of that group, a rapidly increasing number of U.S. physicians were trained in foreign medical schools, although many are quite competent.
Indeed, both my own family physician and the surgeon whose skill has infinitely improved my quality of life and expected longevity were trained in Lebanon, as was the cardiovascular surgeon who saved my father's life many years ago.......
I agree with the article but, Mr. Author, please do be careful with your example. A badly chosen one can easily collapse your entire argument.
You are absolutely right. A badly chosen example has completely collapsed your argument. After 11 shootings by this sniper not one citizen has discharged a single firearm. The idea that allowing law abiding citizens to freely carry firearms would lead to some massive OK Corral shootout is just imagination gone wild.
Here in VT there are no restrictions on carrying firearms whatsoever and yet I have not heard of any incidents the likes of which you describe. I lived for a time in Albuquerque NM and reports of citizens using firearms to defend themselves were a regular occurrence. I never heard of an incident where an innocent bystander was shot, one armed citizen shot another (apart from one being a criminal) or an armed citizen shot a police officer (same caveat as before) or a police officer shot a law abiding citizen who was using a gun to stop a crime.
I lived most of my life in CO where carrying a gun is fairly common and I have never heard of such a situation. I'm sure it's happened a time or two. But nationwide citizens with guns stop an average of 3.9 million crimes, usually without firing, which is far more crimes stopped in progress than police account for.
I know you're just trying to be reasonable but the scenarios you envisage have just not been born out in the real world as evidenced by the experiences of every state that has passed a CC law and the statistics comparing well armed counties with unarmed counties.
Well said, and very true. Sowell's writing is brilliant and his arguments extremely powerful.
Call me picky but I don't think people want to give up their weapons when they are already being shot at. If anything this entire debacle shows exactly how ineffective police protection really is. not knocking the police, just pointing out reality
The gang bangers must be very distressed that one of their favorite pastimes has been forbidden.
Maybe it doesn't.
It's true. That was the only exception to the ban. No surprise that Channel 9 screwed it up.
Two objections: 1. What about my 10mm? (grin)
2. A .22 in the hand, beats a .44 at home...
Get the largest caliber handgun one feels comfortable with and practice, practice, practice!
Unfortunately, that scene is only imagination. So is the wild claim that we're "drowning in a sea of guns" or that the "streets are awash with guns" that so many antigun editorials seem to begin with. In the real world, they are not. In the real world, guns are a pain to carry (and the authorities do everything in their power to keep it that way) and very few honest citizens take the trouble to do so. I live in a heavily armed community and the police estimate that the rate of people licensed to carry concealed who actually do so is under 10% and probably more like 1-2%.
So your mall shooter, and for that matter the D.C. sniper, isn't likely to go down in a fusillade of gunfire from all corners of the compass. If the unarmed bystanders are lucky there may be one or two armed ones nearby capable of taking the bad guy down. They're more likely to be unlucky in that regard, as unlucky as the innocents in D.C., felled knowing full well there was nobody around to shoot back. And in the hope of keeping the unarmed ones "safer" the state is doing what it can to disarm their best hope of protection.
One argument you could have tried with with your coworker was to ask him the following question.
Would you rather: have a gun, know how to use it, and never need it; or need a gun and not have one?
Kind of like insurance, isn't it?
IMO, quite the opposite: there is a serious shortage of guns in the US right now.
I don't have a source handy, but only about 45% or so of white households are armed, and an alarming 33% of black ones.
Close the Gun Gap !
(ie 100% of the population, all demographics)
The Liberal coworker, who is a former hunter, said he had guns at home and, upon further inquiry, admitted that he would use them if an armed intruder threatened his family. I asked him, "What about when you are out hiking and an armed criminal threatens your family?" I really thought this would get him thinking - after all, every circumstance and motivation is the same; only the location is different.
I could not believe his reply: "Then I would figure it was just God's will. You believe in God, don't you?" [He said this because I am a Believer and he and all my coworkers know it.] I guess he thought he had me on this one. (;
I explained to him that it is God Who endows us with the inalienable right to life and to self-defense, and that the American Constitution (with its accompanying Bill of Rights), written by God-fearing men, protects those rights, as it protects the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. It sure made him (and others who were listening) quiet.
This coworker may yet stew on the truths I have shared with him and be renewed in his mind. Then again, this Liberal believes that what is taken from *my* paycheck and put into the General Fund in the name of the Social Security system is not *my* money, but that of *all* Americans [a Communist philosophy]. He also believes that President Bush wants to put *all* of the Social Security trust fund in the stock market, that the rich get too many tax breaks and should pay more than he does, that corporate executives should have an arbitrarily decided upon cap on their salary, and that Conservative Republicans are more dangerous to our country than Saddam! (We have a long row to hoe here.)
I often forget the amazing fact that much of what I share with Liberals comes to them as brand new information, or as a brand new thought.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.