Logic Of The Left And Gun Control
Politicians who support gun control, and gun control advocates, are either ignorant, power hungry control freaks, or delusional idealists. Ignorance would mean simply lacking in knowledge of the subject, but because of their positions, and touted “research,” they should know the subject. Power hungry control freaks would indicate a desire to subjugate a population under their perspective of reality regardless of facts. And finally delusional idealists believe that all mankind can live in such a way as to make weapons unnecessary and that we can force this position by simply taking away the weapons.
Each and every position is lacking in common sense and logic. First: history of mankind has shown that violence by man against man has always taken place. Some have argued that it is human nature but in a civilized society we try to provide mechanisms to allow alternatives to violence. For many of us that is sufficient, for others – not so much. Secondly: for whatever reason; some people seemed to be pre-disposed to violence. Jack the ripper, who still evokes terror and disgust from society, did his deeds with a knife. Whether you call it a mental derangement or just plain evil there are bad people in the world, there always has been and there always will be. Lastly; to believe a utopian ideal can be accomplished by forcing people to do so is delusional on its face. The vast majority of people when facing starvation or watching their loved ones starve will do things they normally would not do to save them – steal, fight, and perhaps even kill to save the lives of themselves and their loved ones.
To be right up front – gun control is not about guns, it never has been, it is about control. There is no other conclusion that can be drawn. Let’s take the Colorado movie theater nut-job for instance; at his home police found a number of explosives and bomb making equipment. He had the knowledge to build “sophisticated” explosive devices. Do we think for one moment that if by some miracle every firearm in the US was confiscated and no firearms were smuggled into the country and no garage shop machinist built a weapon for him that he would not have used those explosive devices to carry out his fiendish plot?
The common denominator in all this is the individual. Does a person become more dead if he is killed by a firearm rather than a pipe bomb or a sword or an icepick? The object that kills is merely a tool chosen by the individual. The act of killing, by whatever tool, is still a crime, and has always been a crime.
We also always hear from the left that we need to make it harder for the criminals to get guns. Really? So why do they pass laws against the law abiding citizen making it harder for them to defend themselves from the criminal? The criminal is doing nothing new. His behavior has not changed only the tools he has used. We have outlawed many inanimate objects over the centuries and not once has it made those objects go away. A perfect example are drug laws. We have passed thousands of pages of laws to outlaw drugs and decades later we have more drugs on the street than ever before. We outlawed alcohol nation-wide only to repeal it a few years later after it failed so miserably.
What is the common denominator here? To use a TV phrase it is the “human factor.” Does it matter what drug a person is on when he runs someone over in his car? Does it change the effect on the person struck? Does it matter what tool was used to threaten someone in a robbery? Is the effect more devasting if he uses a black Beamer instead of a station wagon? What we need to focus on is the behavior – not tools.
An example of the lefts logic is given by ex-President Jimmy Carter who stated
“I have used weapons since I was big enough to carry one, and now own two handguns, four shotguns and three rifles, two with scopes. I use them carefully, for hunting game from our family woods and fields, and occasionally for hunting with my family and friends in other places. We cherish the right to own a gun and some of my hunting companions like to collect rare weapons. One of them is a superb craftsman who makes muzzle-loading rifles, one of which I displayed for four years in my private White House office.
But none of us wants to own an assault weapon, because we have no desire to kill policemen or go to a school or workplace to see how many victims we can accumulate before we are finally shot or take our own lives. That’s why the White House and Congress must not give up on trying to reinstate a ban on assault weapons, even if it may be politically difficult.”[1]
First of all try to overlook the rhetoric of wanting “to kill policemen” etc. This is an emotional plea to sway people to his position and has nothing to do with the facts. No law abiding citizen wants to do these things and having a law against assault weapons will not deter a criminal from getting them. Secondly, President Carter is disingenuous at best when he talks about the “assault weapons” ban. He stated he owns three rifles, two with scopes and the only difference between his firearms and the assault weapon is in the furniture attached to it. (Furniture is the items attached to the firearm, stock, hand guards, flash suppressor, etc.)
An assault weapon, according to the assault weapon ban, is any firearm that had a certain number of furniture items on the firearm. For instance if I remove the “flash suppressor” and replace it with a muzzle break, change the pistol grip to a one piece stock that had a thumb-hole in it, and reduced the magazine from 20 rounds to 10 – have I changed the ballistic capability of the weapon? A 7.62 (30 cal) round will impact with the same devastation regardless of what the weapon LOOKS LIKE. An M-16 rifle shoots the 5.56/.223 round and is used around the world by many militaries. Do you think the round will be less effective if shot from a rifle that is set-up as a non-militaristic looking weapon?
Let’s look at this from a different point of view: in the Supreme Court case of United States V. Miller, the Supreme Court found in favor of the United States concerning the interstate transportation of a sawed off shotgun. The defense argued that the weapon was protected under the Second Amendment and Justice McReynolds gave the opinion of the court stating:
“In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a “shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length” at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment, or that its use could contribute to the common defense.”[2]
Their finding of the court in supporting the US government’s position was that the weapon would NOT be covered under the second amendment as it was NOT a part of the “ordinary military equipment.” However, assault weapons ARE a part of the normal military equipment and therefore ARE covered under the Second Amendment. We cannot have it both ways.
Senator Diane Feinstein likewise shows here ignorance stating:
“Weapons of war don’t belong on the streets,” Feinstein said on Fox News. This is a powerful weapon, it had a 100-round drum; this is a man who planned, who went in, and his purpose was to kill as many people as he could in a sold-out theater. We’ve got to really sit down and come to grips with what is sold to the average citizen in America.”
“I have no problem with people being licensed to buy a firearm, but these are weapons that are only going to be used to kill a lot of people in close combat,” she said.[3]
We have already covered the legal, Second Amendment, aspect to gun control but what about the moral rights of the citizen to have firearms? She states that these are used to kill people “in close combat.” It is interesting that she uses that terminology. I’m sure she used it to evoke a negative militaristic emotion from the reader as something inherently evil. The act at the theater was most definitely evil but the weapon was just a tool.
But getting back to Ms. Feinstein and the moral right of the people – why did the founders put the second amendment into the Bill of Rights? Was it to allow Americans to hunt and go target shooting? No. Was it to come to the aid of the country and keep the peace? Yes in part. Was it to be a check and balance to civil authority against a tyrannical government? Absolutely.
United States Representative Ron Paul, from the 14th District in Texas, stated in a November 6th, 2006 article entitled “Gun Control on the Back Burner”:
“The Second amendment is not about hunting deer or keeping a pistol in your nightstand. It is not about protecting oneself against common criminals. It is about preventing tyranny. The Founders knew that unarmed citizens would never be able to overthrow a tyrannical government as they did. They envisioned government as a servant, not a master, of the American people. The muskets they used against the British Army were the assault rifles of that time. It is practical, rather than alarmist, to understand that unarmed citizens cannot be secure in their freedoms.”[4]
We know this is the position of those that organized this country for it was written in the Declaration of Independence stating that “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it”… but “not for light and transient causes…” but for when that government becomes tyrannical “it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
This is the reason that the Second Amendment was secured to the people. Because this is exactly what they experienced, and the history of mankind has shown this pattern to repeat in every government since the dawn of man.
Those on the left talk of wanting to protect the citizens by enacting tougher gun laws but by enacting these laws they disarm law abiding citizens thereby aiding the criminal. They totally overlook the entire history of mankind and the fact that governments have killed more of their own citizens than the criminals ever have and the very first thing a government does is to remove the ability of the citizen to resist by first registering and then confiscating weapons; whether that is a sword or a rifle.
The gun control advocates would have us believe the following:
First: Gun control laws curb criminal behavior.
Second: If gun availability is lessened there would be a decrease in gun crimes.
Third: More gun control means safer streets, schools, homes, etc.
All three statements would be true, in a vacuum or in a totally controlled environment. If we add the human element into the equation, these statements become false.
First, as we have already discussed, the criminal does not obey the law and therefore does not care about legally purchasing or owning firearms. Do we really believe that someone who is capable of rape or murder cares one whit about registering a firearm or submitting for a license? Of course not! He does not obey the law; therefore, no law will curb his behavior.
Second, in every state where handguns are freely permitted to be carried there has been a lessening of overall violent crimes. It does seem to follow, “if you outlaw guns, the only people who will have guns will be the outlaws.”
Third, the city with the most stringent gun control laws is the city with the highest gun crime, Washington D.C.
So why doesn’t gun control work? It is really quite simple, laws are meant to control and regulate “behavior” not objects, a set of standards, if you will, that says these things we do not do, and if you do them there will be consequences. Legal systems are designed to provide a framework of acceptable “behavior” by which persons within a society interact with each other. Murder is illegal in nearly every society on the face of the earth. The manner in which that murder is accomplished is simply tool identification. The lack of moral upbringing and interference by the government has removed parental power. Today a child in some cities cannot be spanked out of fear that child protective services will take their child away. Yet, the state makes the parents responsible for the child’s behavior, and stands between the child and parent when discipline is most needed. If a child grows up thinking there are no harsh consequences to whatever he does, then he will do whatever he wants. The problem with our society is not the availability of guns it is the absence of a moral standard for our society and an advancement of secular belief that denies God in the public square.
What our nation needs are laws that punish criminal behavior and to stop criminalizing honest citizens who wish only to protect themselves and their families. Both the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) statistics have shown that the majority of violent crimes are committed without firearms, and the vast majority of gun crimes are committed with guns that were illegally obtained, bypassing gun laws. So the net effect of gun control laws is to affect the law abiding citizen and has virtually no effect on the criminal element of our society.
So instead of listening to lying politicians, agenda driven special interest groups, start taking responsibility for your own life. Stop demanding from someone else what you are too much of a coward to do yourself. The Supreme Court has stated the police are not liable to protect any individual citizen. Then if they are not – who is? YOU!
If more law abiding citizens would purchase, train, and start taking responsibility for themselves and their position in society, those who would do them ill would think twice about it. And all you PC business owners, like Colorado movie theaters, who make it unlawful for a law abiding citizen to defend himself have created an environment that emboldens the lawless because no one is going to be able to do a damn thing to stop them. These businesses have a degree of responsibility for creating a venue of criminal terror.
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Footnotes:
[i] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/opinion/27Carter.html
[ii] http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0307_0174_ZO.html
[iii]http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/239343-feinstein-johnson-spar-over-expired-assault-weapons-ban