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Failure of Gun Control Laws
Americans are faced with an ever-growing problem of violence.
Our streets have become a battleground where the elderly are
beaten for their social security checks, where terrified women are
viciously attacked and raped, where teen-age gangsters
shoot it out for a patch of turf to sell their illegal drugs, and
where innocent children are caught daily in the crossfire of drive-by
shootings. We cannot ignore the damage that these criminals are doing
to our society, and we must take actions to stop these
horrors. However, the effort by some misguided individuals to
eliminate the legal ownership of firearms does not address the
real problem at hand, and simply disarms the innocent law-abiding
citizens who are most in need of a form of self-defense.
To fully understand the reasons behind the gun control
efforts, we must look at the history of our country, and the role
firearms have played in it. The second amendment to the Constitution
of the United States makes firearm ownership legal in this country.
There were good reasons for this freedom, reasons which persist today.
Firearms in the new world were used initially for hunting, and
occasionally for self-defense. However, when the colonists felt that
the burden of British oppression was too much for them to bear, they
picked up their personal firearms and went to war. Standing against
the British armies, these rebels found themselves opposed by the
greatest military force in the world at that time. The 18th century
witnessed the height of the British Empire, but the rough band of
colonial freedom fighters discovered the power of the Minuteman, the
average American gun owner. These Minutemen, so named because they
would pick up their personal guns and jump to the defense of their
country on a minute's notice, served a major part in winning the
American Revolution. The founding fathers of this country understood
that an armed populace was instrumental in fighting off oppression,
and they made the right to keep and bear arms a constitutionally
guaranteed right.
Over the years, some of the reasons for owning firearms have
changed. As our country grew into a strong nation, we expanded
westward, exploring the wilderness, and building new towns on the
frontier. Typically, these new towns were far away from the centers of
civilization, and the only law they had was dispensed by townsfolk
through the barrel of a gun. Crime existed, but could be minimized
when the townspeople fought back against the criminals. Eventually,
these organized townspeople developed police forces as their towns
grew in size. Fewer people carried their firearms on the street, but
the firearms were always there, ready to be used in self-defense.
It was after the Civil War that the first gun-control
advocates came into existence. These were southern leaders who were
afraid that the newly freed black slaves would assert their newfound
political rights, and these leaders wanted to make it easier to
oppress the free blacks. This oppression was accomplished by passing
laws making it illegal in many places for black people to own
firearms. With that effort, they assured themselves that the black
population would be subject to their control, and would not have the
ability to fight back. At the same time, the people who were most
intent on denying black people their basic rights walked around with
their firearms, making it impossible to resist their efforts. An
unarmed man stands little chance against an armed one, and these armed
men saw their plans work completely. It was a full century before the
civil rights activists of the 1960s were able to restore the
constitutional freedoms that blacks in this country were granted in
the 1860s.
Today's gun control activists are a slightly different breed.
They claim that gun violence in this country has gotten to a point
where something must be done to stop it. They would like to see
criminals disarmed, and they want the random violence to stop. I agree
with their sentiments. However, they are going about it in the wrong
way. While claiming that they want to take guns out of the hands of
criminals, they work to pass legislation that would take the guns out
of the hands of law-abiding citizens instead. For this reason the
efforts at gun control do not address the real problem of crime.
The simple definition of a criminal is someone who does not
obey the law. The simple definition of a law-abiding citizen is
someone who does obey the law. Therefore, if we pass laws restricting
ownership of firearms, which category of people does it affect? The
simple answer is that gun control laws affect law-abiding citizens
only. By their very nature, the criminals will continue to violate
these new laws, they will continue to carry their firearms, and they
will find their efforts at crime much easier when they know that their
victims will be unarmed. The situation is similar to that of the
disarmed blacks a century ago. Innocent people are turned into victims
when new laws make it impossible for them to fight back. An unarmed
man stands little chance against an armed one.
An interesting recent development has been the backlash
against the gun-control advocates. In many states, including Florida
and Texas, citizens have stated that they want to preserve their right
to carry firearms for self-defense. Since the late 1980s, Florida has
been issuing concealed weapons permits to law-abiding citizens, and
these citizens have been carrying their firearms to defend themselves
from rampant crime. The result is that the incidence of violent crime
has actually dropped in contrast to the national average. Previously,
Florida had been leading the nation in this category, and the citizens
of that state have welcomed the change. Gun control advocates tried to
claim that there would be bloodshed in the streets when these citizens
were given the right to carry. They tried to claim that the cities of
Florida would become like Dodge City with shootouts on every street
corner. These gun control advocates were wrong. Over 200,000 concealed
carry permits have been issued so far, with only 36 of these permits
revoked for improper use of a firearm. This statistic is easy to
understand. It is the law-abiding citizens who are going through the
process of getting concealed carry permits so that they may legally
carry a firearm. The people who go through this legal process do not
want to break the law, and they do not intend to break the law. The
people who do intend to break the law will carry their guns whether or
not the law allows them to do so.
Criminals will always find ways to get guns. In this country
we have criminalized the use, possession, sale, and transportation of
many kinds of narcotics, but it's still easy for someone to take a
ride and purchase the drugs of their choice at street corner vendors.
Firearms and ammunition would be just as easy for these black-market
entrepreneurs to deliver to their customers. Today, criminals often
carry illegal weapons, including sawed-off shotguns, machine guns, and
homemade zip-guns, clearly showing their disregard for the current
laws which make these items illegal. And when they are caught, the
courts regularly dismiss these lesser weapons charges when prosecuting
for the more serious charges that are being committed with the
weapons.
The gun control advocates have argued their case by demonizing
the gun itself, rather than addressing the people who commit violent
crimes. This is the main fallacy in their argument. They slyly attempt
to claim that possession of a gun turns average citizens into
bloodthirsty lunatics. This theory falls apart under close scrutiny.
If legal possession of a firearm caused this sort of attitude, then
why are crime rates highest in areas such as Washington, D.C. and New
York City which have strict gun control laws? And why are crime rates
dropping in states such as Florida where private ownership of firearms
is encouraged? Simply stated, legal ownership of a gun does not cause
crime.
The most recent efforts of the gun control lobby has been to
claim that certain types of guns and ammunition are inherently evil.
They assign emotional catch phrases such as "assault weapons" and "cop
killer bullets" to broad categories of firearms and ammunition in the
hopes that people will believe that some guns have an evil nature.
Most people who are unfamiliar with firearms do not fully understand
what these phrases mean, and they accept the terms being used without
question. What people do not often understand is that the term
"assault weapon" has been defined to include all semi- automatic
rifles, and "cop killer" has been defined to include any bullet that
can penetrate type two body armor. It comes as a surprise to most
people that a large number of simple hunting rifles can do both. Does
ownership of one of these weapons cause people to become mass
murderers? It does not, and we must not fall into the trap of blaming
the sword for the hand that wields it.
So I've shown that the act of making it illegal to own
firearms does little to prevent criminals from getting guns. These
laws only restrict people who respect the law itself, the people who
would only use firearms for legal purposes anyway. And when we give
people the right to defend themselves, we find that criminals start
looking for other victims out of fear that they will become the
victims themselves. We must work to reduce crime in America, but we
should look at the problem realistically, and develop plans that would
be effective. It is obvious that gun control laws are neither
realistic, nor effective in reducing crime. Therefore, we must direct
our efforts toward controlling crime, not controlling legal ownership
of firearms.
ADDITIONAL FEATURED ESSAYS
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