The Danger of Gun Control Laws

Forgive me but I have the need to get on my soapbox now about a very important issue. The Second Amendment states, in part, that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.  The words ‘shall not’ definitely means something.  The words ‘the people’ mean you and your neighbor.  The stated, expressed purpose of the retention of this right is for defense.  All current debates about the regulation of this common means of defense, during the formative years of the United States, are misplaced.

Current political debates about gun control:

• Do not take into consideration who is using weapons, of any kind, in an illegal or dangerous manner.

• Do understand what role a weapon plays in the daily lives of some people as they usually have armed guards at their side much of the time.

• Confuse the presence of a gun in a lawful citizen’s possession as just ‘one more gun on the streets.’

• Do not understand what the weapon in American culture means.

Gun control laws are actually dangerous because they do not take into consideration the largest population of gun wielding maniacs is not the law abiding citizens.  There are approximately 310 million people in the United States and, according to gun and rifle manufacturers, approximately 300 million weapons owned by them.  There are not that many crimes committed with guns in the average year or even decade.  Consider the following:

• These are purchased and used for:  Hunting – 58%; Target shooting – 66% and Protection against crimes – 67%.

• For the year 2008, 5,340,000 violent crimes were committed in all categories.  8% of them (436,000) were committed with a visible gun.  What was used in all of the rest that should be controlled?

• In all criminal activities that are committed by someone with a gun, they intended or were prepared to use that weapon.

• 42% of Americans will be the victim of a completed crime and 82% will be involved in an attempted violent crime. 52% of Americans will be the victim more than once.

• All criminal use of a weapon, on each occasion, will be ended by them being stopped by another weapon or their own weapon turned upon themselves.

Gun control laws, as being discussed as political fixes, are actually dangerous because they attempt to control people rather than a weapon.  Many of these proposals would require trigger guards, safes and the placement of ammunition in another location.  This makes their purpose of self protection a rather complicated operation requiring an amount of time that might not be available to them in an emergency situation. Like most responsible gun owners, we have our firearms securely locked away securely in a gun safe. Since we only have a couple pistols, the best gun safe for us was an inexpensive GunVault which we keep next to our bed. For others, they may need a large floor-standing model to hold their rifles, AR-15s or whatever else they have. The point being is that in the future, we may also need to hide our guns from the government which is definitely not something our founding fathers had in mind.

“Gun control will not stop crazy people from committing murder.”

Other elements of politically popular bills deal with background checks, sizes of cartridges, amount of rounds in each magazine and, nonsensically, the physical appearance of the weapon.  There is more stopping power in a .257 Magnum than a M16, however, the M16 looks mean!  And it also has a barrel guard which has to mean it is a military style assault rifle.

Gun control laws are actually dangerous because the framers of the US Constitution knew that a day could come when the words ‘being necessary to the security of a free state’, within the Second Amendment, meant something that is being overlooked, at least in the debates on the subject.  During a time when Homeland Security has more ammunition than was needed to prosecute the war in Iraq and even the Department of Education has a SWAT team, the people’s right to protect their property is a fundamental right.

The most dangerous part of this is not the intellectual debate, but what it does to the relationship between the government and a sovereign people.