Gun Control for Dummies
Dummy Myth Number 1: the Evil Gun Show Loophole
It used to be a running joke that small matters, matters of great importance, should require an Act of Congress. So it goes with the evil Gunshow Loophole of Doom. It is quite dumb and therefore unworthy of a “Universal Background Check.” It isn't dumb because I say so: it is dumb because the U.S. Department of Justice says so: that's where 0.8% of the guns from incarcerated inmates seem to come from.
Dummy Myth Number 2: Evil Assault Weapons
Trevor Burrus, a research fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies, recently wrote an article, Assessing New Gun Control Proposals,published February 14, 2013, on the Blaze. Mr. Burrus noted that “assault weapons” are rarely used in crime. “In 2011, nearly 13,000 people were killed by violent acts, yet only 343 were killed by rifles of any type. By comparison, blunt objects (hammers, bats, etc.) killed 500. Furthermore, if assault weapons are banned, it does not follow that those 343 people would still be alive. The killers would just choose a different weapon.”
Not only are assault weapons rarely used, rifles as a complete class are rarely used. Only about 2% of people actually killed were killed by rifles at all. Supposedly, these rifles are particularly deadly, yet bare fists kill more people every year than rifles. They are used for target shooting and home defense. One such self-defense use was reported by Lynette Adams of WHEC in Rochester, New York: Chief: Rochester man scares off burglars with AR 15 rifle Posted at: 01/23/2013 5:39 PM By: Lynette Adams,WHEC.com.
“Rochester Police Chief James Sheppard says a resident of a home confronted two burglars with a semi-automatic assault rifle and scared the would-be burglars off. It happened around midnight Tuesday. Chief Sheppard says the weapon is legal and is legally owned by the resident. It's the style of gun that the homeowner used that some anti-gun advocates say shouldn't even be available. News10NBC spoke with the homeowner Wednesday night. He says he shudders to think what would have happened if he hadn't had a gun. He believes that gun saved his life and the lives of his roommates.” http://www.whec.com/news/stories/S2906900.shtml?cat=565 .
It takes a really dummy to think that rifles of all types are a significant factor in violent crime as it has been clearly shown and is well-known that they are not. It is not only nearly dumb, it is really most sincerely dumb to think that an entire class of firearms, rifles, inclusive of those branded assault rifles, that are involved in 2% of the nasty things warrant more than 2% of the attention or could affect more than an 2% improvement in some mythical, unobtainable, fairy-land magical erasure from society.
Dummy Myth Number 3: School Shootings are Common
School shootings aren't at all common, although they are constantly touted and referenced as such. The worst school disaster wasn't recent, it was May 18, 1927, in Michigan, resulting in 38 dead children along with four adults. Hundreds of pounds of dynamite and incendiary pyrotol were used in the Bath School Disaster, with an additional 500 pounds of unexploded dynamite found during rescue efforts. Hardly a mass shooting at all, it was a bombing.
The
ATF initiated Siege of Waco in 1993, augmented by the FBI, resulted in
seventy-six men, women and children dead 50 days later, dying in a fire.
It was all about a goofed-up attempt to serve an ATF search warrant. Sadly,
the ATF/FBI event served as unholy inspiration for Timothy McVeigh.
The Oklahoma City bombing of 1995 was certainly a mass killing, using
not guns but 4,800 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, nitromethane,
and diesel fuel mixture. It was 168 dead, including 19 children under
the age of 6, and over 680 injured.
Unforeseeable and tragic events are part of life. Yet, is beyond dumb to think that all tragedies can be prevented. It is also a very strange strain of selective morality to suggest that of the 13,000 violent deaths that occur as in 2011, only a fraction of a percent of them are worthy of attention. The mother that drowns her children, the father that poisons and kills his son by lacing his Halloween candy with cyanide-- these events are no less real and no less worthy of national sadness. The current epidemic of suicides by American soldiers as well as the epidemic of suicides by our veterans are all too conveniently ignored, as if “We the People” somehow does not include them, but only applies to a small number of only the most sympathetic of all deaths.
Dummy Myth Number 4: Gun Laws Work
This is the greatest gun myth of all. We know better. Dummies in Washington like to clumsily co-mingle unassociated events into “Gun Crime.” There isn't anything good about a mass-killing / suicide, except to say that for the successful mass-killing / suicide perpetrator, they are highly unlikely to be repeat offenders. The maniac or deranged individual, no longer connected to reality, cannot be rationally lumped in with the general, common criminal. Yet, for the expediency of burning the Constitution, it is all tossed into the same bucket of wash. The deranged have indeed killed or maimed, perhaps as instructed by the neighbor's dog possessed by a demon, perhaps because the Beatles wrote some music, perhaps because you are nuts enough to think you can make a political statement. Oddly, you can attempt to assassinate the President of the United States and eventually walk out of prison, as Lynette Fromme and Sara Jane Moore have recently demonstrated.
The strange, unusual, bizarre, and insane may sell media ads, but popular, common crime is what should be self-evident: theft, gang, and drug-related. As Trevor Burrus of Cato recently wrote: “First and foremost is a failed but perpetual drug war that turns nonviolent people into criminals and helps create a network of black markets where violence is necessary part of doing business. Those black markets are also conduits for illegal weapons. Approximately 20% of guns used in crimes come from these markets. Second, we must address a failed public school system, particularly in inner cities, that helps perpetuate poverty and crime. Nearly 66 percent of African-American males who drop out of high school will spend at least a year in prison. Schools must be adaptive to these situations rather than locked in to a failed model because of bureaucratic and political inertia. School choice is the only viable option for fixing those problems.”
Dummy Myth Number 5: Gun Laws Work, Even Sometimes
We should all thank Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago for his generous contribution to the Second Amendment Foundation, in support of gun rights everywhere. It is a pity that Mayor Emanuel uses tax dollars from the citizens of Chicago to finance his ill-advised gun grabbing attempts. When you are on the wrong side of the Constitution, there is a price to be paid. Chicago continues to pay it.
I live in northern Illinois. The crime capital of Illinois is Chicago, not all that far away. Chicago has long had ridiculously restrictive gun laws, to the law-abiding citizen that is. For some 28 years, Chicago denied the law-abiding citizen the right to own a handgun. It wasn't until the Supreme Court heard McDonald vs. Chicago in 2010. Chicago and the State of Illinois attempts to disarm the normal, law-abiding citizen are infamous. You likely know that Chicago had over 500 murders in 2012, despite the continuous war on the 2nd Amendment waged by former mayor Richie Daley and current Mayor Rahm Israel Emanuel.
What you may not know is that the second largest city in Illinois is a short distance from where I live, and not particularly far away from Chicago: Aurora, Illinois. Aurora, Illinois is about 40 miles west of Chicago and has seen a population spike in recent years. In 2012, Aurora was completely murder-free. That's not a typo-- there were no homicides in Aurora, Illinois: zero, zip, notta. It wasn't because of gun laws, for Aurora gun laws aren't nearly as invasive as those of Chicago. Yes, Aurora residents have “assault rifles,” Glocks, high-capacity magazines, and so forth. The Aurora Sportsmen's club in Waterman, Illinois has 50ft, 25yd, 50yd, 100yd, 200yd, and 600yd Rifle/Pistol ranges that can handle any rimfire or centerfire firearm legal in Illinois (up to and including .50 BMG). ASC has two Skeet fields, three Trap fields, a 5-Stand field and a ten station/100 shot Sporting Clays course.
Aurora, Illinois has everything that Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago and some Washington politicians (including Illinois Senator Dick Durbin) want to strip away from law-abiding citizens. yet the city has managed to curb the homicide rate through a mix of efforts from community groups, schools, and local law enforcement including massive sweeps on gang members and drug dealers.
Now,
the second largest city in Illinois, by actually focusing on those who
commit crimes instead of law-abiding citizens, with a concerted effort
from community and police, has achieved an annual
homicide rate of zero. Just what is it that anybody, especially
Washington, does not understand?
Copyright 2013 by Randy Wakeman. All Rights Reserved.
