It's been a very tough week for 2nd Amendment advocates. After a gunman in Binghampton, NY. killed 13, and a Pittsburgh, Pa. assassin ambushed 3 policemen, gun crime is again in the headlines: A man from Graham, Wash. killed his five kids because he believed his wife was going to leave him.What marks these three massacres as different from the shootings that occur in the inner cities every single day is that the gunmen used registered guns they had obtained legally.
An excuse I have often used to defend the 2nd Amendment is that most gun crime in America occurs with illegal guns, in the hands of criminals. Banning ownership of handguns wouldn't prevent any of those crimes - because the ban would only affect law abiding gun-owners.
However, these tragic events have highlighted the flaw in my philosophy. These murders were committed by 'law-abiding' gun owners. Each of them obtained deadly weapons legally, meaning that a gun ban would, theoretically, have denied them the opportunity to get hold of those guns in the first place (and subsequently kill people with them.)
CK and Coffee Bean both argued that kitchen knives and cars also kill thousands of people a year, so if you're going to ban anything 'dangerous' than you should start with those.
This is, again, a flawed argument. Handguns are designed to kill people. That is their only purpose. Cars and kitchen knives can be used to kill people, but those deaths are incidental to the actual purpose of the device.
Whatever argument they use, most 2nd Amendment advocates fail to state an effective case. It's not exactly rocket science - recent history has shown us that the current 'gun laws' are ineffective at keeping deadly weapons out of the hands of people who will use them.
If gun control was tighter, it's likely that many of the people being buried in Binghampton would still be alive today.
That being said, I think a gun-ban in America would ultimately be a futile gesture. Like 2nd Amendment advocates should wake up and smell the coffee, quitting hiding behind their circular pro-gun arguments, there are certain truths us anti-gun activists need to admit to ourselves as well:
- There are millions of handguns in America. If somebody wants to get their hands on a handgun, legally or not, it really isn't that difficult or expensive.
- A gun ban won't reduce the number of handguns in circulation, just stop new ones being sold.
- In Britain and major American cities, statistics prove that gun crime explodes by up to 300% after a ban on handguns.
- The only American crime statistic that is lower that Britain's is 'burglary.' Home ownership of a handgun is cited as the major deterrent for burglaries and home invasions.
- Murders and suicides in America are most often committed with handguns out of convenience. A handgun ban wouldn't necessarily reduce them - merely inspire another method (hence why knife-crime has shot up in Britain, where guns are illegal.)
(I can just imagine all the gun owners barricading themselves in their house, defending their beloved guns with a fervor that most people would reserve for their children.)
No, the fact is that guns are here to stay in America - at least until public opinion gets so poisoned by these shootings that the voice of 2nd Amendment advocates finally gets drowned out.
I can't see that happening any time soon - and, as most gun-nuts will remind you, even when that time does come, they only way we can take their precious guns away is 'from their cold, dead hands.'
That's the mentality that scares and disgusts me. However misguided the liberal intention to ban guns is, at least it's an intention founded on the preservation of life. Gun owners and 2nd Amendment nuts might hide behind the constitution and words like 'liberty,' 'deterrence' and 'protection', but at the end of the day they're fighting for the right to have an easy, convenient way to kill another human being.
I don't know anybody who's been killed by American gun crime, but I do have two friends who've both lost family members in senseless shootings. I don't think either of them would argue that the proliferation of deadly handguns in America isn't a very real (if insurmountable) problem.
5 comments:
It might interest you to know that we do not own any guns, nor have we ever. We have talked about getting one on different occasions but have never taken any serious steps in that direction. At the same time, we are very much for retaining the right to bear arms.
I agree with you that if guns were banned and the government were to go door to door to confiscate them that it could spark a civil war.
I absolutely detest reducing lives to numbers but you have to look at the overall picture and the shear number of guns already out there against crimes and accidents involving legally registered guns.
I'm sorry if I offended you, CB! I know I go off on a bit of a rant sometimes...
Ironically I don't own a gun either, but you let a ban go down.. I'd buy one (legally or not) and be a part of the impending civil war. Though is people vs. government officials a civil war or a overthrow of the government? Because the HIGH majority of Americans would revolt on such a move.
You big silly! (our oldest daughter used to say that when she was little) You don't offend me! I love your blog because you think differently than I do and I appreciate the window into your thoughts!
I don't know if I count as one of the friends who've lost a family member to senseless gun crime, but if not, you can add me to the list.
To anyone else reading the comment, my cousin, 25, was murdered in New Orleans on September 27, 2008. She was there volunteering and learning about peaceful anarchistic and non-capitalist societies. The only motive the police or FBI have been able to uncover is that her murderer wanted the old bicycle she was riding. She was shot three times in the face.
I understand the complexities of a gun ban, and actually am not particularly in favor, as I generally prefer giving people more rights rather than taking them away. But I do find the logic that guns are just as dangerous as cars or kitchen knives actually offensive. Sure, people die riding in cars and from people wielding kitchen knives (I've been in a situation where a roommate cut up an intruder with a hunting machete, so I understand that knives are dangerous, too), but like Roland said, their primary purpose isn't to cause harm to another human being. What do guns do OTHER than harm people? What primary service do they offer? And if you're to argue that they protect the holder - how do they do it but by injuring another? Or at the very least threatening to do so.
I just have a hell of a hard time validating the proliferation of something that, had it not been so readily might have been available, might mean my cousin would still be alive.
And that's my rant for the moment. Sorry about the tangent, Roland.
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