Why Gun Control Won't Work in America

Now that even the more vitriolic media windbags have stopped trying to blame the tragic Arizona shootings on Sarah Palin, a more logical scapegoat has cropped up - guns.

And not without good reason. After all, the deranged young man who gunned down Rep. Giffords and murdered six others did so with a semi-automatic handgun he'd bought entirely legally from the Sportsman's Warehouse last November.

As a Brit - where handguns have been absolutely illegal for well over a decade, and tightly controlled for decades before that - it does seem like madness. What kind of society is it in which somebody can pop into a sporting goods store and pick up a 9mm instrument of death as casually as they buy a new pair of Speedos?

Well, it's America - where there are 50 guns for every member of the population (before you balk, there are an not inconsequential 6 guns for every Brit. That's a lot more than I'd expected, given how tight gun control is over there.)

This means that guns are everywhere in America - so banning the sale of them would still leave millions of handguns in legal and illegal circulation.

If a madman like the one who shot Rep. Giffords wanted to get his hands on a semi-automatic, gun control would add another step to the process, but he'd still be able to get one easily enough.

Don't believe me? Let me regale you with a story from my youth. Back in England, where private handgun ownership was illegal, I still knew a kid who took a gun to school.

It was a .45 caliber Browning semi-automatic that somebody's grandfather had been issued when he was serving in Cyprus in the '50s. When grandpa died, one of his offspring had purloined it from his effects and then sold it to this schoolkid for the princely sum of 25 quid. It didn't have bullets, and the kid had no place to get them, but even in 'gun free' Britain it shows that getting your hands on a shooter isn't exactly difficult.

Imagine, then, that guns are ten times more prolific and there's a subculture of 2nd Amendment nuts clinging to their cherished weapons. It's clear to see that the Arizona killer wouldn't need to look far to find a weapon, or ammunition.

And this is really where gun control fails in America. Gun control only limits the rights of law-abiding citizens to legally purchase handguns. The vast majority of gun crime, however, is not committed by law-abiding citizens, and the guns used to commit it are generally not purchased legally. There are millions of unregistered guns circulating through the criminal element in America and shutting up the Sportsman's Warehouse wouldn't prevent any of them being used to commit crimes.

But might it have prevented the shooting of Rep. Giffords and the other six victims?

In a country where guns are so prolific, it's impossible to say yes. Admittedly, the gun was purchased from a store - but the killer was shown to have been brooding about his attack for weeks in advance, so if he hadn't have bought that gun legally, from the Sportsman's Warehouse, it's entirely possible he would have found one somewhere else, illegally.

America - especially places like Arizona - is like the Wild West. People have guns out there. In a society in which almost anybody can be packing heat, it does seem fairer and safer to be able to give the law-abiding citizens the right to buy guns to defend themselves with, rather than ensure that only criminals have the 'right' to bear arms.

And that doesn't just sound like madness - it is. It's an impossible situation, a true Catch-22, but it's the truth.

The fact is, banning the sale of guns won't make the guns disappear, and there are literally hundred of millions of them circulating throughout America. That means that tragedies like the Rep. Gifford's shooting are going to happen again - and again - whether there's gun control or not.

More on guns...

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.)

The fact is that America is rife with guns. I think the country's too far gone to ever see any benefit from a gun ban. Short of going from house to house, confiscating and destroying millions of guns, I don't think a handgun ban will ever effectively reduce crime - in fact, such a move would more likely spark a civil war than anything else!

(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.

Gun Control?

Based on some comments I received from the lovely Coffee Bean and Tom, I decided to reprint something I wrote after the tragic Virginia Tech shootings - on my defunct 'political' website, Editorial Bear.

You can read the original here...

Gun control is fundamentally flawed. Out of the millions of guns floating around America, a significant number (15% apparently) are unregistered and illegal. These are the guns floating around in the hands of criminals. This minority of guns causes the majority of crimes and banning the 85% of registered weapons will do nothing to curb the circulation of illegal firearms.

In fact, statistics show gun control can have a negative impact on crime figures.

• New Jersey adopted what sponsors described as "the most stringent gun law" in the nation in 1966; two years later, the murder rate was up 46 percent and the reported robbery rate had nearly doubled.
  
• In 1968, Hawaii imposed a series of increasingly harsh measures and its murder rate, then a low 2.4 per 100,000 per year, tripled to 7.2 by 1977.
  
• In 1976, Washington, D.C., enacted one of the most restrictive gun control laws in the nation. Since then, the city's murder rate has risen 134 percent while the national murder rate has dropped 2 %.
  
• Over 50% of American households own guns, despite government statistics showing the number is approximately 35%, because guns not listed on any government roll were not counted during the gathering of data. [9]
  
• Evanston, Ill., a Chicago suburb of 75,000 residents, became the largest town to ban handgun ownership in September 1982 but experienced no decline in violent crime.
  
• Among the 15 states with the highest homicide rates, 10 have restrictive or very restrictive gun laws.
  
• 20 percent of U.S. homicides occur in four cities with just 6 percent of the population - New York, Chicago, Detroit and Washington, D.C. - and each has a virtual prohibition on private handguns.[8]
  
• UK banned private ownership of all handguns in 1997. Since 1998 the number of people injured by firearms in England and Wales has more than doubled, despite massive increase in number of police personnel.[9]
  
• Violent crime accelerated in Jamaica after handguns were banned.

The problem is in America itself. Despite a century of advancement, the country is still very much like the Wild West. Guns are everywhere. Effective gun control, like we've got in the UK, would take decades to really work.

Statistics suggest that 9 children under the age of 19 die from gunshots every single day in the United States. If private gun ownership was banned, would that figure be reduced?

But more importantly, would the American right wing be willing to sacrifice the "security" of private gun ownership to prevent these deaths?

In a country in which most states still allow people to carry concealed weapons (at least the cowboys had 'em on show) I think the answer to that question is a resounding no.

And so it begins...

The Supreme Court's decision to uphold the right to bear arms might have been legal... But was it for the common good?

Already, gun freaks [That's an offensive term. We prefer to label them sufferers of 'Small Manhood Syndrome' - Editorial Bear] are pushing the envelope to see just how much idiocy they can get away with.

Target Practice in Texas

Read the story here...

In Texas, a 62 year old man saw suspected burglars in his neighbour's house. He called 911 and told them he was going to take his twelve gauge and confront them.

In the 911 call, a dispatcher urged the Texan to stay inside his house and not risk lives.

"Don't go outside the house," the 911 operator pleaded. "You're going to get yourself shot if you go outside that house with a gun. I don't care what you think."

"You want to make a bet?" the Texas gunman answered. "I'm going to kill them."

And he did - shooting both burglars in the back.

Remarkably, a Grand Jury eventually decided not to press charges against the 62 year old, citing he committed the double homicide in self defence. Despite the fact that:

• The burglars were outside, he was safely inside and they presented no immediate threat to him.
• He shot them by surprise, in the back, again suggesting that they presented no immediate threat to him.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating burglary and I think if you break into somebody's house, you deserve everything you get. But there is a clear difference between self-defense and making a premeditated decision to ambush and shoot two (possibly unarmed) men in the back - especially after announcing your intention to a 911 operator beforehand!

Premeditated pre·med·i·tat·ed /prɪˈmɛdɪˌteɪtɪd/ –adjective : done deliberately; planned in advance: i.e. a premeditated murder.

This Texan wasn't 'defending his home.' He was 'administering justice.' That's not his job - and he should pay the penalty for taking the law into his own murderous hands.

Airport Antics

Georgia, home to the Duke boys and the gorgeous Katie from Cuppa Joe, has recently passed a law allowing people to carry concealed handguns pretty much anywhere they like.

Previously, even if you had a Carry and Conceal permit, you were forbidden from taking your gun into any store or business that displayed a sign banning handguns (it's called personal choice, people!)

Gun nuts have helped overturn that ruling, allowing people to heft their concealed 'manhood compensation' anywhere they'd like. But Atlanta airport - the most fearsome Delta hub on the planet - is not impressed with that ruling.

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin said; "allowing citizens to carry firearms would create an environment that would endanger millions of people."

And she's quite right. Airports are the last place I want self-righteous sociopaths to be packing heat. One wrong move and your turban-wearing baggage handler might suddenly find himself the wrong end of an idiot's '2nd Amendment Rights' just because he was guilty of 'lookin' kinda A-rab.'

Anybody who's seen Goldfinger knows that airplanes and guns don't mix. Therefore, I will feel a LOT safer if guns are quite rightly forbidden from the airport. Currently, the General Manager of the airport has made the situation clear: "Leave your firearms at home."

However, some people, like Republican Tim Bearden, have decided to ignore the politely worded instruction and boasted to the Associated Press that he'd be packing 'concealed heat' when he headed over to the airport to pick up his family that week.

Read the story (and weep) here.

Mentality

This is the problem with private gun ownership. THE PEOPLE WHO OWN GUNS.

In countries like Switzerland, the military is made up of a civilian militia and therefore every homeowner in the country is required, by law, to own a fully automatic rifle at home. Yet per head of population, their rate of gun crime is fractional compared to America's.

Why?

Because these poor people don't proudly choose to become gun owners. They have gun ownership thrust upon them. They are the very living embodiment of 'a well regulated militia' as defined by the 2nd Amendment - and well regulated militias don't shoot retreating burglars in the back.

I can understand the logic of private gun ownership. I can understand the desire to protect your home and family. What I can't understand is crossing that line from 'home defence' to pretending to be a cowboy. This is why I'm convinced that the most vocal advocates of gun ownership are the people least suitable to keep firearms!

Attention Gun Owners!

I am all about civil liberties and personal responsibility, so I've always backed the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment that gives Americans the right to own guns. Despite my best judgement.

You see, for every dry and academic report proving that private gun ownership reduces crime (Editorial Bear lists some here) there's an inbred idiot like this:

Man Shoots Wife While Installing Satellite Dish
by John Blunda, WCSH Portland

A Missouri man shot his wife while trying to install their satellite television dish.

The Deepwater, Missouri man apparently wanted to punch a hole in the wall to run some wires. When drilling didn't work, he used bullets. He says he had no idea his wife was standing outside in the line of fire.

Full story here.

This illustrates the major problem in letting everybody have the right to own firearms. You're letting everybody have the right to own firearms.

And 'everybody' is a bloody idiot.

As far as I'm concerned, it's fair enough to own a handgun for 'home defence.' Whatever you think about gun control, it's a proven fact that burglary rates in America are minuscule compared to Great Britain because nobody wants to raid a house if the owners are 'packing heat.'

It's also perfectly acceptable to own shotguns and rifles for hunting - when I was growing up we had a shotgun that my father used to blast magpies with.

The problem lies in dumb people owning guns. Like people who own an excessive number of guns (there's being a collector and there's being a small, one-man military dictatorship.) Or people who use guns for a purpose to which they're not designed (like installing a satellite dish, or changing a car tyre.)

Dumb people owning guns. That's the problem. And you don't even have to be that stupid to be a dumb gun owner. When I was a teenager, I had a blank-firing six-shooter and after emerging from one accidental, ear-ringing cloud of gun smoke, I discovered first hand that you can never take anybody's word for it when they tell you 'don't worry, it's not loaded.'

Until gun owners stop bleating mantras like 'guns don't kill people, people kill people' and actually start doing something about keeping guns out of the sticky fingers of stupid people, the only cause they're going to be giving ammunition to is the anti-gun lobby.

Only in America...

My brother in law has this stern warning to terrorists pinned on his warehouse wall.

He and my other brother in law rented the guns out in the Nevada desert and by the looks of that grouping, they're pretty handy with them!

As a Brit, an interest in handguns is entirely alien to me... However it's interesting to note that the gun crime figures in New Jersey have risen sharply since the NJ State legislature brought in some of the toughest gun control laws in the country.

It's a similar story in England, where the outright ban on private handgun ownership preempted a threefold increase in gun related injuries.

When Tina and I finally get ourselves established, I don't think we'll get ourselves a gun. They frighten me too much. But I am willing to accept that banning handguns is not the answer to stopping America's terrifying gun crime statistics.