Gun Control

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 shoot outs 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. Th e 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 firear