This reminds me of the video that James O’Keefe made of him and his colleagues posing as an anti-gun group. They asked people to put “Gun Free” signs in their front yard. Even the most hardcore gun control supporters refused to do so. Why? Because deep down everybody knows that criminals want easy targets, and responsible citizens carrying guns are a criminal’s worst nightmare.
Thomas Sowell has some wise words on gun control:
The dirty little secret is that gun-control laws do not actually control guns. They disarm law-abiding citizens, making them more vulnerable to criminals, who remain armed in disregard of such laws. In England, armed crimes skyrocketed as legal gun ownership almost vanished under increasingly severe gun-control laws in the late 20th century. (See the book Guns and Violence by Joyce Lee Malcolm.) But gun control has become one of those fact-free crusades, based on assumptions, emotions, and rhetoric.
What almost no one talks about is that guns are used to defend lives as well as to take lives. In fact, many of the horrific killings that we see in the media were brought to an end when someone else with a gun showed up and put a stop to the slaughter. The Cato Institute estimates that there are upwards of 100,000 defensive uses of guns per year. Preventing law-abiding citizens from defending themselves can cost far more lives than are lost in the shooting episodes that the media publicize. The lives saved by guns are no less precious just because the media pay no attention to them.
Many people who have never fired a gun in their lives and never faced life-threatening dangers nevertheless feel qualified to impose legal restrictions that can be fatal to others. And politicians eager to “do something” that gets them publicity know that the votes of the ignorant and the gullible are still votes.
No comments:
Post a Comment