Nowadays, it became a commonplace practice among leftist journalists and politicians to popularize the idea that restricting gun control laws even further will necessarily lead to decline of violent crime rates. Again and again, we get to hear that the reason why guns should be banned nationwide is that ‘guns kill’.
Apparently, the perceptional simple mindedness, on the part of advocates of gun control, prevents them from realizing the conceptual fallaciousness of such their suggestion. After all, according to criminal statistics, particularly heavy frying pans, hammers, axes and kitchen knives kill even more people then privately owned guns (murders committed in the state of affect) – and yet, no sober-minded person would ever suggest that citizens should be banned from owning these items.
In this paper, we will aim to expose the advocates of strict gun control as utterly irrational individuals, who should not even be placed in position of lending their ‘valuable’ views on the subject matter. We will also aim to show that, contrary to what the majority of naïve people believe, the introduction of more and more gun control laws results in the drastic increase of violent crime rates, which is why politicians should think twice, before outlawing guns.
Let us imagine a scene – there is a dead salesperson laying on covered with blood store’s floor. Being unable to defend himself (he believed that guns are ‘evil’), he was shot in the head, during the course of an armed robbery. The police officers finally arrive, take photos of a crime-scene, place the corpse into a body-bag and take him to the morgue.
While conducting these procedures, police officers never ceased carrying guns in their holsters – and yet, they never needed to use their guns, but pens, cameras, radios, etc. The salesperson, however, could have saved his property and his life, had he owned the gun – despite being a peaceful civilian. This addresses the sheer stupidity of a statement, contained in Gopnik’s (2007) article: “There is no reason that any private citizen in a democracy should own a handgun”.
Despite the fact that wackos as Gopnik believe in otherwise, there is a good reason for private citizens in democratic countries to be allowed to own and to carry guns – this is because they cannot be carrying police officers on their shoulders at all times, in order to feel secure. And, as practice shows, criminals strike exactly in time when there is no police anywhere near.
In order to prove the soundness of an idea that society will only benefit from tightening the gun control laws, people like Gopnik resort to particularly cheap emotional tricks – they mention mass shootings in schools: “In Dunblane, Scotland, in 1996, a gunman killed sixteen children and a teacher at their school”.
By doing it, however, they prove their arrogance even further, as this portrays them as individuals who had never questioned themselves why mass shootings occur specifically in places swarmed with unarmed people, such as schools, malls, etc.
Why there has not been even a single incident in history of an armed maniac having stormed a shooting range, police headquarters, or the branch of American Rifle Association? This is because those armed criminals who decide in favor of committing a particularly gruesome act, such as robbery, gang-rape, mass-shooting or ‘initiation killing’, never look into being faced with victims who may put up any resistance.
It is one thing to go about committing rape, for example, while experiencing a vicious thrill due to victim’s unprotectiveness, and it is altogether another thing to go about committing rape, while experiencing a fear that the potential victim may pull out the gun and kick victimizer’s brains out.
Therefore, ‘no guns permitted’ signs, which can now be seen in the places of public gathering, are nothing but gun-magnets. Apparently, Gopnik-types are simply unable to realize this simple fact – one can only wonder why they are being allowed to write articles to credible newspapers, in the first place, instead of socializing with mind-likes in the kindergarten.
In his article, Gopnik blabbers a lot about the fact that countries with particularly restrictive gun control laws are being more secure to live in, as compared to those where law obeying citizens are assumed mature enough to own and to carry guns, as the most effective instrument of protecting their lives and the lives of their loved ones: “Nations with tight gun laws have, on the whole, less gun violence”.
It is needless to mention, of course, that Gopnik never bothers to substantiate such his claims with references to peer reviewed academic studies.
The reason for this is simple – these studies reveal an undeniable fact that it is namely Western countries (U.S. States) with most liberal gun control laws, which appear to be the safest to live in. For example, as it was pointed out by Scott (1994): “States and cities with restrictive gun laws are usually those with the most crime, and vice versa.
In 1987… Florida passed a law permitting its citizens not only to own, but to carry weapons. Despite the doom-sayers’ predictions of a bloodbath in the streets, Florida’s murder rate has fallen 80% since then” (25). Apparently, individuals as Gopnik are being endowed with irrational/infantile mentality, which partially explains author’s earlier exposed willingness to deliberately mislead readers as to the actual implications of gun control laws.
Besides being clearly unable to understand the dialectically predetermined essence of a relationship between causes and effects, these people also lack the courage to act as responsible citizens – hence, their continuous whining about guns’ ‘evilness’.
And yet, it is not guns that kill people, but those people who pull guns’ triggers. Therefore, we can only agree with Casteen (2004) when he states: “Firearms are no more inherently destructive or worthy of criminalization than alcoholic beverages, ammonium nitrate fertilizer, or the public performance of opera” (212). Therefore, if Gopnik does believes that it is morally repugnant and ‘dangerous’ to own gun, he is at liberty not to own one.
Hopefully, giving lecture about ‘moral inappropriateness of robbery’ to a robber, will allow this potential inmate of a mental asylum to get away unrobbed. Yet, he is in no position to impose his nonsensical views upon the rest of mature and responsible citizens.
We believe that the earlier provided line of argumentation fully substantiates the soundness of an idea that there can be no beneficence, whatsoever, in tightening already tight gun control laws. On the contrary – the more there will be challenges, on the way of law-obeying citizens gaining access to guns, the higher are going to be the chances for these citizens to realize the sheer extent of their defenselessness, while faced by violent criminals.
As the consequence, this will necessarily result in drastic increase of violent-crime-related rates. Therefore, only deliberately malicious or simply outright stupid individuals (such as Gopnik) may continue holding on to a belief that the introduction of more and more gun control laws ensures society’s safety.
References
Atwan, Robert & McQuade, Donald. The Writer’s Presence: A Pool of Readings. 6th ed. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009.
Casteen, John “Ditching the Rubric on Gun Control”. Virginia Quarterly Review 80.4 (2004): 210-221.
Gopnik, Adam “Shootings”. 2007. The New Yorker. 16 Jun. 2011. Web.
Moorhouse, John & Wanner, Brent “Does Gun Control Increase Crime or Does Crime Increase Gun Control?”. CATO Journal 26.1(2006): 103-124.
Scott, Patrick “Gun Control Leads to More Crime, Not Less”. Alberta Report / Newsmagazine 21.133 (1994): 25-26.
Wright, James “The Demography of Gun Control”. Nation 221.6 (1975): 240-244.