The truth about guns: Arm the good guys!
A friend of mine wore a t-shirt the other day which had a picture of a gun on it and the text, “Guns don’t kill people. People with mustaches kill people.” Obviously, that is absurd. Another absurd idea is that that guns, rather than people, are the problem behind violence, yet such reasoning is taken seriously by many on the left. They apparently don’t see the connection between, for example, the high homocide rate in Washington, D.C., and the fact that 30 years ago all private citizens were barred from owning a gun. In 2005 the Metropolitan Police Department recovered 2,316 guns. How many of those came from law abiding citizens, do you think?
A case can be made for legal gun ownership (and no, I’m not making a 2nd Ammendment argument here). Typically, crooks would much rather target a weaker party, someone who won’t put up a fight. D.C. city official Sandra Seegars, who lost one brother to a treacherous partner in crime and another brother to a 20-year prison sentence for murder, says, “I know from my brothers being criminals that they like easy targets.” Seegars, head of the D.C. Taxi Cab Commission, has long been an advocate of gun rights in our nation's capital. Specifically, she supports allowing taxi drivers to carry handguns in their vehicles, and advises them to avoid certain neighborhoods. However, would more guns on the streets actually deter crime?
A case can be made for legal gun ownership (and no, I’m not making a 2nd Ammendment argument here). Typically, crooks would much rather target a weaker party, someone who won’t put up a fight. D.C. city official Sandra Seegars, who lost one brother to a treacherous partner in crime and another brother to a 20-year prison sentence for murder, says, “I know from my brothers being criminals that they like easy targets.” Seegars, head of the D.C. Taxi Cab Commission, has long been an advocate of gun rights in our nation's capital. Specifically, she supports allowing taxi drivers to carry handguns in their vehicles, and advises them to avoid certain neighborhoods. However, would more guns on the streets actually deter crime?
When [attacker] Arroyo faced the choice of continuing to shoot others or defending himself [from the private citizen fighting back], he was forced to defend himself. Making Arroyo's attacks more risky caused him to change his behavior.If I were a thug I would definitely think twice before holding up some guy in an alley if there was a good chance he was armed. Wouldn’t you? Here's a new tagline: "Government doesn't keep our neighborhoods safe. Armed citizens keep our neighborhoods safe by deterring crime." Doesn't have the same ring to it. Shoot.
[cross-posted at Critical Mass Blog]
[cross-posted at Right Way Show]
Tags: gun control, gun ownership, crime, 2nd ammendment, deterence, Sandra Seegars, John Lott, Bill Landes
posted by Seth at 12:55 AM
3 Comments:
As Vox Day warmly notes, "a person living in the 20th century was 4 times more likely to be killed by his own government than in war or civil war, and 17.3 times more likely to be legally killed by an employee acting on behalf of his legitimate government than to be murdered by a criminal acting on his own."
I'm far more worried about the government taking away my right to own a gun than over being shot by a fellow civilian.
If you haven't read Lott's books "More Guns, Less Crime" and "The Bias Against Guns" I would recommend doing so. The first one rips apart the shallow facade of defense which the anti-gun crowd cowers behind.
Oh, and in the UP, where I go to school, I am told that there are more guns than people. Funny then, that the UP is remarkably safe.
Wiser, is that statistic referring to a person living in the United States in the 20th century, or anywhere in the world? Certainly if it's the latter, then it is not exactly very relevant to the discussion. There are many other governments that are much more hostile than ours, and that have different laws regarding the justification for killing. In the United States, for "normal" people like us (people who carry on average professions and stay away from crime) is there even any possibility of being "legally" killed by our government? Is there a law I don't know about?
Nevertheless, I am not here to make a case for or against gun rights, because I do not know enough about all the issues involved. Rather, I thought I'd point out a passage from an economics book I read over Christmas break, entitled "Freakonomics". Basically an economist from the University of Chicago takes a bunch of data and points out conclusions from an economist's perspective that might seem counterintuitive.
For instance, one of the chapters is entitled, "Which is more dangerous: a gun or a swimming pool?" He goes on to point out that it is statistically more probable that your kids will die at a house with a swimming pool than at a house where the parents own a gun. Interesting.
I'd definitely recommend the book to anyone. You don't have to like economics, and it's not technical or anything. It's an easy read.
I've heard many good thinga about Freakonomics. It's on my "list".
The Vox Day stat applies to the world, but it is still relevant to the discussion. An armed populace is a good detriment against tyranny of the government variety. After all, Switzerland wasn't invaded in WWII, right? They certainly didn't produce a Hitler.
I'm not proving a 1 to 1 relationship between taking away guns and depsotic dictatorship. I will say, however, that instituting the latter becomes much easier when the guns are taken away.
Post a Comment
<< Home