There’s more than a little faulty logic involved in the nearly
hysterical arguments of the gun-grabbers — not to mention the obvious
constitutional issues.
They maintain that restrictions on the purchase and possession of
firearms by law-abiding citizens will make our society safer. There is
not a shred of evidence to support such fantasies and a growing body of
statistics to show just the opposite is true.
For instance, take a look at what happened in Australia
one year after citizens were
forced to surrender 640,381 personal firearms, including semi-automatic
.22 rifles and shotguns — a program costing the government more than
$500 million:
- Australia-wide, homicides are up 3.2 percent;
- Australia-wide, assaults are up 8.6 percent;
- Australia-wide, armed-robberies are up 44 percent;
- In the state of Victoria, homicides-with-firearms are up 300 percent;
- Figures over the previous 25 years had showed a steady decrease in
homicides-with-firearms — that changed dramatically in the past 12
months; - Figures over the previous 25 years had showed a steady decrease in
armed-robbery-with-firearms — that changed dramatically in the past 12
months;
The story is the same no matter where you look objectively for the
facts — more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens equals less
crime; fewer guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens translates to
more crime. It makes perfect sense, yet it doesn’t fit the agenda of the
gun-grabbers who would grant government a monopoly on force — always a
recipe for disaster and tyranny.
And that’s the bigger and more important reason why we can never
allow the Constitution to be overridden by faulty logic and claims by
the government that it has a way to make us all safer and more secure.
Hitler used that argument. Stalin used that argument. In fact, every
mass-murdering dictator in recent history has grabbed firearms as a
prerequisite to achieving totalitarian power and opening the death camps
for business.
The founding fathers understood what they were doing when they
drafted the Second Amendment. They understood that the nature of
government is to seek more and more authority and control over the lives
of people — a trend antithetical to freedom. To check this natural
tendency, the people, they recognized, had an absolute right — indeed,
a responsibility — to bear arms.
The gun grabbers don’t like to talk about the constitutional
arguments. They don’t like to talk about the history of genocide
preceded in every case by civilian disarmament. They don’t like to talk
about the inalienable right to self-defense on which the founders based
the Second Amendment.
They prefer to talk about crime. Yet, their argument even on this
premise has no logical foundation.
Oh sure, statistics can always be manipulated to serve anyone’s
purpose. But Americans are being bombarded with one-sided propaganda in
an effort to persuade them to lay down their arms willingly as part of a
global trend. We’re just supposed to trust our government to protect our
lives and our liberties. That idea is not in the American tradition. And
it is not a concept supported by data or experience from anywhere else
in the world.
It is simply a formula for worldwide tyranny.
Want some more statistics to play with?
There are over 200 million firearms in the U.S. but fewer than 25,000
firearms deaths of all types per year.
Firearms death danger is, therefore, roughly 25,000 deaths per 200
million — this includes bad guys, as well as the violent death of
innocents. In other words, there is annually one death associated with
every 8,000 firearms.
Contrast this with the fact that there are roughly 500,000 doctors in
the U.S. A 1990 Harvard Medical School study reported over 100,000
deaths per year from “medical misadventure,” a polite term for fatal
doctor or hospital mistakes. Doctor death danger is, therefore, roughly
100,000 deaths per 500,000 doctors or one death for every five MDs.
So you see, a doctor, on average, is 1,600 times more deadly than any
given firearm.
Tell me, America: Shall we ban doctors?
