Fewer guns, more crime?

In the wake of another multiple victim public shooting, some are calling
on American gun owners to stand up for their constitutional right, even
as legislators across the nation are drafting new gun restrictions and
questioning the wisdom of the Second Amendment.

Three children and two adults were injured Tuesday when a gunman,
carrying a 9mm Uzi, opened fire at the North Valley Jewish Community
Center in the Los Angeles suburb of Granada Hills. The suspect, Buford
Oneal Furrow, was apprehended yesterday by police in Las Vegas after he
had fled across the California desert in taxicabs.

Although disturbed by the horror that took place at the Jewish community
center, Aaron Zelman of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership
told WorldNetDaily that all law-abiding Americans who own guns need to
stand together to make sure that their right to bear arms remains
protected.

“It’s time for the American gun owners — Jewish and non-Jewish alike —
to take a stand together, shoulder to shoulder, and tell the ‘victim
disarmament’ crowd that the blood is on their hands for what happened
(in Los Angeles),” said Zelman. “The blood is on their hands every time
one of these shootings takes place.”

Zelman believes that the nation’s “victim disarmament” policies will
eventually lead to a police state in the U.S. This police state, Zelman
explains, will, in turn, lead to an overabundant flow of illegal and
unregistered machine guns supplied by organized crime.

Zelman spoke very critically of what he calls the liberal Jewish
community and its support of gun control programs. According to Zelman,
about 96 percent of the Jewish community as a whole supports gun
restrictions of one form or another, and this overwhelming support,
Zelman concludes, is a sign of ignorance.

“Liberal Jews don’t have the intelligence to see beyond their nose and
see what they’re doing,” Zelman said. “Time and time again, liberal Jews
have done the same stupid thing, that is, get into bed with an evil
government thinking that they will be exempt — thinking that going
along to get along and promoting evil policies somehow will be better
for Jews or anybody else.”

“The liberal Jewish agenda in this country is just part of the socialist
agenda,” continued Zelman, “and that is, to disarm the American people
— have victim disarmament — and be able to control people totally
because they won’t be able to fight back against the police state.
That’s what the Anti-Defamation League crowd wants to bring about.”

When Zelman was asked about whether or not he considered the shooting a
“hate crime,” he responded by saying that he thought the whole “hate
crime” terminology was absurd.

“A hate crime is whatever the government wants it to be so they can
divide people — us against them,” said Zelman. “What they’re doing is
they’re trying to psych people up into saying yes. If you say no, than
they’re going to accuse you of being anti-Semitic.

Zelman added he believes the classification of criminal firearm misuse
as a hate crime forces the nation to walk on some “dangerously thin
ice.”

But are stricter gun laws the only answer for a nation that has more
than 190 million guns?

On Tuesday evening’s edition of ABC News Nightline, Ted Koppel
interviewed Gary Greer, the deputy chief of police for Vancouver,
Canada. WorldNetDaily also contacted Greer, who told the newspaper that
he was asked onto the ABC show to discuss the differing levels of
violence from firearms between Canada and the United States.

“You just can’t get guns here like you can in the United States,” Greer
said.

“It’s not only difficult to buy a gun, you have to go through a fairly
rigorous thing to have a gun.”

Indeed, in Canada, a person can’t own a handgun unless he or she is a
member of a “bona fide” target club. Even if they are allowed to own a
gun, it has to be dismantled when it is in the house, and the gun can
only be transported between the target club range and the home.

A prospective gun buyer in Canada is also subjected to a 28-day waiting
period during which a background check of personally selected references
takes place. Once the gun buyer has gone through the process and
purchases a firearm, the new gun owner is subjected to a silent computer
check every 24 hours to make sure no laws were broken, indicting a
misuse of the firearm.

In Canada, “the people’s right to bear arms” is not recognized by the
government. It’s a privilege similar to that of a driver’s license.

“From our point of view within Canada, the concept of having a gun to
protect oneself isn’t a reason (to own a gun), where I think in the
United States, people are believing that they need to have a firearm to
protect themselves,” Greer said.

John Lott, a law professor at Yale University who specializes in Second
Amendment issues, disagrees with Greer, and believes that the ability of
the people to protect themselves with a firearm is a fundamental right.

“The safest course of action by far for someone to take when confronted
by a criminal — whether the criminal’s armed or not armed — is to have
a gun yourself, and it’s dangerous to go and tell people that they
should behave passively,” Lott said.

Lott explained that women who behave passively when confronted by a
criminal are 2.5 times more likely to be injured while men who passively
behave when confronted by a criminal are 1.4 times more likely to be
injured.

“What happens is you leave people out to be sitting ducks,” Lott said.
“You make it so that they’re not able to defend themselves, and it
encourages people to engage in these kinds of attacks.”

Lott said that although Canada claims to have fewer gun-related
homicides, the claim isn’t quite accurate. In the northern border
states, Lott said, the murder rate is actually lower than in Canada even
though the northern border states tend to have the highest rate of
citizen gun ownership in the country.

“If you look across the United States, those states with the highest gun
ownership rates tend to have the lowest murder rates and lowest violent
crime rates across the board,” said Lott, “and probably more
importantly, those states that have had the biggest increases in gun
ownership have had the biggest relative drops in violent crime.”