Why gun control works

By Jon Dougherty

Gun enthusiasts aggravated with liberal gun-control politicians in Washington and the states need to understand that they who seek to stifle your constitutional right to keep and bear arms are only interested in your safety.

It’s true. We all realize that deep down our politicians care about us and don’t want to see us gunned down in our prime, leaving behind loved ones who depend on us for nurturing, livelihood and parenting.

So it’s important for as many of us as possible to support gun-control initiatives designed to disarm law-abiding Americans – you know, because they make us safer and because they’re so successful. The socially responsible site Kentucky Coalition to Carry Concealed has compiled some persuasive reasons why gun control works so well.

After all, reasonable people know that police officers in New York City, Chicago and Washington, D.C., need to carry firearms because total gun bans in those cities are so effective.

And isn’t Washington, D.C.’s low murder rate of 69 people per 100,000 due to strict gun control, while Indianapolis’ high murder rate of 9 people per 100,000 due to a distinct lack of gun control?

It’s true, isn’t it, that statistics showing high murder rates justify more restrictions, while statistics showing increasing murder rates after strict gun control is imposed are “only statistics.”

Yes, gun control has an exemplary record of achievement in public safety. Everybody realizes that the more helpless you are, the safer you are from those who mean you harm. That’s why a woman who is strangled is morally superior to a woman holding a smoking gun with a dead rapist at her feet.

There is also much to be said about the various experts who trumpet gun control – experts like the New England Journal of Medicine, which of course is filled with as much authoritative gun advice as Guns & Ammo is with theses on heart surgery and bowel resections.

And naturally, gun control is legal because the Second Amendment – ratified in 1787 – doesn’t refer to “the people,” it refers to the “National Guard,” which was created in 1917, 130 years later.

That’s because the National Guard – partially funded with federal tax dollars, stationed on bases owned by the federal government, using federal weapons and vehicles, and bearing uniforms with “United States” nametapes – is a “state militia.”

We must also realize that gun rights are also not constitutionally protected. That’s because these constitutional phrases – “the right of the people peaceably to assemble,” “right of the people to be secure in their homes,” “enumerations herein of certain rights shall not be construed to disparage others retained by the people,” and, “the powers not delegated herein are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people” – all refer to individuals, while “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” is a collectivist, states-only right.

And really, what’s the big deal anyway? Rifles and handguns aren’t necessary to the national defense, which is why the armed forces have hundreds of thousands of them.

Besides, gun control is necessary because of the rash of school shootings. After all, in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, you could buy a gun almost anywhere, including through the Sears and J.C. Penney catalogs, with no background check, no forms to fill out, no fingerprinting and no waiting periods – when there were no school shootings.

Without gun control, how would Americans have known that firearms are so complex that special training is needed to operate them, yet are so simple to use that murder is made easy?

All guns must all be eradicated because, as gun control proponents have taught us, ordinary people in the presence of a gun turn into slaughtering monsters, but revert back to normal when guns are removed. Guns cause violence, you see, which is why so many mass murders happen at gun shows.

Finally, gun control must be enacted because, we are told, “most people” support it.

Like they supported slavery at one time, too.

Jon Dougherty

Jon E. Dougherty is a Missouri-based political science major, author, writer and columnist. Follow him on Twitter. Read more of Jon Dougherty's articles here.