Should Congress begin debate on legislation to enact federal controls on hammers, bats and other readily available tools as a way to “end the violence”?
According to the most recent statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, more Americans commit murders with hammers than with “assault rifles” or other long guns.
FBI crime statistics show that in 2005, the number of murders with a hammer or other blunt object was 605. The number of murders by rifles was 445.
The numbers are roughly similar for every year through 2011, the last year figures are available. In 2011 there were 323 murders by rifle but 496 with hammers and other blunt objects.
The figures call into question the claimed relationship between the number of violent crimes and the availability of firearms.
Second Amendment analyst and investigative journalist Mike Vanderboegh says the figures demand one question be asked: If it’s statistically proven that rifles are used in a relatively small number of homicides, why do those weapons seem to be the constant focus of attempts at new regulation?
“Why do they want to ban them? Because they are afraid of them? Why are they afraid?” Vanderboegh asked.
“I think it’s because many in our government fear that those weapons might one day get turned on them when their demands become too tyrannical,” Vanderboegh said.
The Newtown, Conn., shooting prompted introspection about human nature and what causes violent crimes.
Front Sight Firearms Training Center president and founder Ignatius Piazza says a major factor in the recent mass shootings is behavior-modifying drugs.
“Prior to the introduction of psychiatric drugs being given to children and adults, we did not have these homicidal and suicidal mass shootings, even though guns were readily available and unrestricted,” Piazza said.
He contended that a ban on the use of psychiatric drugs would result in a significant drop in mass shootings.
“Over time, as our youth are no longer begin drugged into becoming sociopaths, we will return to the days when these type of horrific, murderous rampages never happened,” Piazza said.
Any other proposed solution, he said, “is just a smoke screen that gets in the way of seeing the right target to end these homicidal and suicidal mass shootings.”
A psychiatrist who treats chronic behavioral disorders and who asked not to be named to protect his professional associations agrees that behavior is part of the puzzle. However, the psychiatrist argued humans are naturally violent.
“We’re homicidal,” the psychiatrist told WND. “We are simply violent creatures. The availability of firearms has nothing to do with the amount of violent crime because we’re violent by nature.”
Second Amendment analyst and writer David Codrea disagrees.
“I reject that it’s human nature, because I’m human, and I don’t behave like an animal nor do I associate with anyone who does,” Codrea said.
Vanderboegh pointed out that in many cases, violent crimes, such as familial or acquaintance murders, are acts of impulse.
“Murders attendant to other crimes like robbery and burglary, are accidents of bad planning on the part of a criminal who is willing to kill his victim but doesn’t plan for it. That doesn’t mean he won’t kill in a heartbeat,” Vanderboegh said.
Vanderboegh said the next category of homicides are planned but rare.
“Gang murders are generally rational, business models to preserve market share. Mass murders are, however, almost always thought through and planned with patience,” Vanderboegh said.
“The only thing that prevents murders of innocents, especially mass murders, are weapons in the hands of good folks at the point of contact,” Vanderboegh said.
Vanderboegh also said that weapon selection in a violent crime, especially crimes of impulse, depends on what is available at the point of the crime. The calls for more regulation on “assault weapons” is unrelated to any interest in crime prevention, he contended.
“The current howls for assault weapons bans are demonstrably wrong answers to any of these. The basic point of the collectivist firearm prohibitionists is to disarm the people of military style weapons, which are a statistically insignificant contribution to the crime rate,” Vanderboegh said.
Codrea agreed, adding that even in supposedly impulse crimes, committing a violent crime is still a matter of choice. He added that federal policy has also contributed to the rate of violent crime.
“There is a segment in the culture that is unfit to live among decent people. Much of that, if not most, is directly attributable to government substituting for the responsibilities free people must assume with the attendant rewards and disincentives,” Codrea said.
“Probably the most destructive influence is the government as the substitute control freak parent and enabler of bad choices,” Codrea said.
Codrea said the government has had a role in fostering a class of people who find crime to be a viable alternative to responsible living.
“We have people who have been part of a multi-generational drain on the productive center, who are amoral, sociopathic, entitled and hostile. They not only have no skills to bring to an employer, the attitude and lack of morals they bring with them actually make them a liability and a danger to have around,” Codrea said.
Meanwhile, political activist Rev. Al Sharpton said recently on his radio show that after guns are banned, Congress may have to control knives.
