Juvenile Attempt at Blood Dancing

Kevin Jersey, a staff writer for the Valley Star writes a fairly typical anti-gun screed lacking any originality, or even, it seems, fact checking. The article, entitled Continued Lack of Gun Control means No End to Tragic Campus Shootings. I would assume that Mr. Jersey is a journalism school student, destined to become a future "Authorized Journalist," a term coined by David Codrea at the War on Guns blog. Let's see, where to start deconstructing this abomination...

The Second Amendment of the Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms, and Americans have taken full advantage of this right. There are currently around 270 million guns in America, nearly one for every person in this country. That is despite the fact that guns are created for only one purpose: to kill.

Guns are, in fact, designed for a variety of purposes. Yes, they all can kill, even a highly modified target pistol shooting .22 Shorts. But I would be surprised to learn that any have. Certain rifles and shotguns are designed for shooting game. But I don't think that is what he is after either. No, the rage of Mr. Jersey's outburst appears to be targeted at your typical handgun. Perhaps Mr. Jersey doesn't know, for instance, that there are actually 2 million defensive gun usages every year, most of those do not involve having a shot fired. The purpose of defensive handguns is not to kill, but to save life.

Guns have killed an average of more than 32,000 people per year over the past three decades, according to a report from the Firearm & Injury Center at the University of Pennsylvania. That’s almost a million lives that could have been saved if guns weren’t so easily available.

When we eliminate suicide as a cause of death, the number of people, of all ages, killed by firearms is 12,632 for 2007 according to the CDC. Suicide, we know from the Japanese experience, will happen whether or not guns are available. There are just too many ways to commit suicide. For that matter, there is no evidence whatsoever that the overall murder rate would be any lower if guns were banned. There are too many things that can be used as weapons. For example, machetes, hammers and screw drivers, knives, nail guns...well, you get the idea. Human ingenuity is such that anything can be turned into a weapon in a pinch.

Rather than just keep correcting the factual information that is there, let us look at what isn't there. The whole paper seems to be based on a collectivist conception of the State, rather than and individualist one. He has no problem taking recommending the taking away of the rights of 300 million Americans because he himself doesn't want to be prepared to defend himself. Now, he is free to do whatever with his own life, but what gives him the right to make those determinations for others?

Then there's the idea that it is actually possible to round up, and eliminate 270 million guns. Look, the press has been telling us that the government can't find 12 million illegal aliens. Guns are easier to hide than people are. But let's assume it can be done, how would he do that do you think? What about the fact that some of these guns are worth enough to be tempting targets for corrupt police. Perhaps some of the owners themselves might be willing to pay a corrupt police officer to let them keep their guns. It doesn't take very many getting through the confiscation to satisfy the needs of criminals for years to come. And has he ever thought about how easy it would be for someone with a small machine shop and some knowledge to make any number of guns for sale on the black market? And then there are those who simply will not give them up. How many will he have to kill in order to "save some lives?" I would like to see the cost/benefit analysis on that one.

This is a violent country, but it doesn’t have to be. Fewer people should have guns, and there should be fewer guns available. Laws making it easier for people to obtain guns are the cause and not the solution to the problem of gun violence. And until people realize this, no one will be truly safe.

Even here, he seems to have his facts wrong. In Study the United States came in 9th. Other studies I quickly found indicated 13th for one, and the US not even registering on the other. But one thing that the study also finds is that there is no correlation between the availability of guns and homicide. Thus the entire thesis of the paper is ultimately proved false.