Two...no Three Posts Today on Guns

There are two unconnected posts, that I want to highlight.  Both deal with gun control.  Both are unexpected, though welcome additional voices in the fight to maintain gun rights here at home.

First up is a piece by a trans gendered male who joined the Pink Pistols, entitled Pink Pistols: We're Here, We're Geared, Get Used To It! in which he presents some very practical advice for anyone who is different, and in the end, isn't that really everyone? I have always maintained that the active homosexual lifestyle goes against God's word. But I do not hate gays. Indeed, I have friends who are gay. One can disapprove of the behavior but love the person. In any case, as a practical matter, homosexuals need to be armed to deal with people who would kill them. I have been aware of the Pink Pistols for many years, and I hope Orlando helps them to publicize their group because they desperately need it.

Let’s imagine a different scenario in Orlando. Let’s say 10 percent of bar-goers that night were CCW holders and half of them were armed. That’s about 15 armed people already inside the club. The shooting happened fast, maybe too fast to have stopped it midway through. But after the initial shooting, what if half of those 15 people survived, and upon realizing what happened, fought back? Could innocent people have been hit? Yes. But could the gunman have been taken down? Yes. Ask yourself how many of those people would still be alive if they’d gotten immediate medical attention.

0I used to have reservations about concealed carry permit holders carrying in bars. But that was a perception based on an emotional reaction, and not fact. CCW holders have proven themselves to be among the most lawful in America. Studies have found them to be more law-abiding than the general public, and even more law-abiding than police officers. I encourage everyone to consider this fact. Gun owners are just like you and I – except they have guns.

Next up is a piece by Thomas Sowell entitled The Gun Control Farce. Sowell points out that the debate is often carried on an emotional basis, sometimes floridly so, when in fact there is empirical evidence out there. Indeed, this empirical evidence has been analysed, and it doesn't support the gun control crowd.

Surely murder is a serious subject, which ought to be examined seriously. Instead, it is almost always examined politically in the context of gun control controversies, with stock arguments on both sides that have remained the same for decades. And most of those arguments are irrelevant to the central question: Do tighter gun control laws reduce the murder rate?

Sowell goes on to answer that question with a resounding "No."  But, Sowell doesn't usually write about gun issues, so the fact that he only brings up Joyce Lee Malcolm's book Guns and Violence: The English Experience is not surprising. In fact, there is a wealth of such factual analyses, including the work of John Lott, Gary Kleck, and many others. But rather than admit this evidence into ther thinking, and then go on to try something that might work, they keep to the same old same old. It is always the gun's fault, never the person holding the gun.

Virtually all empirical studies in the United States show that tightening gun control laws has not reduced crime rates in general or murder rates in particular. Is this because only people opposed to gun control do empirical studies? Or is it because the facts uncovered in empirical studies make the arguments of gun control zealots untenable?

In both England and the United States, those people most zealous for tighter gun control laws tend also to be most lenient toward criminals and most restrictive on police. The net result is that law-abiding citizens become more vulnerable when they are disarmed and criminals disobey gun control laws, as they disobey other laws.

These facts make those of us who live in Realville start to wonder what the real purpose of gun control is. One can find possible hints in the early gun control efforts. Here in North Carolina, the pistol permit requirement was instituted as a way to keep blacks from getting guns. Whites were given permits without restrictions, while for a black, they were as rare as hen's teeth. In New York City, the Sullivan Act was passed in 1911 to give Sullivan's thug buddies an easier time of it, since their law abiding prey would be disarmed. But Matt Walsh lays it all out in an interview with World Net Daily in which he claims The Democratic Party is a Criminal Organization, and has been since its founding.

Then there is this: Homemade Submachine Guns Used in Tel Aviv Shooting, which goes to the futility of gun control. The technology needed to build a gun is not very high.  While the technology to produce thousands of copies of a gun design that all function with specific ammunition, and all have interchangeable parts may indeed be high, to produce one off designs is not that difficult.  Only people for whom "making stuff" is a baffling process, like lawyers and journalists, could ever think that you can put the genie back in the bottle.