Gun control cannot prevent “gun violence.” To think it can is no different than believing in the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus. Quite literally ALL of the evidence proves otherwise, both here in the US and even in countries with total gun bans. Leftist gun grabbers constantly point to Australia and England as examples of “common sense gun control” but what they fail to note is that even in those countries, where sweeping bans were passed, where involuntary confiscation (they like to call it a “buyback”) took place, there is still gun crime. The only difference is that now, ONLY the criminals have guns. The law abiding citizens no longer have the ability to protect themselves.
Gun owners and in general, people who have a decent grasp on reality, understand that criminals, by their very nature, do not obey laws. There are several sayings that touch on that truth. “Gun control only disarms the law abiding.” “Criminals don’t follow laws.” The basic core component is the same. Criminals are criminals. Given the proper motivation, they are going to do whatever they want, whether or not it is legal.
The news, yes even the leftist mainstream media, is filled with stories almost every day that prove this to be true. There are constantly stories about shootings and murders, and they especially get excited when a cop is involved and shoots someone of the correct skin color. The only thing is, they usually skirt around the very obvious issue. The bad guy with the gun is almost always a criminal who was violating the law by merely possessing the gun.
Just the other day, a couple of coworkers had an incident at work. They work a security detail at the welfare offices throughout the county I work for. The officers noticed a man in the parking lot retrieve something from the trunk of a car and put that something, which appeared to be a handgun, in his sweatshirt. When they went to contact him, he ran. During the foot pursuit, he threw an object and shortly thereafter, he was caught. The item he threw was recovered, and what do you know, it was a loaded handgun. Now for the shocking (not really) part, the subject was currently on probation for two different convictions, one from 2014 and the other from 2015. Both of those prior convictions were for being a convicted felon in possession of a gun, and here he is, still a convicted felon, still in possession of a gun. I’m sure glad those laws prevented this incident…
Even if the gun control proponents wet dream came true, and all guns were suddenly outlawed, and then they (the unarmed gun control proponents) somehow managed to collect all 300+ million guns in the US and destroyed them, the knowledge of how to build a gun is out there. The gun has been invented; that bell cannot be unrung. It does not take a rocket scientist with a full machine shop to build a gun. One can be made in a back yard with basic hand tools. There are plenty of stories out there about guns being made from scratch, including making an AK-47 out of a shovel, guys making beautiful guns from scratch in backyards in the Philippines and even a jeweler in Australia (where those ‘super awesome’ gun control laws exist) making submachine guns which he sold to criminals.
This is the part that the well intentioned gun control proponents fail to understand. Criminals, gang bangers, drug dealers, convicts, dirtbags, whatever you like to call them, they will ALWAYS be able to get their hands on a gun. It is already illegal for them to do so, yet they have no problem acquiring them, even in the gun control utopia of California, where every gun sale, even private party sales of C&R guns, even transfers between family members, are required by law to go through a background check.
-Matt
SIDE BAR: Oddly enough, in doing some quick research while writing this, I stumbled upon an article a few years old written by gun control proponents trying to argue against the concept that criminals do not obey the laws. It was published on a website ironically named “Armed With Reason” and is titled “Rebutting The ‘Criminals Don’t Follow Laws’ And ‘Gun Control Only Hurts Law-Abiding Citizens’ Argument Against Gun Control.” As is often the case, they then proceed to cherry pick statistics from countries that are notably NOT the US, and even then use very specific data sets to try and prove their point. You should note, even in their cherry picked examples, even after sweeping gun bans, gun crime still existed.
Next, they try to throw in the argument that if we are not going to pass more restrictive gun laws, we should just remove all laws, you know, because that is remotely an accurate comparison. The primary difference is that laws against murder, or robbery, or rape, or speeding, or theft, or embezzlement, or…. those other laws do not make people more vulnerable, forcibly take personal property from, or infringe on anyone’s Constitutionally guaranteed rights. Gun control laws do, and they do all of the above, to people who have violated no laws. Other laws, like the ones I listed, ONLY affect people who violate them, gun control laws affect people who have done nothing. Gun control laws punish the innocent for the actions of criminals.