Posted by
John Caile on Monday, April 19, 2010 12:02:48 PM
One has to wonder what bubble gun control advocates are living under. While state after state has recognized the right of their citizens to carry handguns in public for protection, the anti-gun (and anti-self-defense) groups like the Brady Campaign continue to spout the same tired old Chicken Little rhetoric that has long ago been proved wrong.
But as usual, the basic argument of the gun-phobic is not what actually
does happen, but what might happen. Just this week, after Starbucks announced that they would welcome gun carrying customers in their stores, anti-gun Democrat Carolyn McCarthy hysterically asked in a U.S. News opinion
piece:
"Are people going to have a shoot-out at their local coffee shop if their
grande latte order is incorrect?"
What nonsense. Ms. McCarthy then goes on to make a rather odd claim:
"Everyone should be able to sit in a coffee shop or a local diner with
their families without being confronted with the threatening presence of
openly displayed handguns."
"Threatening" presence? What "threat" can she document? With residents of 48 of the 50 states now having the ability to carry
handguns for protection, the actual data show that permit holders are
remarkably good citizens - you are more than 8 times
less likely to be harmed, let alone shot, by any of the nation's 6 million legal
permit holders than you are by a random citizen.
Another intriguing claim by the anti-gun types is that they have some sort of "right" to a "gun-free" fantasyland. As the
New York Times article about a case before the
Supreme Court recently put it:
"The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has made clear
that it is very concerned about the right to bear arms. There is
another right, however, that should not get lost: the right of people,
through their elected representatives, to adopt carefully drawn laws
that protect them against other people’s guns."
The Times writer shows a remarkable misunderstanding of the concept of "rights" - while we all have the right to be protected from the criminal actions of others, no one has the right to demand that everyone in their immediate vicinity be disarmed, just because they "feel" threatened.
We all have a right to be protected from arson - but people do not have a right "to adopt carefully drawn laws that protect them from other people's matches."
We all have a right to be protected from drunk drivers - but people do not have a right "to adopt carefully drawn laws that protect them from other people's cars."
The Times article inadvertently exposes another major flaw in the anti-gun crowd's viewpoint. Instead of (rightly) fearing the criminal - gun control worshipers instead fear the gun itself. They seem obsessed with the "lethality" of this or that gun - it's not a just a rifle with a black plastic stock. Oh, no, it's an "Assault Weapon."
They even elevate certain guns to mystical, dare I say almost "superhuman" status - the AK-47 being the "Darth Vader" of all "evil" weapons. And oh, how they love it when some nut case just happens to use one in some psychotic rampage - it "proves" the need for more gun control, you see. (Note also that when the deranged shooter turns out to have used an ordinary 12-gauge shotgun - far more powerful than any so-called "assault weapon" - the story quickly disappears from the front page.)
Oddly, while the gun control zealots like Ms. McCarthy accuse gun rights activists of trying to "turn the country back into the Wild West" - precisely the opposite is true. It is the gun control activists who are being left behind.
Americans have been buying more and more guns, and sales of both guns and ammunition have skyrocketed over the last 18 months.
More and more Americans have been signing up to get permits to carry handguns - young and old, black and white, men and women, gay and straight.
Meanwhile, violent crime, including violent crime involving firearms, has declined. But no matter - facts be damned, the shrinking minority of gun control "true believers" persist in their vain quest.
One day it's attempting to ban gun shows - in spite of the fact that all research shows that 99% of violent criminals have never even been to a gun show.
The next it's railing about some average Joe having the temerity to actually carry a gun in public - oh, the humanity!
But the tide continues to turn against The Brady Bunch and their ilk. Public support for gun control has been plummeting for more than two decades. Surveys indicate that more than 90% of Americans now agree that the right to own firearms is an individual right - not a collective one as claimed the anti-gun cabal.
Even the notoriously left wing Daily Show with John Stewart recently featured a hilarious parody of the "open carry issue" that pretty much made the anti-gun crowd look like 1950's segregationists:
And soon, perhaps even in my lifetime, the doors to gun control "Fantasyland" will finally be boarded up for good.