Are Guns The Problem?
By ZACH RUDDERThe Response
8/25/2022
With the most recent mass shooting at a Texas school, the mainstream media and the democrats will vociferously push gun control until Election Day in November. But an honest approach to gun control requires that we weed through the arguments looking for places where we can actually make improvements.
According to gun control advocates, “common sense” gun control goes as follows:
“Background checks or universal background checks.” Anybody who has ever tried purchasing a firearm knows that background checks already happen when you purchase a firearm. And universal background checks refer to private transfers like a brother selling his gun to his sister. In such a case, if a crime is committed using the brother’s gun, even if the brother didn’t commit the crime, he will be held liable.
“But what about the gun-show loophole?" We surely would want to take care of that loophole, except that it doesn’t exist. Buying a gun at a gun show still requires a background check.
“We need to have magazine limits and ban hi-capacity magazines.” What’s hi-capacity? How much is too much? Do we need to limit magazines to 10 bullets? 5 bullets? What is the right number? This argument doesn’t hold because the way you would negate this is by just getting more magazines.
“So we would let people get 100-round magazines?” With that logic, you’re not taking into account how much weight the magazine would add to the weapon. Having a massive magazine is very cumbersome. A magazine of that size might actually slow an assailant down.
“We need to move the age up to purchase rifles to 21!” Pistols are the firearm of choice with the vast majority of murders. It’s not even close. More than 90 percent of gun deaths involve pistols. And to purchase a pistol you need to be 21.
“We should at least ban fully automatic weapons!” In truth, fully automatic weapons are already heavily regulated and almost impossible to purchase. This is why almost no gun homicides involve fully automatic weapons.
“Why do you need an AR-15 anyway? Deer aren’t wearing Kevlar vests?” Just reading this out loud is comical. Any fundamental understanding of the 2nd Amendment is appreciated here. The 2nd Amendment wasn’t about hunting. It was about the rights of “the People” to defend themselves from foreign and domestic threats. I find it humorous when people use the ‘hunting’ argument but then praise the citizens of Ukraine when they take up arms to fight against Russia. Why don’t they feel the same about the rights of Americans to keep and bear arms?
“Either way, a normal civilian doesn’t need an Assault rifle, which is what AR-15 stands for.” No, it stands for ArmaLite (The name of the manufacture in the 1950’s. And if we follow the “We don’t need weapons of war” route, the American people had weapons on a rough par with the government when the Constitution was written. They even had cannon.)
“Ghost guns are the problem, and they need to be legislated as illegal and taken from anyone who has them.” Honestly the term ghost gun has puzzled me for a while due to gun control advocates failing to refine the definition for the past several years. The latest version of the term “ghost gun” is a gun that doesn’t have a serial number and, therefore, it isn’t “registered.” Keep in mind that most gun crimes are committed with guns that have serial numbers.
(Note: Most of the "ghost guns" used in crimes are not guns that were manufactured without serial numbers, though that is how the media portrays them, they are guns where the serial number has been "obliterated". The ghost guns statistics lump all of the homemade guns in with the guns where they have filed off the serial number and then try to pass it off as if the criminals are sitting in their basement building Polymer 80s to avoid a background check. The reality is that most guns used in crimes were stolen before they end up in the hands of the user. - Erik Sivertsen, owner of Guns-N-Such in McHenry.)
Now, with a handful of the Left’s arguments out of the way, we should ask: What, then, is the solution? How do we prevent these mass shootings in schools? In my opinion there are only two answers. But first, let’s try to understand mass shootings.
Where do these shootings occur? Almost all mass shootings happen in gun free zones. That’s the case more than 90 percent of the time.
Who are the perpetrators? Ninety-eight percent of the time, it is men.
How are they getting the guns? Most often, they get them legally and with background checks.
Considering this information, what is the answer? How, specifically, do we prevent mass shootings? In my opinion, there are just two ways to reduce mass shootings.
One way is to ban all sales of guns and to confiscate all existing guns. Doing so, of course, would violate the constitution of the United States and leave American citizens at the complete mercy of the government.
The other more effective way is to increase security measures and protocol in “gun free zones.”
Schools should have one-way entries, with multiple exits, self-barricading doors, and armed security.
Armed security wouldn’t even have to wear uniforms, making them harder for potential assailants to identify.
The bottom line is that schools shouldn’t offer “soft targets” to those who would commit murder. With the crisis of 9/11, we didn’t ban guns; we increased security protocols and increased security in planes and at airports.
If we have a country that is willing to defend our banks with guns, our politicians with guns, but is not willing to defend our children with guns, what does this say about our priorities?
Resources:
https://www.nssf.org/msr/
https://crime-data-explorer.app.cloud.gov/pages/explorer/crime/crime-trend
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S8-C11-1/ALDE_00001072/
https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/politifact/2022/04/18/politifact-biden-recycles-false-claim-second-amendment-limitations/7337347001/
https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_f796da68-6af7-4a38-9623-29e1a8eee1e6
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/06/28/bidens-false-claim-that-2nd-amendment-bans-cannon-ownership/
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3887145
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/26/world/europe/ukraine-russia-civilian-military.html
https://crimeresearch.org/2018/06/more-misleading-information-from-bloombergs-everytown-for-gun-safety-on-guns-analysis-of-recent-mass-shootings/
https://www.npr.org/2021/03/27/981803154/why-nearly-all-mass-shooters-are-men