Which Laws Prevent Gun Violence
Recently, President Joe Biden, through executive action, sought to pressure congress toward gun control legislation. A topic where the left seems to pick and choose its applicability based on political expediency. They accuse widespread access to firearms as the problem; therefore, they believe that limiting gun access will address the problem. Sounds simple enough but allow me to pose this question to the reader. “If a person has decided to break the primary law of do not murder, then what is the applicability of a gun law?” This is an important question, because certain people exclaim that the necessity for more or stricter gun laws would prevent such savagery, as if there was not an existing law that already prohibits gun violence—do not murder.
Here we find a fatal flaw within our legislative system. A paradigm that exalts the legislator as a political thorn in liberty’s side. Even though it is not requisite, it is widely expected that politicians will and should exert power toward new laws. For if an old law already forbids murder, then why go so far as to write a new law that forbids and limits particular weapon ownership simply on the basis of preventing murder?
Two answers come to mind: political theater and a transfer of control. The first is nothing more than electoral postulation. Irrespective of the long-term harm of a given policy on their constituents, politicians seek their votes, votes that come at the expense of said constituents, and votes which are only good until the next election.
The second is far more severe. The transference of power from the individual to the state, by which the government further expands its ideal of monopolizing violence as a means of defense. This second answer speaks directly to the founding father’s reasoning behind the bill of rights itself. Too many are distracted by an illusory pursuit of safety under the hand of the state. Failing to recognize that the right to defense of life, liberty, and property is not limited to your neighbor as an aggressor, but specifically includes the government’s very infringement of those rights.
Law makers don’t make laws to protect the people, they make laws to validate their own occupational existence. It is no accident that determining the quantity of federal laws is impossible. As the Wall Street Journal mentions:
For decades, the task of counting the total number of federal criminal laws has bedeviled lawyers, academics and government officials.
"You will have died and resurrected three times," and still be trying to figure out the answer, said Ronald Gainer, a retired Justice Department official.
Once again, I ask. If the law of murder is not enough to prevent someone from committing such an atrocity, then what makes gun laws effective? Sure, the murderer may not use a gun, but what about a knife, bat, automobile, plane, etc.? Either history has done an insufficient job of chronicling just how creative evil can be, or it is man’s memory that is insufficient.
Let us also consider the penalty that each violation would ensue. What punishment exceeds that of murder? If a person violates another’s right to life, should they not forfeit their own right to life? If so, then it no longer matters the means by which they chose to enact their horror. Murder is murder and judged by death. Furthermore, if capital punishment is not a sufficient deterrence, then, once again, what good does a gun law do in its dissuasion?
Following this logic helps us understand the real effects of gun restrictions. Making more laws to limit those who do not follow the existing law is, at best, erroneous. Only those who abide by the law will such laws restrict, thereby, rendering the law-abiding citizen defenseless in the event a law breaker endeavors to aggress against them. Moreover, the irony is not lost on those precious politicians who surround themselves with gun wielding guards, reemphasizing the theatrical display associated with politics.
The political rhetoric surrounding the issue is exacerbated by the reality that most gun related homicides are carried out by illegally obtained handguns, not “assault weapons,” which has yet to find a consistent definition. Others nash their teeth at the AR-15 claiming it a threat, but according to the FBI’s most recent data for 2019; total firearm murders were 10,258. Out of that only 364 involved rifles, while 6,368 were attributed to handguns. Yet, politicians and the media focus in on the ominous assault rifle/weapon. In addition, AR, does not stand for “Assault Rifle” as too many propagate, rather it refers to the original developer of the gun, ArmaLite Rifle.
Over 60% of gun related deaths in the U.S. are suicides. The media and politicians most often offer the total number of gun deaths in an effort to manipulate the public with inflated statistics. They also fail to explain that overall gun deaths have been declining since 1974, even though the number itself is larger, the quantity in relation to the overall population is lower. 12 out of 100,000 in 2017 hardly resembles an epidemic and 10,258 amid a population of 328.2 million in 2019, which is approximately 0.003% of the American populace, fails in its consideration as a crisis.
The second amendment is clear and obvious:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Eerily similar to how criminals treat murder and gun laws, the second amendment has not kept the government from committing the very act it was ratified to prevent. Legislators and judges stop reading after well-regulated militia and conveniently place a period where a comma use to be. A failed realization that the United States government was established to protect the rights given to us by our Creator, not granted to us nor permitted to us by the government and its bureaucracies. Still, too many today feel it is the occupation of the state to protect them. Paradoxically, these same persons fight vigorously against the possibility that individuals have the capacity and interest to protect themselves and their own but boast about the collective necessity of an individual’s so-called right to vote, which both directly and indirectly impacts their neighbor’s protection.
In conclusion, understanding that a criminal, by definition, is a breaker of law, then it follows that enacting new laws to curb that criminal would be futile. If anything, it merely encourages his imagination. Therefore, in the realm of unintended consequences, the only ones limited by the law are those that abide by the law. This is tautological, but such obviousness is frequently lost on those who need to understand it most. Guns do not kill people. People kill people. Murders did not start with the invention of the gun, canon, or any other “military grade” weaponry, nor will the banning of such equipment stop or prevent murder. There is already a law that covers this regardless of the means. Let that law stand. Anything beyond it is political theater, a bid for control, and ultimately a restriction of liberty.
