Guns and Safe Communities

by Fred Aydelotte
aydelott@epix.net

Reprint permission granted provided the article is printed in full. The article below was also published as a letter to the editor of the Wyalusing Pennsylvania Rocket Courier.

Originally published on this website October 29, 2000

If by a stroke of divine intervention all guns ceased to exist tomorrow, our communities would not become any safer than they were before. Thereafter no one would get shot, but women, the elderly and the infirm would still be vulnerable to the strong and the vicious. The evil people among us would still be evil.

What would change, however, is the balance of power.

Any physically strong criminal would then be free to prey on our most vulnerable citizens without fear of being injured by their victims. The elderly and infirm would cower in fear behind locked and bolted doors.

In the harsh light of reality we are all responsible for our own safety. To believe otherwise is a delusion. There is a real difference between feeling safe and being safe.

Are we really ready to tell our mothers, sisters, daughters and grandmothers that they must submit to a sexual assault? Are we ready to tell our elderly, our sick and our handicapped that they must submit to whatever violence the young and the strong see fit to inflict upon them? Are we ready to stand by and watch as our children and loved ones are brutalized before our eyes? Are we ready to completely entrust our safety to a policeman who will surely not arrive in time to save us from harm? Do we really want to live in a community where the meek must live in fear of the bold?

Am I advocating that everyone carry a gun at all times? Absolutely not. Those that choose not to be armed are safer because there are others who are armed. When the vicious and the predatory are unsure of who is armed and who is not, a deterrent to crime is created. No longer can the criminal be sure that his intended victim will be an easy mark or that a bystander will not come to the aid of a neighbor.

It is well established by behavioral scientists that rewarding a given behavior is a powerful incentive to repeat that behavior. When we meekly submit to crime we are rewarding a destructive behavior and we should therefore expect to see more of that behavior. Passive resistance to crime breeds more crime.

If the total elimination of guns will not reduce, and may actually increase crime, is it reasonable to think that laws restricting them to various degrees will help? I think not.

I believe that you have an absolute right to your life. Because I believe this, I also believe that you have the right to defend your life. If you are denied the means to effectively defend your life, then you are denied your right to life. If you are denied your right to life you are not a free citizen, but a subject of your government.

Every woman has the right not to be raped. There can be no compromise on this issue. Not now. Not ever.

If easy access to guns prevents a single rape, is it not worth it? I think so and so do a lot of women.

For some a gun is the only reasonable tool to insure their safety. It is, after all, one of the reasons our police have guns.

To those who believe we should not be allowed to have easy access to guns I pose this question: Is your conviction against firearms deep enough that if you or (heaven forbid) your children were being sexually assaulted and a neighbor happened upon the scene with a concealed firearm, would you turn him/her away and wait for the police?

Be safe,
Fred Aydelotte
Stevensville, Pennsylvania
aydelott@epix.net

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