This article was printed from KeepAndBearArms.com.
For more gun- and freedom-related information, visit
http://www.KeepAndBearArms.com.
----------------------------------------------------------------
|
Handgun
licensing won't solve crime by Dennis Towner Originally published on
this website September 1, 2000 Date sent: Thu,
31 Aug 2000 12:06:28 -0700 31 August 2000 Editor Just like driver licensing won’t solve
accidents. It is widely known that "gun-haters"
will lie and manufacture information to suit their agenda: abolition of the
Second Amendment and total gun confiscation! AB273 is simply another step in their crusade
to disarm Californians and leave them helpless against the ever increasing
violent crime we experience here. Firearm registration is ALWAYS the
precursor to firearm CONFISCATION. It has been used by every country where
tyrants wanted to have total control of the people. Cambodia, Germany, Japan,
Russia and recently Australia are examples of the incremental nullification of
their people’s civil-right to self-protection of themselves, their homes,
property and families. Removal of people’s ability to own and use firearms
never stopped any crime. In fact, recent studies such as the one by John R. Lott
(University of Chicago) proved empirically that the opposite was true. In all
States where the carrying of concealed firearms is allowed crime drops
drastically and beneficially. I must take issue with your idea that firearms
purchasers should take some stupid little course on safety prior to obtaining a
firearm. It is incrementalism at it’s finest! Currently, those of us who have
served in the military can substitute a copy of our DD-214 (Separation Form) as
proof we served and probably have a clue of what to do with a firearm. However, words of those wiser than ourselves
ring true! "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Ben Franklin. Your use of erroneous statistics was shameful
at best. Of the 10 Californians you claim "die each day" most are
involved in criminal activity involving drugs and gangs. Same goes for the 100
who you claim are "injured" each day. That would add up to 36,500
Californians being injured by firearms each year and that is just not the case
among other than criminals. The National Safety Council sets accidental deaths
with firearms at about 1,400 NATIONWIDE. Out of nine categories, accidental
firearms deaths rank eighth as opposed to motor vehicle deaths (number one
cause) at 45,000 plus. From 1994-96, there were 129,536
deaths from automobile accidents and approximately 350,000 accidental medical
deaths. This compares with 47,115 shooting deaths in the same period of time.
You are three times more likely to be killed in an motor vehicle accident and
six times more likely to die from medical accidents than you would be from a
firearm! As for kids -- the favorite
"pull-on-their-heartstrings" line used by liberal gun haters --
firearms are a child's (or a parent's) LEAST serious worry. In 1998, motor vehicle accident
deaths claimed the lives of 2,600 children aged 0 to 14; 200 suffocated to
death; 570 were killed by fire or burns; 850 drowned; 70 were poisoned, 160 died
from falls; and 40 died from carbon monoxide inhalation. During the same period,
guns "principally in recreational activities or on home premises"
accidentally killed 110 kids aged 1 to 14 years. Other methods, including
"medical and surgical complications and misadventures, machinery, air
transport, water transport (except drowning), mechanical suffocation, and
excessive cold," killed an additional 500 children. Using the comparison of cars to
firearms, driver’s licenses etc. is specious at best. For one thing, the
Constitution did not guarantee us the right to own and drive motor vehicles. The
idea that if we just require people to take a little test to own a firearm we
will all be safer is stupid and it is reckless. Ask yourself how much safer you
are because someone else took a driver’s test. If you were then motor vehicle
accidents would be DECREASING, but they aren’t! Finally, the next time you fire up
the car and hit the road consider that you are among thousands of people
traveling at incredible speeds in a deadly weapon. One slip up and there can be
major consequences. Yet you do it daily. Are you safer because you
"assume" the others in their deadly weapons passed a test? Compare
that to the number of people you knowingly come in contact with who have a
firearm and weigh the odds. Are you safer among folks who are law-abiding people
and carry a firearm whether or not they have a license or are you safer on the
highways among people who may or may not have a license and if they did wouldn’t
change the odds? Stop being paranoid (perceiving a
problem where there is none) about law-abiding folks who own firearms and start
worrying about something worth worrying about: you and all the others driving
their deadly weapons around. Firearms are used daily by
thousands of law-abiding Americans to stop a crime from happening. In most cases
the firearms are never fired. When they are, an honest person, their property
and family was saved. When was the last time you heard of a crook using a
firearm to save lives? Dennis Towner To Get Your Letters Printed Here |
||||||||