Beyond ‘Victim Disarmament’

by Sunni Maravillosa

The recent shooting at a Littleton, Colorado high school has the gun control advocates calling for more laws to "end the violence". The mainstream media, ever so comfortable in their role of dutifully reciting the propaganda of the anti-gun crowd, add little of substance to the dialog. True to form, much of the commentary in the aftermath of Littleton is the usual hand-wringing and calls for more laws to help "protect the children".

Haven’t we had enough of that?

How do we "end the violence"? Well, they reason, guns are responsible for much of the violence in our society today, so a ban on guns would reduce the violence. This logic is so tortuous as to be laughable—except that people believe it. When I hear someone claim that "guns cause violence", I imagine hundreds of guns—revolvers, semi-automatic pistols, rifles, shotguns—sprouting little feet and hands, running around and pulling their own triggers and "causing" violence. In the absence of guns, Bad Guys will choose other means of expressing their violent rage, be it knives, bombs, cars, chopsticks, or stones. Violence cannot be legislated away.

Even if "gun control" were the answer, why doesn’t all the gun control legislation at the federal level alone accomplish this stated goal of protecting us? Despite all the laws that require background checks, waiting periods, firearms training, or that simply prohibit firearms carry by private citizens, more and more people are getting shot at in public places. Bad Guys know that places where guns are prohibited provide a target-rich environment, and, more importantly, an environment where it’s unlikely that they’ll be facing return fire.

Public schools are especially attractive, in part because of the ratio of young people to adults. Students in schools are under increasing surveillance, including locker and vehicle searches, and metal detector checks upon entering the school in some places. A young person who wants an education won’t risk expulsion, so it’s highly unlikely that most kids will carry a weapon for protection. Teachers and school administrators generally don’t have to go through that gauntlet, but the laws apply to them as well. If they ignore the laws, they can be fired, and with the horror of carrying a firearm to school on their record, it’s a foregone conclusion that no other school district would hire such a monster. Schools have become places where almost everyone is unarmed—in other words, the ideal place for a killing spree.

Is it any wonder that that’s what we see happening?

In nature, life adjusts to the conditions of the environment—in the desert, you find plants that don’t require much water, and animals that are nocturnal to avoid the heat of the day. When laws create conditions that make peaceful people easy prey, how can people fail to see that it’s the same principle at work? Yet that’s what is happening with gun control laws.

We "extremists" who support the Second Amendment have a phrase that accurately describes gun control laws. They’re called "victim disarmament laws". Law-abiding individuals who feel they have a legitimate need for a handgun wait agonizing days for the background check and "cooling off period" mandated by law—and run the risk of being shot because the criminal doesn’t jump through the government’s hoops. They will not buy automatic weapons—illegal simply because they do the job with greater efficiency—while a criminal seeks out such weapons precisely for that reason. They will obey the laws that limit where they may lawfully carry weapons, while criminals seek out those places. Gun control laws create a disarmed class of citizens, and easy prey for criminals.

Victim disarmament is the tip of the iceberg, though. The gun-grabbers are creating new victims for criminals. Every gun that is taken out of a peaceful person’s hands is one less opportunity for the good guys to fight back. Why do you think there are drive-by shootings in California, where gun control is strict, and such crimes are unheard of in Vermont, which has unrestricted carry for its law-abiding citizens? It isn’t because Vermont has no roads!

Victims of Gun Control

Rather than ending the violence, gun control laws are increasing the likelihood of law-abiding citizens meeting an untimely, unnecessary end while conducting routine business. Every person who has died or been injured at the hands of someone spraying bullets in a public place is a victim created by the gun-control crowd.

By creating gun-free zones of the public schools, the politicians are making especially easy targets of our youth. This fact is not lost on the youth themselves, which is why we see kids killing their fellow schoolmates from Oregon to Florida. Israel, despite being surrounded by hostile countries bent on destroying the Jewish state, has virtually no schoolyard terrorism of this sort. Why? Educators and parent-volunteers are encouraged to carry their firearms at school, and everyone knows this. Disgruntled Israeli youth and Arab terrorists alike know that if they were to go into an Israeli school on a killing spree, they would be easily thwarted. Try to get Dan Rather to cover that story, though. Ain’t gonna happen.

It’s sickening to see such a waste of young lives, but even more revolting to hear the whining of the gun-grabbers after each incident, calling for increased measures that will only result in more senseless death. Sure enough, according to several reports published after the Littleton tragedy, Clinton is examining a number of options to step up restrictions on guns. This is a classic example of the late Robert LeFevre’s principle in action—"government is a disease masquerading as its own cure".

Seeing through the fallacy of gun control isn’t rocket science. It isn’t even particularly challenging thinking. All it takes is for people to start questioning the crap that’s being shoveled into their minds. How many slaughters of their children will mainstream America witness before they realize that the gun grabbers have sold them a pack of lies?

At least many in the gun-grabber camp have an excuse: they actually believe the twisted rhetoric and padded statistics they offer up as evidence. For the people who can’t be bothered to think about both sides of the issue and to critically examine the claims and arguments given by each, there is no excuse. Their mental laziness allows the killing to continue, and makes them accessories to the deaths that the gun-grabbers make possible by creating potential victims out of all of us.

Is that harsh? So be it. I have friends and family members, people whom I care a great deal about who fall into that category, and I refuse to pardon them for their part in the folly of gun control. I have four children whom I am trying to raise to be mature, responsible adults; one of them is my flesh-and-blood son—something I thought I could never create. They are four reasons why I am a gun owner. My firearms are my best means of defending my self and my loved ones, and anyone who tries to tell me otherwise is not suffered gladly. I am increasingly weary of those who accept at face value the claims of the politicians who say they know what’s best for their subjects. As a song that’s been getting a lot of time in my CD player lately puts it:

Too damn bad if at the end of the day
the only thoughts in your brain are all the things that they say.
What a waste.
Too damn bad if at the end of the line
you have no idea of what’s on your own mind
you got no one to blame but yourself.*

*Lyrics from "Disconnect" by Rollins Band, on the CD Weight, 1994.

Sunni Maravillosa is a psychologist and web mistress for the Liberty Round Table (URL http://home.lrt.org/ ). These days you can also find her in Freedom City ¾ part of another pro-freedom activity she co-founded with Don L. Tiggre, The Freedom Channel (URL http://www.evanstonwy.com/freedom ).

from The Laissez Faire City Times, Vol 3, No 17, April 26, 1999