Gun Control Myths
There is a lot of misinformation out there about gun control, gun rights, self defense, “assault weapons,” and the like. This article is intended to briefly set the record straight:
Myth #1: Gun control stops criminals from having guns.
Fact: Gun control laws do not keep guns out of criminals’ hands.
Gun control laws don’t stop criminals from having guns, any more than the laws against murder stop criminals from committing that crime. A criminal who wants a gun will get a gun, whether they smuggle it in to the country, steal it, or buy it on the black market. The rampant gun related crime in cities such as Chicago and District of Columbia show that handgun bans and other strict gun control laws do not stop criminals from having guns, but instead only disarm the law abiding citizens.
Myth #2: Guns are ineffective for self defense.
Fact: Guns are the most effective means of self defense yet devised by human kind.
A gun is able to effectively stop an attacker at a safe distance, before that attacker can injure or kill the law abiding citizen. A gun can be used by a small woman to stop a large man from attacking her, or by an elderly grandma to fend off a home invader. No other tool of self defense is as reliable, effective, and easy to use. Indeed I have seen people fire a gun for the first time, and consistently hit the target on their very first few shots. it is true that gun owners should seek training and practice to gain maximum proficiency with their firearm of choice, however this training is easily acquired at one’s local gun store or range.
Myth #3: Gun ownership is not an constitutional right.
Fact: The Supreme Court of the United States has conclusively declared gun ownership for self defense to be an individual right.
In the D.C. v. Heller case, the United States Supreme Court made clear that gun ownership for self defense is a right of law abiding, non mentally ill, Americans. This right is independent of service in the military or militia. This ruling is in keeping with the text of the constitution, and the intent of this country’s founders.
Myth #4: Guns are not needed since the police can be called.
Fact: The police simply cannot get there quickly enough, or at all in some situations.
Even for citizens that live right next door to the police station, the police can’t respond quickly enough. That is because it takes less time for a criminal, who is already entering the home, to kill or seriously harm a home owner than it takes for the police to get to the home and stop the criminal. Natural disasters or civil unrest can also stretch a police department’s resources to the breaking point, leaving citizens with no option but self defense.
Myth #5: Only violent and uneducated people want to own guns.
Fact: Gun ownership is a right that between one third and one half of ordinary Americans exercise.
This author is a well educated and peaceful gun owner, as are a great many gun owners. Law abiding citizens own guns for a variety of reasons, ranging from self defense to target shooting. Indeed it is the mark of an intelligent and peace loving person to make themselves ready and able to defend their home against criminals, while hoping that they never need to act in self defense.
Myth #6: A home owner is 43 times more likely to be killed by their own gun than to kill an intruder.
Fact: 65 lives are protected for every 2 lives lost.
The long since discredited myth that gun ownership is more dangerous than beneficial was started by a Mr. Kellermann, in his flawed study “Protection or Peril? An Analysis of Firearms-Related Deaths in the Home.” There were numerous flaws in the study, including the fact that it only counted deaths, which are not a measure of self defense, any more than the number of suspected criminals shot dead by the police is a measure of police effectiveness. The fact is that 65 lives are protected for every 2 lives lost, which means that gun ownership is overwhelmingly safe and beneficial, both to the individual and to society. See Dr. Suter’s paper “Guns in the Medical Literature - A Failure of Peer Review.” Journal of the Medical Association of Georgia. Published March 1994.
Myth #7: Banning so called “assault weapons” will stop crime, since these guns are especially dangerous.
Fact: The ban on so called “assault weapons” only pointlessly targets safety and cosmetic features of these ordinary guns.
These firearms are no more dangerous than any other gun, and are used by criminals in well under 1% of crimes. A gun is defined as an assault weapon if it has certain cosmetic and safety features, and the presence of these features does not in any way make the gun more dangerous or useful to criminals. Bans on “assault weapons” are merely a way of eroding gun rights and further complicating gun laws, making it difficult for law abiding citizens to know and obey the law. It is also important to note that the so called “assault weapons” are NOT fully automatic machine guns, which have been very tightly regulated by the federal government since before World War II.
By: Learnaboutguns.com |
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Gun Control and the Courts: A Persistent Threat To Second Amendment Rights
In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court ruled that the District of Columbia’s highly restrictive ban on guns is unconstitutional. The ruling was anticipated across the nation. It was the first time the Court made a direct judgment about the right of individuals to keep and bear arms since the adoption of the Second Amendment to the Constitution. One would think that under these circumstances the D.C. government would get the message. Not a chance. The Washington D.C. City Council lives in its own world.
In a unanimous vote, the Council refused to repeal the handgun ban. Instead, it created a new exception under which the handgun ban does not apply to a person who seeks to register a pistol for use in self-defense in the home. According to the National Rifle Association (NRA), D.C. still forbids its residents to own a handgun for protection of a business, for sport shooting, and for other lawful purposes for which citizens own guns everywhere else in the country.
One of the items the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional was the requirement that guns have a trigger lock because such locks bar the use of a firearm for self-defense in the home. So what does the post-Heller D.C. Council do? It permits the gun to be assembled, loaded, and unlocked only “while it is being used.” I guess the only lawful way to put the gun together, load it, and unlock the trigger is if someone breaks in and points a gun at the victim. But what if the intruder shoots first? What if the victim does not have time to put the gun together for use? This is utter nonsense.
The Attorney General for the District anticipates lawsuits about this new ordinance. I certainly hope so. The Supreme Court said it is unconstitutional to ban a whole class of weapons which overwhelmingly is chosen by Americans for lawful self-defense. But the Council has outlawed, through its new definition, virtually all semi-automatic handguns, which comprise about 75% of all handguns sold in the United States in the past twenty years.
The D.C. City Council has imposed a very burdensome system of gun registration. Only a handful of states have any registration and none has a system as complicated as that of the District. There is a solution to this tyranny. Congress can pass H.R. 1399, the “District of Columbia Personal Protection Act.” The bill, which is supported by the NRA and has 247 co-sponsors, would repeal the D.C. handgun ban and the storage requirement which prohibits keeping a firearm ready for self-defense in the home, two of the provisions found to be unconstitutional in the Heller decision. Moreover, it would repeal the D.C. registration system, which is burdensome in its own right and serves as a vehicle for even more restrictions and skewed definitions. H.R. 1399 would restrict the D.C. Council’s authority to impose undue restrictions upon residents’ Second Amendment right. It also would repeal the ban upon semi-automatic firearms, conforming the District’s law to federal legislation. It would repeal various restrictions on ammunition and the District’s “Strict Liability Act,” which allows manufacturers of certain types of guns “to be held strictly liable in tort, without regard to fault or proof of defect.”
The problem is that time is short in this Congress. There may be enough time for a discharge petition to bring the bill to the floor of the House of Representatives. But in the Senate 60 votes are needed to move anything. The NRA vote count currently stands at 55. The leadership in both chambers opposes H.R. 1399. The NRA wants it passed while there is still a President in office who will sign it. Unfortunately, it appears as if the courts, rather than the legislature, will have the last word on the D.C. legislation. That is not how it should be.
By: Paul M. Weyrich, The National Ledger
State's gun control law should be struck down
To the Editor:
Onondaga County Judge William Walsh's recent decision in the Daniel M. Groff case was in error. He stated that the Supreme Court ruling striking down the District of Columbia's strict handgun ban has no effect on individual states.
The Fourteenth Amendment states in part, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."
The Supreme Court's ruling clearly declares possession of arms is a right of all law-abiding citizens. Therefore people enjoy legal immunity from any and all state laws, including New York's Sullivan Law.
The Sullivan Law will eventually be tested in Federal Court. It will likely be found offensive to the Constitution for four primary reasons:
1) It is a "permit," denoting that the state can issue or deny something that is a right protected by the U.S. Constitution.
2) It requires the applicant to declare a reason for wanting to have a handgun.
3) There is a time delay of from two months to a year or more between submitting an application and the issuance or denial of a permit. Why should a law-abiding person have to wait even one day?
4) The cost of a permit can be from more than $100 to over $500. But why should any law-abiding citizen be required to pay any state any money to exercise a right guaranteed by the Constitution?
By: Len Lisenbee, Syracuse.com |
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