The Fallacy of Gun Control
The other day I was attacked by some Twitter Trolls on my opposition to abortion. I said it is shame people do not have a heart for the unborn children that are slaughtered each year in the United States of America!
So, one troll says that I do not really care for kids because I am not marching for gun control. After I shot off an onerous but pithy response, I started thinking about the truth that no one is correcting the left’s false narrative. Not even our elected conservatives.
The whole gun control debate is a fallacy. Think about this!
How many news reports have you heard that a gun was used in a crime and was legally owned? Very few if any, right?
Add this one to the criteria, how many of those same reports involve a conservative gun owner?
None! See 99.9997% of conservative legal gun owners do not commit crimes. We do not rob gas stations! We do not go into the inner city and shoot kids! We are conservatives and we value life, we do not take lives unless that is the only option left to us!
I dare say the majority of these conservative gun owners have taken hours and hours of gun safety classes or have grown up around guns and had those safety rules drilled into their heads. I am part of the latter group. I have never pulled a gun on anyone, and I carry every day!
Recently I stepped in when a guy was being abusive toward a woman in a busy store and never thought about pulling my gun. My dad, who was an Army vet, drilled many gun rules into my head that I am not capable of forgetting. First, treat every gun as if it is loaded. Second, never, ever put your finger on a trigger unless you are squeezing because son, your finger is the only safety you can trust! One other thing he drilled into my head, is never pull a gun unless you have to and plan to use it.
I am almost fifty-six, I have never been in trouble with the law. I passed the most stringent background checks. So, a gun in my possession is not an issue for anyone except the one who intends to harm me or my family. No one can tell when I am carrying and that is the way it should be. Unless you want mandatory open carry. And I am okay with that as well.
The whole issue with the gun control crowd and their feeble argument that stricter rules and restriction will reduce gun violence is it is a lie. It is proven daily to be a lie and any mother or father who has lost a child in Chicago, New York City, Washington D.C., or any other liberal ran city if honest will tell you the harsh rules do nothing to detour gun crimes. And the reason stricter rules have not and will not ever lessen gun violence is the gun control crowd is continually focused on the wrong target. Targeting any law-abiding gun owner just makes all of us unsafe.
In fact, we have a lot of laws for us all and yet those who steal, rape, and or kill find it unnecessary to follow the laws that are already on the books. So, I am licensed to carry so I do. Before I was, I did not carry! Why because I obey the laws! But criminals do not follow the laws! We will look at why they do not as we work through this idea.
All I know is why I do. I am a citizen of the United States of America, the greatest Nation to ever exist on God’s green Earth. I respect my fellow citizens (even the ones I disagree with) and if I do not adhere to the law then I am not being a good citizen and I stand a chance of hurting one of my fellow citizens or myself. That is part of my why! And if surveyed I would guess most conservatives would have something similar as to why they adhere to the laws of our Nation.
The focus is on law abiding citizens and not those who break the law. I am apt to be in favor of any law that gets the guns out of the hands of criminals and does not affect legal gun owners. And that is the real issue, isn’t it? These laws never make it hard to buy or sale illegal guns. Our leaders have all the power of the law and the State but do nothing to seize guns from criminals. Sure, from time to time they do buy backs, but it barely scratches the surface of the illegal guns. When they do this, they promise not to prosecute anyone bringing illegal guns and then they pay them. That is insane! Again, to me it is another pass!
Criminals are criminals for a reason, and they laugh when they hear about another law on the law abiding. They know the gun control debate will never have any effect on them or their ability to obtain illegal guns.
And that is where we need change! We are a Nation of Laws but a small percentage of lawless and our elected officials who believe wrongly that you and I are a bigger problem to society than those who break our laws.
Our leaders for some reason do not seem interested in fixing the problem! Are they conspiring with the criminal? Or do they just hate legal gun owners so much they are willing to let innocent blood be spilled over and over while continually putting their crosshairs on the wrong target?
Either way our lawmakers are just as dangerous to our peace and tranquility as the criminals who possess illegal guns because I know it can be fixed so they know it too.
They have an agenda, and it is not about protecting innocent victims of gun crimes. Contemplate this for a while. They are willing to let the criminals reign and yet want to come for your gun or my gun because they wrongly believe we will just hand them over. I will not! And I hope and pray no law-abiding gun owner would surrender their firearm and freedom to a bunch of spineless cowards who refuse to tackle the problem at its root.
I for one hold that the right elected leaders at local, state and the federal level could if they had the testicular fortitude in around six months’ time round up almost all illegal guns and their owners.
The problem will be the aclu and of course the liberal media, and liberals in general who do not believe that a victim’s rights should be considered over the rights of a criminal.
I believe that if you possess an illegal gun, you should lose your rights until you have surrendered those guns and have paid restitution to your victims and paid society the debt you owe based on the crimes you have committed while possessing the illegal firearm.
We coddle criminals and call law aiding citizens terrorists! This is a problem of epic proportions! We have turned our back on the most basic tenant of good laws by not prosecuting criminals, especially gun crimes to the fullest extent of the law.
There is a way to fix the problem and turn a majority of these repeat offenders around. Joe is a criminal; he has an illegal gun, and he uses that gun in the commission of a robbery. Bill is the clerk of the store Joe robbed. The whole thing is caught on camera. Once convicted Joe is sentenced to 15 years in jail. This is where I flip the script. Those 15 years should be spent working not sitting in a cell dreaming of new ways to skirt the law. Our roads and bridges are crumbling, and we do not have enough qualified workers to do the job efficiently so Joe gets on the job training. Two thirds of his salary is used to first cover any monies owed to the store that was robbed and after that is paid in full that two-thirds goes to pay for his incarceration. The remaining third is put in a trust for when Joe gets out. Now he has a hand up, he can get a place, a car and now Joe can continue to contribute to society or reoffend. Reoffenders spend double the time; still must work just they get nothing. Taxpayers are no longer supporting criminals! They are paying nearly the full cost for their own incarceration.
In many Middle Eastern countries crimes, a near nonexistent for example theft simply does not happen. I worked with a gentleman from Kuwait, he said he could leave the windows down, top down on his car and leave any amount of money laying in plain view on the dash and the keys in the ignition and the car and every dollar would be there no matter how long he was gone. How is that I asked? Because in our country, you steal once you get your right hand cut off. Talk about a deterrent. I then asked why the right? Because in our culture no one shakes with their right hand because that is the hand used to wipe your ass.
My takeaway is it works for two reasons. One and maybe most importantly who wants to lose that particular hand? Have you ever tried to wipe with the left? I’m left-handed and I cannot do it. Second, for the rest of your life you become an advertisement for the law. No one will ever shake your hand. You are forever marked as a thief and an outcast.
Now that may be a bit rash, not sure we should go that route. But we can enforce our laws and then put the criminal to work doing things that make our country a better place to live and, in the process, teach the younger generation that crime does not pay. It is a Win, Win for the entire country and can also be a win for the criminal.
Deep down I think a lot of crimes are born out of desperation and hopelessness. Not all but a lot. No matter though, we cannot just allow our laws to be broken with no consequences.
So, focus on punishing the criminal and the punishment must be swift and severe but constructive. Let them pay for their crime, their incarceration, return what they stole and repair any damage, then offer them hope by giving them purpose with career training and let them have an earned nest egg for when they get out.
Will it work flawlessly, probably not, but it would certainly be better than what we are doing now because that equates to nothing.
A lot of things must work right to make this happen quickly. And that is where we overhaul the broken parts that keep people locked up for years before a trial. No more delays! No more unlimited appeals! No more backlogs! Think about the kind of people it takes just for infrastructure to keep a country running. We have a lot of criminals who take, break, and destroy. And for the ones that refuse to learn and cooperate, well our military always needs ground troops!
Of course, you will have all the liberals wetting themselves over how inhumane these ideas are but honestly to a degree it is how we used to punish criminals. And back when we were serious about enforcing our laws and putting criminals to work, we did not have the reoffend rate we do now.
As we move toward a close think about this, we must be better about choosing those who represent us. We must speak to candidates on this issue and make sure that those we select as our representatives have that fortitude to do the right thing. Ones that know unenforced laws are not a reason to add more laws. Instead help reform our laws so law abiding citizens are not overburdened yet enforces our laws that focus on illegal guns, gun smugglers, those who use illegal guns and bringing swift justice for those hurt by illegal firearms. And swift punishment for those who commit those crimes.
Quality of life crimes! This is a bit of a rabbit hole, but I feel it is worth it. Look back at NYC at the beginning and then again toward the end of the Rudy Giuliani terms. A dramatic difference in crime rates and gun violence. The hard truth is that when you hold people accountable, yes, enforce all the laws, people in time begin to behave differently.
My dad was strict as hell, abusive honestly but the house rule was if you touch the guns, you will need a doctor. Okay kind of an over-the-top response but one thing is sure. I knew he meant it and I never touched a single gun unless he was there, and I had permission. No less than five rifles were standing in the corner beside the head of his bed. One was kept loaded. Not one was locked and no accidents! Enforced laws work!
I never touched one, and with all the friends I had growing up that came and went, in and out of my house throughout the years, I never even thought about saying “hey Johnny, look at all thee rifles my dad has. I knew my dad was serious and I knew he’d beat me until I needed a doctor. So, knowing what it would cost me to break the rules and touch one, I did what was right.
It is our nature as humans to put our safety first. We instinctively practice self-preservation. Criminals, no matter how sick and twisted they might be, are at the end of the day human and will do what they can to self-preserve.
The bottom line is no matter how many laws are passed they will never stop criminals. It just gives them more laws to ignore. And should that terrible day ever arrive, and the government does come for legal gun owners it will be open season for illegal gun owners on the whole of the American citizenry.
Our responsibility now going forward must be to challenge the left’s narrative that stricter gun laws will make us safer. They will not! The reason gun violence hits so many schools, malls, and the like, is exactly because they are soft targets. Meaning no guns allowed. You and I may put our guns in the trunk at the mall, but the criminal will not, they have no incentive to! In Ohio from what I am told if you carry a gun into a mall, if caught you go to jail and lose your permit. That’s incentive enough not carry in the mall but only for law abiding citizens. Criminals look at the mall and go, no one has guns in there, it is an easy target!
People who use and possess illegal guns are not just law breakers, they are cowards. They will only hit soft targets because they know what we all know. No one will be shooting back at them. They are safe to kill and maim and they know it.
So, if you are reading this and you are one of the folks that think more laws are the answer remember that the next time you drop your kid off at school or you go to a mall. You just entered a potential shooting gallery, and your own government has made you and your family an easy target.
Like I said earlier, we can fix this and in six months’ time, but a lot of people will be unhappy. But to be honest, I do not care if they are unhappy if it protects innocent children and fixes the real problem.
Do you?
From Where the Eagle Soars
Steve