Since the Newtown shootings that took place in December 2013, we’ve all been constantly inundated by uneducated and reactionary commentary from the media about gun control. People say we need to do something about all of these guns and the crazy people who have them. They like to cite countries like Great Britain, where successful gun control legislation campaigns have significantly reduced gun crime in their respective countries. They argue that we need similar actions here in the United States. Just like the events following the September 11 terrorist attacks, safety and security have been used as reasons to challenge our constitutionally protected freedoms.
The data showing the decrease in gun crimes in places like Great Britain by tough gun legislation may be correct, but when you look at violent crime overall in Britain compared to the US, a different picture appears altogether. The following article cites data, collected by sources within Britain, showing how that country ranks in violent crime rates compared to other nations: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196941/The-violent-country-Europe-Britain-worse-South-Africa-U-S.html
When you read this article, you see that the violent crime rate in Britain is nearly 4 times the rate in the US. Now I've seen data showing just the opposite for homicide rates specifically, as seen in this Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate, but even that data shows that only about 1% of violent crimes in the US are homicides, and that there is an approximately 0.0039% chance of being the victim of intentional homicide in the US within a given year, making you about 2.7 times as likely to die in a car accident, which is still incredibly unlikely to happen (http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.A997). So in spite of all our guns, we're less violent than other less-armed but developed nations, but we're markedly more successful at killing when we commit to violence.
But as with others who advocate a libertarian stance on the possession of firearms in the US, my main reason has little to do with an attempt to reduce violent crime, which continues to drop as the population ages and people generally become more educated with each passing year. The real reason to maintain the free possession of firearms is the same reason that Martin Luther King Jr. fought and died in the civil rights movement, and the same reason our founding fathers fought for independence from Britain, which is to maintain an assertion of our civil liberties against those who would unjustly attempt to revoke them.
During the 20th century alone, there are many examples of genocide which have been enabled by strict gun control legislation. In fact, more people were killed by their own governments in these countries than all other homicides and domestic and international wars combined, as shown here: http://jpfo.org/filegen-a-m/deathgc.htm#chart. Free gun possession is the one last fail safe against such tyranny.
I'm not suggesting that our current Presidential administration is filled with the kinds of people that would launch into a genocidal mania the moment that they see an unarmed populace, but there's no telling what they would do with their new-found absolute power if it were suddenly granted to them. And there's no telling what the next group of elected officials would do, or who would be enticed to run for office if it meant free reign to ride roughshod over political opposition once in power.
It's been scientifically shown that people who are drawn to positions of power are disproportionately narcissistic when compared to the rest of the population (http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/narcissism.htm). These are people with an incredibly self-serving and sociopathic view of the world, and will do whatever it takes to get and keep power. Not all of them would murder, but without the threat of retaliation, one of them will eventually, and no one will be able to stop that person if he or she has the monopoly on firearms possession.
We’ve already seen two laws over the last 15 years that have essentially nullified different parts of the Bill of Rights. The National Defense Authorization Act or NDAA, signed into law in 2012, destroys our right to due process as outlined in the 5th Amendment. NDAA basically makes it possible for the government to arrest you without charging you with a crime, and holding you indefinitely, for no good reason other than that they say it’s in the interest of national security. The PATRIOT Act of 2001, in its Orwellian glory (see 1984), destroys our right to be left alone by the authorities unless there's reasonable cause to believe that we have committed, or are planning to commit crimes. We were formerly protected against this type of behavior by the 4th Amendment, but now they can spy on you any time they like, and all they have to say is that it’s a matter of national security, citing the PATRIOT Act, and they get a free pass.
If the 2nd Amendment, which protects our right to keep and bear arms, is nullified without resistance as well, we’re in big trouble. If the trouble doesn’t come now, it will in the very near future. The founding fathers added these amendments to the Constitution for the reasons I have described above. They knew that just because people happened to be in positions of power didn’t mean that they were infallible. They actually believed the exact opposite. That people in power were prone to corruption. And it just so happens that they were right, based on empirically proven criteria.
Our whole system in the US was set up as one of checks and balances. The idea behind the whole system was that no individual or group of people would be able to gain absolute power, and that all groups would be represented and have a say. Not only that, but individuals would be protected against mob rule, which is the most exceptional part of the system of government that we have enjoyed for over 200 years. Ignoring these mechanisms like we are with the PATRIOT Act and the NDAA is a slippery slope that can only lead us to fall off of a cliff into tyranny. Going this one step further and killing the 2nd Amendment will be a tragic, and an irreversibly fatal, mistake. It will lead to a formal revocation of all our other rights. Don’t be a victim.
Great article.
You can kiss our 1st Amendment goodbye along with all the others if they take our firearms.
Excellent words. And summarized below:
