Mitchell D. Davis

March 4, 2002

 

                In the decade of the 1990’s a new war on American culture was declared.  This war is an ongoing war.  The aggressors are not foreign countries or radical terrorists looking to undermine the American dream.  Quite the contrary is the case.  This war is being waged by fellow Americans who see only one worldview, their own.  The primary target of this enemy is the citizen’s right to own firearms.  Who is the enemy?  The enemy is gun control advocates like Chuck Schumer, a Democratic Senator from New York, and Rosie O’Donnell, a television talk show host.  They are the ones leading the charge.  Their goal is to create a gun-free utopia through legislation.  They have a respectable amount of followers, but it is a case of the blind leading the blind.  There are many reasons why people want more gun control legislation, but all are flawed.

            One myth is that the reason so many people die in the United States from gun violence is because of the vast amount of guns in circulation.  This view is doomed right from the very start.  This view suggests a direct cause and effect relationship between guns and violence.  The enemy will often use statistics showing European countries with strict gun laws having very few incidents of gun related violence.  What these statistics fail to show is often swept under the rug.  For instance, gun control advocates fail to report the number of violent crimes committed by other means such as knives, Molotov Cocktails, and clubs in Europe.  They also fail to account for the cultural difference between the United States and Europe.  Due to political turmoil, European governments have tended to keep tighter controls on the general population.  In America we are use to terms such as liberty and freedom.  As of 2001, there were an estimated 150-200 million firearms located in fifty percent of American homes (Sterba 425).  The largest and more direct flaw is the cause and effect relationship between the number of guns and the amount of violence.  A gun is nothing more than a tool.  It is constructed of various parts of metal, plastic, and sometimes wood, all of which are non-intelligent.  A gun cannot fire itself!  A firearm requires an outside force to discharge a bullet.  That fact eliminates any connection between the number of guns and the rate of gun violence, because all guns require a pulling of the trigger to be used.

            Another force driving gun control advocates is the skewing of statistics.  Anti-gunners often use numbers showing gross homicide and burglary rates for a certain year in a certain city or state.  Figured into these numbers are murders and other felonies committed by street gangs, drug dealers, and other forms of organized crime.  These criminal elements of society are not going to hand in their guns because a new city ordinance or state or federal law is passed.  They are criminals!  Another piece of evidence that skews the numbers is that the studies in this policy area are almost exclusively done in cities.   This method completely ignores rural America where guns are part of the folk lifestyle and as stated above these studies absorb the large criminal elements of the city.  By ignoring rural America, studies in this arena must be taken with a grain of salt.  It is no surprise that the major leaders of the gun control camp are from major urban areas such as New York City and Chicago.  In cities that large, the only time people hear about guns is when they are used in criminal acts.  

This is partially the media’s fault.  How often on the evening news does a reporter tell the story of a home invasion, rape, or robbery spoiled by a gun-carrying citizen?  The answer is almost never.  Yet these occurrences happen all across this land.  

            Another battle cry of the anti-gunners is that the Second Amendment does not guarantee someone the right to carry arms.  For the time being the United States Supreme Court has agreed.  The circumstances of the court decision should be examined though.  The ruling came out in a time when organized crime was using machine guns in the streets.  The decision by the Supreme Court was an effort to help law enforcement.  Furthermore, one cannot put stock into the Supreme Court.  Remember the Dred Scott decision or the Separate but Equal Doctrine?  The Supreme Court is made up of nine individuals with their own agendas; who have made mistakes in the past and will make mistakes in the future.

            For further evidence that guns are not the problem take a look at rural America.  In this culture people use guns for hunting, sport shooting, self-defense, and collecting.  Often times guns are past on from father to son, from generation to generation.  People in this culture learn to use guns sometimes as early as five or six years of age.  They are taught to respect guns and be safe around guns.

            Fear is the pistons driving the anti-gun engine.  Spurred by misinformation from the media and stereotypes about guns and gun owners, the enemy is firing their mortars at targets they cannot perceive nor at this time understand. In closing, the reason behind this work is not to persuade everyone to buy a gun, but rather to caution people against jumping on the anti-gun bandwagon.  If a person does not feel comfortable owning a gun, then he or she should not, but do not try to restrict the rights of your fellow citizens.  

WORKS CITED

 

Sterba, James, Ed.  Morality in Practice.  Sixth Edition.  np:  Wadsworth/Thomsom Learning, 2001.