Reasons to Support Gun Control

I’ve noticed that a fair number of people who visit this website search on Google for “reasons to support gun control”, despite the pro-gun-rights nature of this website. I’ve decided to write this article listing reasons to support gun control, for those visitors.

Reasons to Support Gun Control:

1. You like pointless and ineffective laws – It is clear that criminals who will ignore the laws against murder, robbery, and rape will also ignore the laws against gun possession. Even with decades of empirical proof that gun control doesn’t work, gun control advocates continue to support such pointless laws.

2. You like law abiding citizens to be defenseless and at the mercy of criminals – As the rampant crime in cities like Chicago and the District of Columbia show, criminals ignore gun bans just like they ignore other laws (and thats what make them criminals). The law abiding citizens obey the laws, and are left defenseless when a criminal attacks them on the street or breaks into their home.

3. You like to discriminate against women and deny them the means of defending themselves – Guns allow the 5′2″, 95 lb. woman to fend off a 6′5″ 300 lb. attacker. They allow elderly ladies to defend themselves against home invaders. Gun bans, especially those targeted at handguns, have a disproportionate effect upon the members of our society who are less physically strong. As a simple matter of biology, most women are physically less strong then most men. This means that taking away “the great equalizer” from those women puts them at a disadvantage, relative to even unarmed men. Now consider that a relatively minor weapons possession charge is not going to deter someone who would face many years or life in prison if caught for rape, robbery, etc., and you can see that firearms bans will leave the law abiding women defenseless, and her  attackers armed.

4. You don’t believe in personal responsibility and prefer to blame inanimate objects – Gun are inanimate objects that cannot do harm, absent the actions of a human being. That human can be a criminal, a negligent parent, an irresponsible gun owner, etc. Each of those issues is one of personal responsibility, and should be addressed by punishing the offender, not blaming the inanimate gun and other law abiding gun owners.

5. You enjoy having irrational fears – Many people who don’t own guns seem seem to have an irrational fear of them, despite the fact that they have never owned or even fired a gun. It would seem to me that this irrational fear of guns comes from many sources, such as the negative portrayal of guns in media, fear over the loud sounds guns can make, lack of personal experience with guns, etc. Taking a little time to go shooting for the first time can go a long way to overcoming such an irrational fear of guns.

6. You don’t like civil rights – While many police officers are honest and morally upstanding people, there are some that abuse their authority. These corrupt police officers will break the law and violate the civil rights of citizens (often minorities), with sometimes deadly results for the innocent citizen. In these cases, the dishonest police officer will often say that the citizen had a gun or an object that looked like a gun. Since many of the cities and states where this police abuse is most common ban or heavily restrict the right to keep and bear arms, the corrupt police can use the fact that gun possession is a crime in order to justify their wrongful violation of the citizen’s civil rights, even when the citizen didn’t have a gun at all. Were the right to keep and bear arms allowed by these cities and states, the corrupt police would be unable to use the presence of something that “looked like a gun” as an excuse for their actions. This is not just a hypothetical issue. The New York Times reported how police are using anti gun laws as a pretext to violate citizens’ 4th amendment rights.

7. You enjoy punishing small children who have done nothing wrong – Gun control advocates often support “zero tolerance” policies, which result in unreasonable punishment of children who have not done anything wrong or endangered anyone’s safety. An example is that of Bradley Geslak, a 10 year old boy was given a harmless piece of brass by a veteran of the US military, during a Memorial Day celebration. He brought this completely inert, non-dangerous piece of brass to school, and has now been suspended due to a “zero tolerance” policy.

8. You enjoy subverting the purpose of government and our constitution – Anti gun groups are involved in blocking the confirmation of federal judges, simply because they disagree with the judge’s learned interpretation of the constitution. The confirmation of a judge is properly blocked when the judge lacks an understanding of the law, when he/she is racist, or when he/she is otherwise incompetent. Preventing the confirmation of a judge who supports the constitution is simply wrong.

9 You like politicians that treat themselves more favorably than they treat their citizens – Many of the most anti-gun rights politicians will bend the law to favor themselves, keeping the gun rights for themselves. This includes crafting special gun amnesty for themselves, or having tax payer sponsored bodyguards while taking away guns from ordinary citizens.

10. You enjoy leaving students defenseless against school shooters – All of the recent school shootings, from Columbine, to Virgina Tech, to NIU, were all in “gun free” zones. The criminals ignored the gun ban and were able to attack the law abiding, gun ban followings students with impunity. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, since a suicidal gunman bent on committing murder before killing himself won’t care about a gun possession charge. Equally clear, the law abiding students with bright futures will leave their guns at home, rather than risk a criminal conviction that could ruin their career prospects. Recent history also shows us that armed students who are allowed to carry guns can and do stop school shooters, as happened at the Mercaz HaRav Massacre.

It should be clear from the above article that I support gun rights and oppose gun control. I hope that readers of this article who were searching for reasons to support gun control will instead see the folly of gun control, join the NRA, and support gun rights.