The
tragedy at Sandy
Hook Elementary School has shaken this country. The highest mandate of our
government is to protect our rights, the most important of which is the right
to life, yet still a deranged murder assailed little children and their
caretakers. In a terrible way, the December 14 massacre in Newtown Connecticut
is a new, notorious low in mass murder.
The
deaths of twenty first graders, along with six other staff members, is a
devastating evil, one which should force us to reflect on deeper, humbling
realities in our culture. This is a fallen world full of fallen people. This
notion may offend some, but from the Framers
of the Constitution to the conservative
elements in our polity today, this humbling reality has factored into the
law and order needed to preserve the peace and protect or rights. Inevitably,
the fallen nature of man will fall out from time to time, a nasty reality that
cannot be ignored, nor can it be eradicated by legislative or judicial fiat.
Understandably,
our nation’s leaders in Washington and throughout the country are not just aggrieved
but now want a more aggressive policy of gun control to stop these mass murders
from manifesting again. Our media culture will magnify tragic elements, yet no
matter how good the intentions of our leaders or our communities, human nature
cannot be perfected or improve through human force.
More
gun-control will not prevent this despicable criminals from killing again, nor
will they prevent mass murder with assault weapons.
Great
Britain, which has one of strictest
gun-control laws in the world, also has one of the crime
rates in the world. The British police, which by law are not permitted to
have firearms on patrol, suffer violence. Private
citizens in Great Britain have been prosecuted for defending their homes
with firearms.
Yet gun control advocates have asserted that greater access to firearms will
lead to more accidental gun deaths. The
Cato Institute refuted this argument in one report, in which research concluded
that the greater access of firearms does not lead to more gun deaths. One liberal
website columnist rejected his opposition to gun control because it simply
does not work. Citing
the exhaustive review of gun control studies by the National Academy of
Sciences, CNN reported also that gun control does not lead to crime control.
Independent
research has also demonstrated that gun control laws do not protect people. The
celebrated Florida State University academics Gary Kleck
and Marc Gertz,
liberal academics in their own right, released their own studies to establish
for a reluctant academic community that firearms do prevent crime. The
comprehensive methodology of their studies confirmed the credibility of Kleck and Gertz’
finding. I still recall this case in one of my criminology textbooks at UC
Irvine, an overwhelming indicator that guns do prevent crime, and their easier
availability would prevent violence.
After
the Supreme Court struck down Washington D.C.'s individual hand gun ban in District
of Columbia v Heller, the murder
rate plummeted in the national capital, which up to then had one of the
highest murder rates in the country, worse than Los Angeles. Chicago's murder
rates also went down after the ruling that struck down the D.C. ban. Not even
one week before the Newtown Massacre, the
Federal Court of Appeals struck down Chicago's strict gun control laws.
Pundits predict a continued decline in homicide.
Forty
states have concealed carry laws enforced, including
Connecticut. Yet the Newtown assailant Adam Lanza still took out twenty-six
people with an assault rifle. One provision of the Connecticut law has
hamstrung lawful self-defense:
individual carriers must
seek permission before they can carry a concealed firearm on a public
school campus. This exception, which remains extant in many states, actually
allows schools to be easy targets for deranged murders seeking to take out
their insane villainy on any easy prey. Imagine if one person at Sandy Hook
Elementary had been armed. The assailant would have been stopped before he had
the chance to spray bullets all over the elementary school campus.
Still,
public officials are running their mouths for more gun control. New York City
mayor Michael Bloomberg has discredited himself when he arrogantly and foolishly
claims that this nation has an "epidemic of gun violence". This
tragedy has disturbed law enforcement and public school officials over the
country, and rightly so; yet we must not permit out leaders to jump to furious
conclusions about gun control, as if removing the firearms from law-abiding
citizens will prevent the criminals, thugs, and men with secretive intent from
attempting such harm.
Despite
the superficial scare of such a reform, every state should expand the limits of
lawful “conceal and carry” laws. One woman in Texas
witnessed her own mother and father get shot to death. She argued to her state
legislature that if she had her own firearm, she could have killed the
assailant before they finished off her parents. US Senator Joe
Machin (D-West Virginia) conceded that this country needs to have a debate
on gun control. He then emphasized that he
does not want to limit gun ownership, a policy which would put him out of step
as well as out of touch with his own West Virginia constituents, of which 55%
own a gun.
Yes,
this country needs to have a serious discussion on gun control, but not a
debate which delineates further restrictions on gun ownership, but rather
expands the legal propriety for carrying a firearm. The citizens in this
country should not permit anyone in power, whether president, governor, or
mayor, to limit law-abiding citizens’ access to firearms. Yes, background
checks which evaluate the competence and character of gun purchases are
prudent. Restricting the ownership of guns altogether, however, will not
prevent wicked men from arming themselves and perpetrating evil.