Meltzer: Value of armed citizens
By Robert Meltzer / Guest Columnist
Monday, October 28, 2002
We're going to do a little thought experiment here. So, what I want you to do is read the following paragraph, then close your eyes and picture the scene, and then answer the question that follows. Ready? OK:
You are standing on a hilly piece of land in suburban Maryland not far from Washington, looking down at a crowded shopping mall surrounded by snarls of traffic. Through your binoculars, you see a man step out of a white van, pull a rifle with a scope from behind the seat and shoulder the weapon. Standing fifty feet behind him happens to be a civilian who also sees the sniper. The civilian watching the sniper also has something in his hand. Now, here's the question: would you prefer that the object be a cell phone, or that the civilian has a firearm and the ability to use it effectively?
As we have learned from the recent shootings in the Washington D.C. area, it is no longer the case that the police simply can't be everywhere. In a congested urban area, it is safe to say that the police simply can't be anywhere. And in a community that effectively outlawed guns, the ineffectiveness of the professional police force now means, as the NRA has long warned, that only the outlaw has guns.
We've also learned something else in the past 18 months - you don't need guns to kill a lot of people. You can kill a lot of people with an airplane, a box cutter, a skyscraper or an envelope full of bacteria. Killers lurk out of sight of the police, but not necessarily out of sight of ordinary people. This is why surveys taken in the past 18 months indicate that many Americans are now seriously questioning whether disarming civilians is counterproductive to the dual needs of fighting terrorism and combating crime.
Perhaps one of the most intriguing effects of the recent sniper shootings in Washington have been the increased ravings by the Several Mom March folks and the Brady Center that the way to curb violent crime is through more gun control and more disarmament. Perhaps this screechy new effort has something to do with the growing irrelevance of these groups and their psychotic need to regrab the spotlight. But their efforts are misguided.
On one hand, the anti-gun crowd is demanding a national registry of gun "fingerprints" that would supposedly allow police to trace guns back to their original purchasers. This, of course, is bogus, since guns are transferable, there are already a vast number of guns in circulation in the hands of lawful gun owners that might bear similar fingerprints to a gun found at a crime scene, and, finally, gun fingerprints can be changed. (amongst other ways, you can simply swap the barrel of a rifle).
The other absurdity of the anti-gun nazis is the trend of blaming the NRA for the Washington D.C. sniper. This is much like blaming the NAACP for the Jim Crow laws of the old South.
Gun control is not a recent phenomenon. Gun control has been with us in some form or another for more than 25 years. This span of time is sufficient to allow for independent studies of gun control, and those independent studies generally reach the same conclusions - gun control is not an effective means of stopping gun violence.
Many studies have confirmed the finding that decreasing guns has a direct correlation to a rise in crime. Other studies have confirmed that gun control laws have had the same effect as alcohol prohibition and the so-called war on drugs. The anti-gun nuts have created the black market industry in guns outside the channels of the law that is responsible for the gun violence that is now plaguing America.
It is time to rollback the absurd gun control laws that have had a perverse and adverse affect on the safety of American society. Unless we are prepared to live in a police state, where every tax dollar is spent to put a cop on every roof top, we must recognize that there is value to the armed citizen. Perhaps the armed citizen is all that stands between us and a life of constant fear.
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/columnists/colmeltzer10282002.htm
By Robert Meltzer / Guest Columnist
Monday, October 28, 2002
We're going to do a little thought experiment here. So, what I want you to do is read the following paragraph, then close your eyes and picture the scene, and then answer the question that follows. Ready? OK:
You are standing on a hilly piece of land in suburban Maryland not far from Washington, looking down at a crowded shopping mall surrounded by snarls of traffic. Through your binoculars, you see a man step out of a white van, pull a rifle with a scope from behind the seat and shoulder the weapon. Standing fifty feet behind him happens to be a civilian who also sees the sniper. The civilian watching the sniper also has something in his hand. Now, here's the question: would you prefer that the object be a cell phone, or that the civilian has a firearm and the ability to use it effectively?
As we have learned from the recent shootings in the Washington D.C. area, it is no longer the case that the police simply can't be everywhere. In a congested urban area, it is safe to say that the police simply can't be anywhere. And in a community that effectively outlawed guns, the ineffectiveness of the professional police force now means, as the NRA has long warned, that only the outlaw has guns.
We've also learned something else in the past 18 months - you don't need guns to kill a lot of people. You can kill a lot of people with an airplane, a box cutter, a skyscraper or an envelope full of bacteria. Killers lurk out of sight of the police, but not necessarily out of sight of ordinary people. This is why surveys taken in the past 18 months indicate that many Americans are now seriously questioning whether disarming civilians is counterproductive to the dual needs of fighting terrorism and combating crime.
Perhaps one of the most intriguing effects of the recent sniper shootings in Washington have been the increased ravings by the Several Mom March folks and the Brady Center that the way to curb violent crime is through more gun control and more disarmament. Perhaps this screechy new effort has something to do with the growing irrelevance of these groups and their psychotic need to regrab the spotlight. But their efforts are misguided.
On one hand, the anti-gun crowd is demanding a national registry of gun "fingerprints" that would supposedly allow police to trace guns back to their original purchasers. This, of course, is bogus, since guns are transferable, there are already a vast number of guns in circulation in the hands of lawful gun owners that might bear similar fingerprints to a gun found at a crime scene, and, finally, gun fingerprints can be changed. (amongst other ways, you can simply swap the barrel of a rifle).
The other absurdity of the anti-gun nazis is the trend of blaming the NRA for the Washington D.C. sniper. This is much like blaming the NAACP for the Jim Crow laws of the old South.
Gun control is not a recent phenomenon. Gun control has been with us in some form or another for more than 25 years. This span of time is sufficient to allow for independent studies of gun control, and those independent studies generally reach the same conclusions - gun control is not an effective means of stopping gun violence.
Many studies have confirmed the finding that decreasing guns has a direct correlation to a rise in crime. Other studies have confirmed that gun control laws have had the same effect as alcohol prohibition and the so-called war on drugs. The anti-gun nuts have created the black market industry in guns outside the channels of the law that is responsible for the gun violence that is now plaguing America.
It is time to rollback the absurd gun control laws that have had a perverse and adverse affect on the safety of American society. Unless we are prepared to live in a police state, where every tax dollar is spent to put a cop on every roof top, we must recognize that there is value to the armed citizen. Perhaps the armed citizen is all that stands between us and a life of constant fear.
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/columnists/colmeltzer10282002.htm
