Ken Berwitz
What is the problem with gun control laws?
Cartoonist Chip Bok provides the answer – clearly and cogently – to that question, which all too many advocates of more and stricter gun control laws cannot bring themselves to face:
The problem, of course, is that people who do not obey gun control laws are unaffected by them.
This is not to say strict, logical gun control laws should not be passed – and, most importantly, enforced. Anyone who reads this blog knows I am in favor of, among other things, registration of handguns and IDing of ammunition.
But none of this will be relevant for gun violence being perpetrated by people who obtain and use guns illegally – which is to say the vast majority of gun violence.
Every time we have an incident like the one at Upqua Community College, the all-talk-no-action crowd screams for more gun control laws. Yeah, that\’s the ticket. We\’re on the right side of things. We can pat ourselves on the back and be proud of our principled stand…while getting all those votes from the suckers concerned citizens out there.
But the harsh reality is that, while it is certainly reasonable to avoid putting legal guns into the hands of people who have no business owning them, this will have a minimal affect on the amount of gun violence which takes place.
Chicago, to cite just one example, is experiencing rampant gun violence this year. But it has among the strictest gun control laws among major cities in the United States.
How can that be?
Well, ask yourself a different question: how many of Chicago\’s gun crimes are committed by legal gun owners – keeping in mind that the vast majority of gun crimes in Chicago involve gang members in mostly Black areas of the city.
Now you know the answer.
Here\’s another question worth considering: do you think the decent, law-abiding people in those neighborhoods – and let\’s never ever forget that a large majority are decent, law abiding people – think more gun control laws will protect them? Or do you think they\’d feel safer if Chicago did more to disrupt and, if possible, break up the gangs which, in no small part, run those neighborhoods?
You know the answer to that one too.
So let the politicians pride themselves on how many new gun control laws they can dream up…which will then be used to get votes because of how “tough on crime” they are.
But understand that they are doing next to nothing to prevent gun violence…and, apparently could not care less.
THAT is the problem with gun control laws.
