Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Questions in a Quandary

John Haughey at Outdoor Life's "The Gun Shots" asks a few about some of my Gun Rights Examiner columns... [More]
Posted by David Codrea at 11/17/2009 01:41:00 PM

2 comments:

straightarrow said...

Didn't want to register there but as you know I hold what I believe to be more pure view of the Second Amendment than most. I do not believe anyone's 2A rights should be denied outside prison.

There are principled reasons for this stance, but I have found that principles do not resonate with most people. But, there are also some very practical reasons for my view.

Gun control laws only exert control over law-abiding citizens, they exert zero control over those of criminal intent. Therefore, it doesn't matter where the violent criminal gets his gun. Get it he will. Providing the latter with an unarmed victim pool is nothing sort of aiding and abetting his criminal acts. Gun control laws make accomplices to crimes of violence of every law enforcement officer who enforces them, and every politician who wrote, voted and passed them.

I don't care if a violent thug got his gun from a gun store or in a back alley, and ultimately it makes no difference to the victim either. Requiring that victim to be at the mercy of the thug is criminal in all but our legal system it seems. It is certainly morally criminal.

Many convicted offenders never were and will not in the future be a physical threat to other citizens. It makes no sense and is morally reprehensible to require he and his loved ones be at the mercy of violent thugs for the rest of his life, relying only on chance that they will not be selected for victimhood.

Some convicted of violent crime will not repeat, but there is a hard core or repeat offenders who will and nothing we have done in our 234 years has come close to preventing these types from arming themselves. Therefore, not only is denying the tools of self defense to any citizen morally irresponsible, it is worthless as a policy of disarming the truly violent and criminally bent in our society.


While this denial is worthless to the peace and security of the public it is of great value to the violent thug. Is that really what we want?

That is not a rhetorical question, because I do believe that is exactly what we (the state) wants. They have a use for the violent thug. Some they put in uniforms to do their direct bidding, others they allow to roam free among an unarmed public to create panic and make the public more amenable to surrendering more liberty and rights to the power of the state. If this were not so why does every "cure" for the problem always involve the innocent becoming more helpless and less self-reliant while doing nothing to curb violent crime?

The only times we have seen a downturn in violent crime are those times and venues where the innocent citizen can fight back and protect himself. None of the government programs or gun control laws have had any effect, but the simple expedient of citizens being armed has been successful everywhere it has been done.

So, it loses us nothing to restore rights to a convicted felon who has completed all state supervision. If he will never commit another violent crime he is no danger to us; if he will we can't stop him from arming up anyway, as we have proven for many many years now.

11/17/2009 3:55 PM
atexan said...

What straightarrow said.

11/18/2009 10:53 AM

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