More seriously, this goes to show why we have a Right to Bear Arms to begin with. The Founders were prescient enough to know that if a Citizen does not have access to a legitimate form of self-defense, the criminal will, and thus have an advantage. We love European anti-gun policies, but even they have gun crimes. Germany, Canada and Switzerland have gun-murder rates of .005 per 1,000 compared to the US rate of .03 per 1,000 [source]. We have six times as many gun-murders committed than those three countries. Without getting into the details of how the FBI defines gun-murders [whether a gun was used or not, if one was present it's defined as such], let's go with the facts:
- Germany limits gun-ownership to members of shooting clubs.
- Canada limits gun ownership to hunters, collectors, target shooters and those who can demonstrate a need of guns to protect their lives.
- Switzerland however has one of the highest gun-ownership rates in the world [46 guns per 100] due to the fact every male is a member of the militia [Switzerland has no standing Army].
So one can logically conclude from these three countries that restricting gun ownership like Canada and Germany will have the same effect on gun-murder rates as one of the highest gun ownership countries in the world like Switzerland. I call that an impasse. However, it's been shown in Florida, when it adopted a right-to-carry law in 1987, that between 1987 and 1996:
- homicide rate declined by 36%
- homicide rate [with a firearm] declined 37%
- homicide rate [with handgun] declined 41%
I would postulate that if Right-to-Carry laws were implemented in all 50 states, we would see a further decline in homicide rates and homicde rates with firearms. "An Armed Society, is a Polite Society." -Robert A. Heinlein
The second benefit of owning firearms, is that owning a firearm guarantees your other Liberties. Benjamin Franklin said those that would give up a little Liberty for a little Security deserve neither. Our check against a despot is grounded on the fact we have the ability to defend ourselves against tyranny. It's such a naive argument to state that in the United States we would never have to worry about a despot coming to power or to worry about a coup d'etat, it's not worth my time to argue against it, so long as we have the Right to Bear Arms.
James Madison thought it prudent as well in Federalist Paper 46, "Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of."
1 comment:
I think it's funny (not ha-ha) how people are so willing to abolish their gun rights. Just the same as they are willing to let the gov't bail us out of a financial "crisis". We have a false sense of security because we've been the strongest nation for so long. Only two devastating attacks on our soil in the past 100 years is excellent compared to countries in the Middle East or Africa. If you look at the stages a nation goes through, we are probably at the apathetic/dependent stage. We don't care about our liberties that allowed this country to flourish and are willing to depend on the government to take care of our problems. I've been saying for many years now, that once the government takes one right away, the rest will be that much easier. And the two most powerful and the first two given, will probably be the first taken away. Once we lose our freedom of speech and right to bear arms we're at the mercy of our government who right now is headed by a juvenile politician and a bunch of tax cheats and special interest beuracrats.
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