45 Caliber Truth
Some things are tough to figure out, some are not.
Having just taken a quick glance through the online version of the latest news I am once again heartsick to see the senseless violence that man perpetrates against his fellow man. It isn’t necessarily limited to one race or one economic class, but it would be impossible to not notice that the majority of shootings and gun violence is in poor and minority urban areas.
Certainly the insane drug turf wars of the street gangs are the biggest reason for this violence. One gang member shooting a rival gang member, or attempting to shoot a rival and shooting an innocent bystander. Or the fairly common instance where a gang member shoots a non-member for whatever reason someone would randomly shoot someone.
All these shootings have Chicago’s Mayor Daley repeating his call for banning guns and suing legal gun shop owners simply for plying their trade. But if guns are the problem why don’t we see the same level of violence in wealthy suburban communities?
Many of my neighbors have guns. Both hand guns and rifles. I often walk the streets of my neighborhood and it has never even occurred to me that I might get shot. All the gun owners in my neighborhood have legally purchased their guns from the same gun dealers that the mayor wants to shut down. How come they are able to act responsible with the same lethal tool so many in the poorer neighborhoods use to end each other’s lives? If the gun itself were the problem wouldn’t it be the same problem everywhere?
For many years Chicago had a ban on owning a hand gun. It did absolutely no good. That’s not theory or conjecture, it’s a fact. We have gun laws up the whazoo and I can’t find any reliable data that proves these laws have saved even one life. Studies have shown increases and decreases in gun violence but they have yet to be able to tie any of these statistics to a gun law. It seems only logical to me that if someone is willing to commit the ultimate crime of murder it is remarkably unlikely that they will be worried about a gun possession violation.
Guns in the poor neighborhoods are passed around like currency. The same gun may be in the possession of 4 or 5 different people over the course of just a few months. Guns in wealthier neighborhoods are there for hunting or owned by collectors or kept for personal protection from gun toting bad guys. It would be almost unheard of for someone to pay a debt with a firearm in those areas.
To be sure there are instances of gun violence in the middle and upper class suburbs. Usually these are confined to domestic situations where one spouse does away with the other. Or like in the tragic case out of Casselberry Florida where a mother shot and murdered her son at a shooting range before taking her own life. The gun range and its owner will likely be accused of being responsible for this horrid event. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a law suit, which like most of these suits will be for millions of dollars but claimed to be so this type of neglect doesn’t happen to anybody else. The key is that it was not up to the range owner to keep the previously diagnosed mental patient out of the range. Her family knew her history and it was up to them to protect her from herself.
The question is, if the gun wasn’t there would the murder not occur? I think it has been sufficiently proven that once things get that out of control a baseball bat, kitchen knife, rat poison or the family station wagon can be just as deadly.
The preponderance of gun violence is high in the typically high crime areas with large gang populations, rampant illegal drug use and a complete lack of personal responsibility. Wealthy neighborhoods have the same number of guns, probably better more powerful guns, yet the gun violence is almost nil.
Maybe if politicians start looking at the real facts they can actually do something about the violence. Blaming the gun is like blaming the car for the drunk driver. It’s used as the tool but it’s not the cause.
And if the politicians won’t do it maybe the voters need to pull their head out of the sand and start questioning the cause and effects of the lack of personal responsibility. Data unequivocally shows that states that have instituted gun carry laws have seen a marked decrease in violent crime. That could not be possible if the gun was the problem.
Barack Obama has already shown his penchant for increasing federal gun laws and adding new restrictions to gun ownership. Perhaps he may want to take a walk through the streets of Washington DC where guns have been banned for many years and the gun violence rate is one of the highest per capita in the country.
The key to any gun law is that guns don’t vote, so rather than hold the person responsible you simply blame the tool.
