Not surprisingly, many people have been calling for increased gun restrictions since Jared Lee Loughner allegedly used a Glock to kill 6 people and attempt to kill Representative Gabby Giffords on Saturday. Sadly, lots of people seem to have the philosophy that whenever something bad happens, everything whose existence enabled the bad thing to happen should subsequently be banned. I completely disagree with this philosophy, and I will address some of its proponents point by point.
Guns do not kill people, people kill people.
Harold Evans at the Daily Beast calls this a “routine bromide…chanted by ditto heads” and “a cowardly way of evading responsibility.” He claims that “Guns kill people. A single gun can kill a lot of them in seconds.”
Really, Mr. Evans? Have you ever seen a gun get up and decide to kill someone?
Evans writes that if Loughner had not been able to acquire a gun and a large magazine, he would not have been able to kill 6 people and wound 13. Gail Collins at the New York Times criticizes Arizona for allowing people to carry guns in a holster under their armpit and points out that if Loughner had had a pistol and not a Glock, he may have shot Rep. Giffords but not so many bystanders. And Drew Western at the Huffington Post calls it “surreal and shameful” that people are allowed to have guns near elected officials (and calls such people “gun-toting bullies”).
I’ll admit, for the purpose of this argument, that if guns were banned (or Glocks, or high-capacity clips, or guns near elected officials), shootings like Saturday’s would be less likely to occur. But that is no reason to ban guns (or Glocks, or high-capacity clips, or guns near elected officials). It is simply wrong to claim that if a tragedy wouldn’t have happened but for X, then X should be banned. What should be banned are all and only the things that violate people’s rights. Carrying a gun under your armpit doesn’t violate anyone’s rights. Neither does owning a Glock or a high-capacity clip or bringing a gun near a public official. Shooting innocent people, however, does violate their rights. And that is rightfully banned.
In an editorial, the New York Times writes that high-capacity clips “serve absolutely no legitimate purpose outside of military or law enforcement use.” And Sam Stein at HuffPo begins his article with the question, “Is there a good reason to have 33 bullets loaded in a handgun?”
This mentality is simply wrong. People should not have to provide a good reason in order to be able to do something. As I’ve written numerous times, people have a right to do anything that does not violate the rights of others, no matter how pointless it may seem. The government should have to provide a good reason to ban something, not the other way around.
“Having won a Supreme Court ruling establishing a right to keep a firearm in the home,” writes the Times, “the gun lobby is striving for new heights of lunacy, waging a campaign to legalize the possession of a gun in schools, bars, parks, offices, and churches, even by teenagers.”
Allowing people to do things that, in themselves, hurt no one and violate no one’s rights - what lunacy!
And a final point: Evans thinks that politicians have refrained from banning assault weapons merely because they are “scared of the NRA.” Collins writes that Congress “did not have the guts” and are “afraid of the NRA.” And Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) is quoted as saying, “Everybody is petrified of the NRA.”
Notice a theme here? Please do not assume that people who disagree with you are motivated solely by fear. You might disagree with Congress’s failure to ban assault weapons, but at least admit the possibility that they just might, well, think that assault weapons shouldn’t be banned.
Harold Evans dares his opponents to “tell the Arizona shooting victims that guns don’t kill.” Well, to Rep. Giffords and the other 12 people who were wounded, and to the souls of Judge John Roll, Christina Green, Gabe Zimmerman, Phyllis Schneck, Dorwin Stoddard, and Dorothy Morris, I say, guns don’t kill. People have a fundamental right to purchase any kind of gun or ammunition they want, and carry it anywhere they want. It was unjust and tragic that you were wounded or lost your life. The blame for that rests solely on the person who decided to shoot you. The answer to this tragedy is to punish that person, not to punish everyone by taking our freedom away.
