Debunking gun control nuts yet again
Tom Teepen, a columnist for Cox Newspapers, is using the ‘Mayors Against Illegal Guns’ organization as a new weapon to attack the second amendment and gun rights in America. I could write a whole article about ‘Mayors Against Illegal Guns’ but suffice it to say that the organization has nothing to do about illegal guns and everything to do with making it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to obtain guns for self-defense and even sport.
In the same breath Teepen disingenuously touts the beauty of the Mayors appeal to the President as not calling for new laws but tougher enforcement of existing laws, saying that this is what gun rights advocates promote, while then going on to say that this is a phony pose. (On the part of the gun rights advocates)
Teepen continues by saying that the gun lobby works steadily to undermine enforcement by limiting the reach of current laws and chipping away at enforcement budgets. I would be interested in hearing Teepen explain how the gun lobby can influence law enforcement budgets.
According to Teepen, the Mayors make 40 recommendations. One is that the ATF require manufacturers to stamp new guns with a hidden serial number in addition to the one that criminals often file off. Since most guns used in crimes are obtained illegally and any hidden serial number would not be traceable to the criminal, this is a useless idea. Criminals seldom leave a gun at a crime scene to assist the police in solving the crime.
The Mayors also suggest more undercover testers to find out if unlawful out-of-state or felon buyers are shopping at gun shows. Since gun show purchases of firearms require the same background checks as those at retail stores, no felon is going to be able to buy a gun at a gun show. This is another useless idea.
The assertion by Teepen that gun shows and private sales remain essentially unregulated is absurd. Purchase of a gun at a gun show requires the purchaser to go through the exact same procedures as are required at a retail store. The fact that gun show sales amount to nearly half of all annual sales is therefore meaningless. There is no gun show loophole. As for private sales, I seriously doubt that someone who legally obtained a firearm is going to sell it to a criminal. Show me the statistics where this is a problem.
Then there is the assertion that there is little push against the 1 percent of licensed dealers who account for nearly 60 percent of the crime guns that law enforcement can trace. Statistics will show that this percentage of crime guns that law enforcement can trace is insignificant compared to the total of crime guns that law enforcement cannot trace. In other words, the vast majority of guns used in crimes were not obtained legally and none of the suggestions put forth by the Mayors will have an effect on reducing this problem.
Teepen then goes on to make the smarmy statement that there was a “pathological reaction” to Obama’s election evidenced by the huge leap in gun sales and ammunition purchases. It is not a “pathological reaction” when you consider that the majority of those serving in Obama’s administration are vehemently anti-gun and would like nothing better than to trash the second amendment and disarm Americans and take away their unalienable right to self-defense.
Teepen finishes up with the absurd statement that no other civilized country puts up with such a reckless level of domestic armament, or suffers the violence that inevitably follows from it. I could counter those ridiculous statements all day, but I will just make a few observations.
Numerous studies done over many years have all reached the same conclusion. Countries with more widespread gun ownership had fewer murders while countries with less gun ownership had, say it with me, more murders. Over the two years following England’s ban on handguns, the use of handguns in crimes rose by 40 percent.
In 2003, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a study investigating whether gun control actually works. Their conclusion was that nothing seems to work very well. In 2004 the National Academy of Sciences published a comprehensive review of 253 journal articles, 90 books, and 43 government publications evaluating 80 gun-control schemes. The total number of gun laws found to reduce violent crime, suicide, or accidents? Zero.
Taking away guns from law-abiding citizens will never reduce the violent crime rate, it will have the opposite effect. And criminals will always find a way to obtain a handgun illegally. Depending on the police to protect you from violent crime is playing Russian roulette with your life as well as the lives of your loved ones.
Millions of Americans who own firearms use them for hunting, sport, or self-defense. Very few of these millions of firearms are used illegally. Reducing the number of guns owned by law-abiding citizens will do nothing to reduce violent crime. Tom Teepen and the ‘Mayors Against Illegal Guns’ bring nothing new to the table, just the same worn-out and discredited arguments and ideas.
