Friday, November 30, 2012

The Case for more Guns (and more Gun Control)

The Atlantic posts a reasonably balanced look at guns in America.  The author's bias shines like a lighthouse beacon.
 Many gun-control advocates, and particularly advocates of a total gun ban, would like to see the United States become more like Canada, where there are far fewer guns per capita and where most guns must be registered with the federal government. The Canadian approach to firearms ownership has many attractions—the country’s firearm homicide rate is one-sixth that of the U.S. 
However, he does go shooting with Dave Kopel while in Boulder, CO. and even comes to a remarkable conclusion
But I am sympathetic to the idea of armed self-defense, because it does often work, because encouraging learned helplessness is morally corrupt, and because, however much I might wish it, the United States is not going to become Canada. Guns are with us, whether we like it or not. Maybe this is tragic, but it is also reality. So Americans who are qualified to possess firearms shouldn’t be denied the right to participate in their own defense. And it is empirically true that the great majority of America’s tens of millions of law-abiding gun owners have not created chaos in society.
I think on the whole, it's a well-balanced article.  Go read it.

1 comment:

Rivrdog said...

Curious. My old police partner just called me last night to recommend the same article. He's left-of-center, but thought it balanced.

BTW, the Canoodlians come by their lower homicide rate due to ethnic diversity. Our inner cities have become race-oriented as to their demographics AND politics, which led to organized race-gangs, which leads to high homicide rates. To prove this, simply adjust the cores of cities out of the stats, and Presto! Canada and the US are even in homicide rates.

Kick some butt in the ghettoes instead of pandering to and glorifying the gang thugs, and the homicide rate would drop with blinding speed. Can't kick butt though, it's not PeeCee to target the criminal activities of race-gangs, so the only solution left is to wall them off from the greater society. That's not a perfect solution, but it's better than doing nothing at all.