BLUF
\nthe gun debate in America is simple to resolve: keep your guns.\u00a0\u00a0It’s the smartest and freest choice \u2014 smartest because the I.Q.-heavies of 1776 deemed it necessary to maintain a free nation, and freest because freedom was their aim.\u00a0\u00a0If you fear guns, the choice is equally simple: don’t own one.\u00a0\u00a0You have that choice.\u00a0\u00a0However, if you support gun confiscation, you remove that choice from your fellow citizen, leaving him more vulnerable.\u00a0\u00a0If your fellow citizen is victimized by a criminal, morally speaking, the policy you supported spilled his blood.<\/p>\n
By the way, did you catch the irony?\u00a0\u00a0By making hundreds of millions of law-abiding citizens more vulnerable, anti-gun activists embolden criminals to commit more, not less, crime.\u00a0\u00a0Talk about a miss.<\/p>\n
What’s a Gun Got to Do with It?<\/a><\/p>\n A May 2022 The Hill\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0entitled\u00a0Here Is A List of 27 School Shootings That Have Taken Place This Year<\/em>\u00a0underscores the fear many have regarding gun ownership.\u00a0\u00a0<\/sup>But why is\u00a0protecting<\/em>\u00a0one’s person, family, property, etc.\u00a0<\/em>in the face of evil threatening and not prudent?\u00a0\u00a0After all, isn’t peace most ensured when strength is most projected \u2014 or, as Reagan put it, “peace [comes] through strength”?\u00a0\u00a0In other words, doesn’t common sense inform us that criminals exploit vulnerability?<\/p>\n The arguments for gun control are familiar to most.\u00a0\u00a0The\u00a0anti-gun<\/em>\u00a0stance is that\u00a0no guns means no mass shootings<\/em>\u00a0at schools less violent crime generally.\u00a0\u00a0In support of this position, the figure of fewer\u00a0deaths by guns<\/em>\u00a0in nations where guns have been banned is often cited, while violent deaths\u00a0by other means<\/em>\u00a0are typically ignored.\u00a0\u00a0Alternatively, the pro-gun position draws attention to 1) declining violent crimes in America for nearly three decades (Antifa\/BLM riots, state D.A. criminal leniency, federal prison purges, etc. are altering this trend); 2) armed citizens for criminal deterrence; and 3) on-the-scene armed citizens preventing crime and apprehending criminals before police arrive.\u00a0\u00a0Think of the recent Indiana mall “good Samaritan.”\u00a0\u00a0In this article, we’ll explore the anti-gun side.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n To underscore the U.S.’s unhealthy obsession with violence, anti-gun activists are aghast to learn that more guns exist in America (400M) than Americans (330M) \u2014 as if large numbers of inanimate objects somehow animate them.\u00a0\u00a0It would be akin to shuddering over the number of chainsaws in hardware stores for fear that one might somehow self-start and kill someone.\u00a0\u00a0What anti-gun activists don’t shout from their rooftops is that as the number of modern sporting rifles (MSRs) sold in America has increased over the past quarter-century \u2014 to include high-capacity-magazine, automatic high-powered rifles, etc., which they argue pose the greatest threat \u2014 the number of violent crimes\u00a0has declined<\/a>.<\/p>\n At this point, more savvy anti-gun activists claim that the issue isn’t firearms for self-defense, but firearms that kill children.\u00a0\u00a0Sandyhookpromise.org’s #1\u00a0factoid<\/a>\u00a0reads: “Each day 12 children die from gun violence in America.”\u00a0\u00a0Recognizing that a number without context is pretext, 4.4K (12×365) annual firearm-related deaths in a sea of 83M American “children” (aged 0 to 19)\u00a0means<\/a>\u00a00.0053%, or 53 in out of 1 million, die annually.\u00a0\u00a0To appreciate these odds, National Safety Council (NSC) 2019 data\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0that a person’s lifetime odds of dying from cancer are 1 in 7.\u00a0\u00a0Stated differently, the average person’s chance of dying from cancer is 2,695 times greater than a “child” dying from a firearm.<\/p>\n A New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) May 2022\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0entitled “Crossing Lines \u2013 A Change in the Leading Cause Of Death among US Children” is the source for the above sandyhookpromise.org factoid.\u00a0\u00a0It uses CDC WISQARS fatal injury data to purportedly prove that guns kill more children annually than motor vehicles.\u00a0\u00a0NEJM authors assert that decades of successful governmental intervention to curb vehicular accidents among children should be applied to curb firearm deaths.\u00a0\u00a0What’s curious is that the CDC data referenced include 24-year-old adults with a higher risk profile (for just about anything) than a 6-year-old.\u00a0\u00a0For this\u00a0faux child<\/em>\u00a0group, firearms unseated motor vehicle fatalities for first place in 2017.\u00a0\u00a0Yet, when the CDC numbers are\u00a0re-run<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0children<\/em>\u00a0(aged 0 to 19) from 2001 to 2021, motor vehicular fatalities exceed deaths by firearm by nearly two to one \u2014 and for those aged 0 to 14, by four to one.\u00a0\u00a0From this, it seems difficult to assert that American children are being killed\u00a0en masse<\/em> by firearms.<\/p>\n While the anti-gun crowd may view such logic as heartless \u2014 despite the fact that optics for national public policy should be based upon national, not individual prevalence \u2014 it’s compelled to pivot to a final assertion: no guns means no violent crime, as proven in places like Europe.<\/p>\n In the 1950s, the U.K. banned concealed weapons, followed by shotguns in the ’80s.\u00a0\u00a0After a couple of high-profile school shootings, all handguns were banned in the late ’90s.\u00a0\u00a0What’s curious is that while licensed firearms have declined in the U.K. since 1996, violent crime has\u00a0increased<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0igeek.com\u00a0puts it this way<\/a>: “[e]ach time the UK … stiffened gun laws, they saw an increase in murder rates.”\u00a0\u00a0Per criminaljusticedegree.hub, violent crime in Britain and Wales is\u00a0898 per 100K<\/a>, or 2.3 times higher than in the U.S. at 387 per 100K.\u00a0\u00a0If gun control is the right solution, how is it that America, a nation with more guns than people, has half the rate of violent crime of the U.K., which banned guns over two decades ago?<\/p>\n Given that many European nations have adopted a similar approach, there must be one nation where removal of guns from law-abiding citizens has vanquished violence committed by criminals, who aren’t law-abiding.\u00a0\u00a0Right?<\/p>\n Sweden is exalted as the civilized world’s poster child for democratic socialism \u2014 a place where egalitarianism provides cover for government’s ever-expanding role in the lives of its citizens.\u00a0\u00a0Has gun confiscation from law-abiding citizens resolved Sweden’s violent crime?\u00a0\u00a0A December 2018 Spectator\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0entitled “Violent Crime In Sweden Is Soaring. When Will Politicians Act?” by Paula Neuding reports that Sweden ranks first for hand grenade violence of countries not at war.\u00a0\u00a0Per the Gatestone Institute, the rise in crime\u00a0has little to do<\/a>\u00a0with guns: “40 years after the Swedish parliament unanimously decided to change the formerly homogenous Sweden into a multicultural country, violent crime has increased by 300% and rapes by 1472%.\u00a0\u00a0Sweden is now #2 on the list of rape countries, surpassed only by Lesotho in S. Africa[.]”\u00a0\u00a0A March 2019 Washington Times\u00a0article<\/a>\u00a0entitled “A Late Education For Sweden” echoes the same: “Sweden’s social democracy, often cited by Europeans and like-minded Americans as the model society, is in deep trouble. Sweden is no longer a low-crime country[.]”\u00a0\u00a0In some areas of Sweden, the national police commissioner has publicly warned that Swedish police are no longer able to “uphold the law.”<\/p>\n The bottom line is, fortunately, easy to find: when intent to harm exists, guns are irrelevant.\u00a0\u00a0After all, Cain got by with a stone.\u00a0\u00a0Regardless of your view of the Bible, it claims what reasonable people know to be true: the source of violence is not the weapon used, but the person who uses the weapon \u2014 “for\u00a0out of the heart<\/em> come evil thoughts, murder …” (Mt. 15:19).\u00a0\u00a0How foolish to combat crime by confiscating guns from law-abiding citizens when crimes are committed by criminals who don’t obey the law \u2014 which is of course why they’re referred to as criminals.\u00a0\u00a0The missing puzzle piece in the U.K., Sweden, and a host of other nations should have been the first: proper identification of the criminal.<\/p>\n In closing, the gun debate in America is simple to resolve: keep your guns.\u00a0\u00a0It’s the smartest and freest choice \u2014 smartest because the I.Q.-heavies of 1776 deemed it necessary to maintain a free nation, and freest because freedom was their aim.\u00a0\u00a0If you fear guns, the choice is equally simple: don’t own one.\u00a0\u00a0You have that choice.\u00a0\u00a0However, if you support gun confiscation, you remove that choice from your fellow citizen, leaving him more vulnerable.\u00a0\u00a0If your fellow citizen is victimized by a criminal, morally speaking, the policy you supported spilled his blood.<\/p>\n By the way, did you catch the irony?\u00a0\u00a0By making hundreds of millions of law-abiding citizens more vulnerable, anti-gun activists embolden criminals to commit more, not less, crime.\u00a0\u00a0Talk about a miss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BLUF the gun debate in America is simple to resolve: keep your guns.\u00a0\u00a0It’s the smartest and freest choice \u2014 smartest because the I.Q.-heavies of 1776 deemed it necessary to maintain a free nation, and freest because freedom was their aim.\u00a0\u00a0If you fear guns, the choice is equally simple: don’t own one.\u00a0\u00a0You have that choice.\u00a0\u00a0However, if … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,29,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rkba","category-safety","category-self-defense"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=84308"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84309,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84308\/revisions\/84309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=84308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=84308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=84308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}