– Trenton Hale
Guns are a topic of some controversy in contemporary politics. Many people today are concerned that they or a loved one will be the victim of gun violence. Because of this fear and the horrific shootings that occur, many people continue to favor strict gun control. According to the Pew Research Center, fifty-eight percent of Americans favor stricter gun control laws, and almost all sides of the political spectrum agree that people with mental illness should be restricted in purchasing a firearm as well as raising the minimum wage to purchase a gun to 21. Many argue that removing these harmful weapons will make us safer, especially with weapons such as AR-15s. Don’t let them fool you. Gun control does not make us safer.
To establish a few basic issues with the logic of gun control, we can place the problem of gun violence in perspective. everyday objects cause more harm than do AR-15s according to the FBI. In a study in 2019 by the FBI, the agency found that while 364 people were murdered by rifles, 397 were murdered by clubs and hammers, 600 were murdered by hands, feet, and fists, and 1,476 were murdered by knives or cutting instruments. If the proponents for banning AR-15s were actually consistent, they would support banning all these other objects.
The infamous National Assault Weapons Ban that was signed into law by former President Bill Clinton and is still hailed by Democrats today as a resounding success. However, their lack of knowledge on the bill is evident when in their repetition of simple falsehoods surrounding the bill. According to the National Institute of Justice, the ban failed to “reduce the average number of victims per gun murder incident or multiple gunshot wound victims.” Thus, the basic premise that assault weapons increase the lethality of gun crime is not in evidence.
Since this ban was not renewed by President George W. Bush in 2004, many states enacted their own ban on firearms, all of which have failed. A Journal of the American College of Surgeons research team found that mass shootings were associated with a higher percentage of kills than were all killings with rifles. According to the FBI, 4% of shootings involve rifles.
Does this mean that targeting handguns is the right course? No, not at all. Studies from Gary Cleck have found that increasing gun control shows no effects on crime rates since they do not have a net positive effect on violence rates. Using data from the National Vital Statistics System, the National Bureau of Economic Research found no evidence that gun buyback programs reduced homicides or suicides where a firearm was used. In Europe, the 9 countries with the lowest gun ownership in the continent have a combined murder rate three times that of the 9 European countries with the highest gun ownership rates.
Gun control never works because it cannot as Ron Paul has pointed out. In his book Liberty Defined, Paul writes that, “As long as there is metalworking and welding capability, it matters not what gun laws are imposed upon law-abiding people. Those who wish to have guns, and disregard the law, will have guns. Paradoxically, gun control clears a path for violence and makes aggression more likely, whether the aggressor is a terrorist or not.”
Not only does gun control not prevent shootings, it also has unintended consequences when it comes to authoritarianism. One of the first things that Adolf Hitler did when he got into power was impose the gun laws on everyone in Germany (besides those who aligned with him), including an outright ban on firearm ownership for all Jews. Disarmament of his enemies was done to enact his “final solution.” An armed population after all would be able to fight back against his “final solution” and Hitler didn’t want that. So, it was logical for him to tighten gun laws so that it would be easier to enact his “final solution.”
Another example of gun control being used to further authoritarianism is seen in socialist Venezuela. In 2012, the country banned the private sales of all firearms and ammunition to reduce their crime rate. The army, police, and collectivos, state-aligned groups, were the only groups that were exempt from this law, meaning only the government was allowed to have guns. In 2013 Venezuela stopped issuing new firearm licenses, and in 2017 the government banned carrying firearms in public places. The government confiscated more than 15,000 firearms in 2018. Sixty disarmament centers were created in the country and the penalty for illegal firearm possession was raised to twenty years imprisonment.
Other authoritarian states utilized gun control as well to enact their authoritarianism. The Soviet Union, who left its mark as one of the deadliest regimes in history, enacted gun control in their own country and in its satellite states to prevent the people from resisting communism. After the communists took over Cuba, Fidel Castro said that private firearm ownership was unnecessary since the people supported their government and began to enact gun control laws while his cruel rule over the country increased.
The Founding Fathers of the United States recognized this concern, which was why they wrote the 2nd Amendment, so that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. They knew that an unarmed population would fall victim to illiberal forces and that a liberal world needs an armed population to secure their freedom. As Ron Paul puts it, “Only armed citizens can ultimately resist tyrannical government.”