Banning Guns In America

In light of the recent tragedy that just happened in Florida we’re having renewed calls for bans on firearms here in America. The media has been showing the parents of the victims yelling insults at President Trump and students doing interviews on what needs to be done to stop this sort of thing from happening. It seems like the whole country is up in arms and wants to ban guns from what we’re hearing in the news but is this really the case?

I find it odd that not too long ago we had the largest mass shooting in American history in Las Vegas where hundreds of people were shot and dozens killed and when stories of multiple gunmen started to emerge the story vanished from the news. People didn’t seem to care too much. I remember one person Tweeting that since the shooting was at a country music concert that the people there that were shot were probably just” Trump supporters” and “deserved it”. No big deal it seemed, life went on.

We are now faced with a new tragedy that somewhat mirrors a previous one that we had in Sandy Hook Connecticut. Another autistic teen got his hands on a semi-auto AR-15 rifle and shot up a school and children were killed. The last time that this happened the democrat held states forced through a series of strict gun control laws in states that already had the strictest gun control laws in the country. The laws forced gun owners to register their firearms, register their magazines, made it so that you can no longer buy magazines with more than 10 rounds, etc. none of which would have prevented the mass shooting that inspired the laws but went through anyway.

Now, we’re going through another media led frenzy to once again pass more gun control laws, including banning all semi-automatic weapons owned by civilians. New protests are being arranged across the country and the media is trying to get as many people behind the movement as they can. Will banning guns really make us all safer here in America?

The problem with these waves of calls to ban guns that we’re having is that they are not a total ban on guns. If they are going to ban them or confiscate them then why not take all of them? That’s not what these people or the media are proposing, they are proposing that the people who already legally own these guns should give them up, that they should not be able to purchase these weapons for any reason and that they should rely on the police and government to protect them. Does this sound like a good idea to you?

If you give up your right to defend yourself do you think you would ever get it back? If the American government were to ban guns would it be able to protect its citizens any better than it does now? The states in America with the highest gun crimes also have the strictest gun laws. This is contrary to popular opinion and very disturbing.

My thoughts are that what we tend to find is that crime and violence are generally economically related. The poorest areas in America have some of the highest crime rates. Crime has gone down in America including gun related crime because our economy has been rising significantly over the past 20 years or so. Unfortunately, I believe that if and when the markets go down once again we are going to see renewed crime increases across the country. I think that the government is well aware of this and thus has an interest in disarming the population now as opposed to later.

In closing, this is just my opinion of the issue. I don’t consider myself to be a “gun guy” or belong to the NRA but I do believe that we all have an inherent right to defend ourselves and our families. Part of our constitution (2nd Amendment) was written in such a way that it ensures the right of the people of this country to bear arms in order to “defend against tyranny” . Tyranny as in the tyrannical government who is now seeking to get the people on board with making them their sole protector and you’ve seen what they’ve done to other counties. Nope, doesn’t sound like a very good deal to me…

Image source: nbcnews.com