U.S.A. — “This is how we end ‘gun violence,’” a reader reacting to my recent AmmoLand piece about anti-gun Democrat Rep. and possible Dianne Feinstein replacement Katie Porter wrote to me. That article speculated on domestic violence gun laws Porter supports applying to her with allegations by her former husband that she dumped hot potatoes on his head and cut him by smashing a glass. The reader’s solution?
“Prosecute and lock up violent criminals, repeat felons, drug dealers, and especially lock up illegal sellers and illegal possessors of guns and throw away the keys,” he advocated. “Anyone opposed to stiff sentencing isn’t really interested in stopping ‘gun violence.’ Their true goal is to disarm the tens of millions of law-abiding gun-owning Americans whose politics and voices they want to stifle. By force if need be…”
There’s truth in some of his contentions. There are also some concerns. “We part ways at ‘illegal sellers and possessors,’” I replied, speaking from personal experience.
I was one of a handful of activists who tore up California’s “assault weapon” registration card at an NRA event where they hosted state Department of Justice officials who came to dictate the terms of surrender to us and told them I would not comply. I became an “illegal possessor,” and plan on being one again if and when the situation arises again.
I was also a big supporter of colleague Mike Vanderboegh’s “Toys for Totalitarians” program to smuggle “illegal” magazines to gun-grabbers in states that had banned them, and a proponent of DRES, Defy, Resist, Evade, Smuggle.
As for violent criminals, an undeniable truism is anyone who can’t be trusted with a gun can’t be trusted without a custodian. If proven guilty violent persons are still truly dangerous, Robert J. Kukla made a brilliant observation in his 1973 classic Gun Control, equating their release from prison with opening the cage of a man-eating tiger and expecting a different result.
If there is clear, convincing, admissible evidence that a supposedly “restrained” party is a danger, how is it responsible to allow such a menace access to the rest of us until such time as it can be established that he is no longer a threat? Does anyone think he couldn’t kill with something else? Or, noting routine headlines from places like Chicago and Baltimore, that he couldn’t get a gun? Why wouldn’t he be separated from society, after being afforded real “due process,” with all appropriate protections of course?
I actually had supposedly “pro-gun” people tell me if I didn’t like the law, I should work to change it. And I was working to change it, including through advocacy activism.
I won’t even try to compile a list of all the things the government could file felony charges against a citizen on, especially on unconstitutional Second Amendment infringements, but will instead just quote Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin’s head of secret police: “Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime.”
“I agree with ‘Shall not be infringed,’” the reader replied. “I’m pretty sure the Founders disarmed convicted murderers who somehow they didn’t hang. I was referring to straw purchasers and/or those who steal guns and then rent or sell them to violent prohibited possessors, not non-FFL transfers the Left is criminalizing.”
There’s a lot to unpack here, and suffice it to say, while his intentions are good, we’ve still parted ways.
In terms of considering released prisoners as “prohibited persons” the Wyoming Law Review’s “The Historical Justification for Prohibiting Dangerous Persons from Possessing Arms” has this to say:
“While the Founders envisioned a virtuous citizenry, there is no tradition of disarming persons based on virtue, or even any indication that the right to arms was intended to be so limited.”
As far as stealing guns goes, yes, by all means, lock thieves up and require restitution to include costs of the investigation, arrest, and prosecution, and make sure they’re good and penitent before eligibility for parole board consideration. But as far as “straw purchases” go, I’m thinking back to how for most of this nation’s history, there was no prior restraint on gun purchases and we didn’t have anywhere near the problems we have today. (An interesting side anecdote, the first “mass shooting” deaths at a school in this country took place in 1940 and the perp was the principal. The next one after that was in 1966 at the University of Texas tower, the one where students rushed to their living quarters to get their own guns so they could pin the sniper down until cops could take him out.)
As for selling guns to known, dangerous criminals, we come back to the inescapable reality that if it is known they’re dangerous, what are they doing out of custody? And if it’s not known, where is the legitimate authority to deny them their rights?
The whole thing revolves around another reality: “Gun control” doesn’t work.
Criminologists Don B. Kates and Gary Mauser documented in the Spring 2007 Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy that “In 2004, the US National Academy of Sciences … failed to identify any gun control that reduced violent crime, suicides or gun accidents.” This was “from a review of 153 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some original empirical research. The same conclusion was reached in 2003 by the US Centers for Disease Control….”
To say that some laws work like NSSF’s “Fix NICS/Don’t Lie for the Other Guy” partnership with ATF, is, politely, to side with tyranny. To say, like NRA did, “that devices designed to allow semi-automatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations,” was a short-sighted betrayal and a green light for the Trump administration ATF to do just that. ATF has since used that “precedent” to go after other devices like pistol braces, forced reset triggers, and more. Give the Democrats the power to pull it off and “redefining” semi-autos is just one “rule” change away.
So much for those still insisting it’s “just about a stupid piece of plastic.”
Does it matter if an infringement comes from Everytown or Giffords or one of our “gun rights leaders”? And that leads to another common assertion I still see being thrown out by gun owners who, damn it, ought to know better by now: “Enforce existing gun laws.”
That’s ideologically no different than someone from the Founding Era saying “Enforce existing Intolerable Acts.” Gun control is not the answer. Neither is giving the appearance of legitimacy to prior restraints designed to ultimately enable registration.
As the late J. Neil Schulman wrote, the issue is self-control, not gun control.
John Adams knew that when he addressed the Massachusetts Militia:
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
That’s the real answer. If moral self-government is not restored, then the future our children and their children will face will be one of tyranny. We know it doesn’t have to be that way because many of us have lived (and still live) in times and places where violence up close and personal has been an extreme aberration. It can be done and the way we conduct our own lives proves it.
But it won’t be done by allowing totalitarians to establish a monopoly of violence which they will then use to transform the Republic bequeathed us by the Founders into hell on earth. And the well-intentioned promotion of any of their citizen disarmament cons merely paves the road for them to their end goal.
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
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