Gun Control Drives Me Crazy

Gun control drives me crazy. I’m willing to consider any logical argument, but gun control is so untethered from reality that it makes me hyperventilate just thinking about it.

It is reality that people are killed by guns every day. The reporter and photograhper who were gunned down on live TV are only the latest victims in a long and increasingly frequent pattern of innocents murdered by gun-wielding madmen.

How is that a problem of gun control?

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Many more people are killed by car accidents every day, and no one is suggesting that we outlaw cars. We could narrow the field to only those killed by drunk drivers and outlaw alcohol, but we’ve already tried that.

Prohibition didn’t eliminate alcohol in this country, it simply created an underground economy for it. People wanted alcohol, and people got alcohol, whether they knew the secret password at a speakeasy or distilled it themselves in the woods.

(Fun fact: Prohibition gave rise to NASCAR. Moonshine runners souped up their vehicles to outrun police, and the sport of faster, better cars was born.)

Once upon a time abortion was illegal. Women still found a way to terminate unwanted pregnancies. The legalization of abortion made it easier to access them but also easier to regulate them (some recent high-profile exceptions notwithstanding).

Most drugs are illegal in most states, yet there is no shortage of drugs to be had anywhere, even in prison, or so I’m told. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

We could outlaw all guns tomorrow, and all that would happen is an underground economy would spring up overnight. People who want guns will always find a way to get guns.

It is the height of irony that as soon as we’re told a murder-to-be obtained a gun legally to kill innocents, we think we can save more innocents by making it harder for a murderer-to-be to get a gun. Get real. There are guns to be had, murderers-to-be are only criminals in waiting, and who in their right mind thinks a criminal can’t get a gun when he wants one?

[sharequote align="center"]People who want guns will always find a way to get guns.[/sharequote]

Don’t even get me started on actual murder statistics as they relate to gun control laws. Chicago, to take just one example, is notorious for its murder rate. If tougher gun control legislation were a logical proposition for protecting a community, you would think the obvious solution to be toughening Chicago’s gun control laws.

You would be wrong. Chicago has the strictest gun control laws in the nation, with not a single gun shop allowed inside the city limits. According to the Illinois State Rifle Association, “The gun laws in Chicago only restrict the law-abiding citizens and they’ve essentially made the citizens prey.”

The most infuriating part of gun control is that it keeps guns away from the good guys.

The man who beheaded his co-worker at a food plant in Oklahoma last year was attempting to behead a second victim when he was stopped by a good guy with a gun. According to a statement put out by the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office, “[t]here is every reason to believe that the lives of untold others were saved who would have been targeted by the suspect if it hadn’t been for [the good guy’s] actions.”

Another good guy in Dallas, an armed security guard outside the Muhammad cartoon drawing contest, shot and killed two heavily armed gunmen before they could enter the ballroom packed with 200 people.

James Holmes was recently given 12 consecutive life sentences plus 3,318 years for killing 12 and wounding 58 at a midnight movie in Aurora, Colorado in 2012. How many lives might have been saved had there been a good guy with a concealed weapon there to see "Batman" that night?

There were no concealed weapons in that theater because they weren’t allowed. Of the seven theaters playing "Batman" that night within 20 minutes of the killer’s house, some theaters were closer, and some theaters held larger crowds of people to kill. But the theater Holmes selected, Cinemark, was the only one that banned concealed firearms.

We will always have murderers, and we will always have weapons. Cain killed Abel with a rock.

It’s not a gun control problem.

Donna Carol Voss is an author, blogger, speaker, and mom. A Berkeley grad, a former atheist and pagan, she is now a Mormon on purpose and an original thinker on 21st century living, particularly 21st century women. Her memoir, “One of Everything,” traces the path through one of everything she took to get here. Contact: donna@donnacarolvoss.com

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