Is Crime Really a Reason for Gun Control?

The Star-Ledger of New Jersey thinks gun control will reduce crime. While the state has seen some recent criminal activity, including a shootout with the police, how would more gun laws really reduce the crime? Does the editorial board of the paper believe that criminals regularly buy their illegal weapons from licensed dealers or go through the various background checks?

The paper brings up some good points, but misses the facts:

“We know there is no direct connection between someone carrying a pistol with a permit and an outlaw brandishing a stolen shotgun. Our point is that we need fewer guns on the streets, not more, and that if we in New Jersey choose to place tight limits on packing heat, those limits should not be set aside for visitors from out-of-state. Even in the fabled Old West, there were local limits on where someone could carry a gun, and some towns — Tombstone, famously — prohibited toting firearms within city limits.”

If Tombstone was in fact so free of guns, then why was there a shootout at the OK Corral? It was because the bad guys (and take your pick on who exactly were the bad guys) ignored the law!

But this isn’t about carrying a gun on the streets in New Jersey. To keep people from carrying guns, the paper’s editorial board has the better idea of not allowing anyone to own a gun anywhere, including in one’s home. Thus the famous saying, “when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns” rings very true!

The problem is further compounded. Not this passage:

“The gun lobby — which apparently won’t be satisfied until every man, woman and child in the country is wearing a sidearm — argues that stronger gun-control laws do not deter crime because criminals don’t abide by them. But every weapon sold or possessed illegally had to come from a legal source in the first place.”

First, does the gun lobby really want everyone to wear a sidearm? As a legal gun owner I certainly don’t, and I don’t know another gun owner who would want such a thing. But I should be able to legally own guns, and store them properly in my home!

Nor is the fact that every weapon sold or possessed illegally proven that it has to have come from a legal source. Clearly there are weapons that are illegally imported, stolen from the manufacturers or obtained as stolen parts. To say that “every weapon” was one legal is simply irresponsible journalism.

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