WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU SAW A NEWSPAPER ARTICLE ABOUT A PERSON USING A WEAPON IN SELF-DEFENSE? | 2000-03-18
The right to bear arms cannot survive tragedy after tragedy being reported in the news as a simple failure to control guns. We never read about the two million times a year that private guns are used to prevent crime.
Professor John Lott of the University of Chicago did extensive studies of FBI statistics and wrote a book called "More Guns, Less Crime." It gave instance after instance of how armed, HONEST citizens prevent crime. He did statistical studies proving this fact. The book lived up to its title.
Let me tell you how effective Lott is. I saw a 1990's debate between him and gun control advocates on public television. No one is going to accuse public television of not giving the left all the odds it can. Lott was outnumbered, but he made an unbeatable case that when the honest public is armed, crime goes DOWN. His case was so good that the gun control advocates were reduced to arguing that allowing honest people to carry concealed weapons had NO EFFECT on violent crime!!!
Now here is the CRITICAL point: this occurred in the mid-nineties. This was when concealed weapons permit laws were being passed that gave the public more access to firearms. In response to these proposals, these exact same anti-gun people were shouting "BLOODBATH!" They were saying that if these new concealed weapons permit laws were passed, "It will be Dodge City!"
Respectable conservatives don't remember that, but I do. The very second a roomful of these anti-gun screamers had to face a knowledgeable scholar, they were reduced to arguing that the permits shouldn't be allowed because they didn't MATTER.
The laws they were screaming against were passed and they have worked beautifully.
If the nonsense they were screaming in the mid-nineties were repeated today, the anti-gun nuts would be laughed to shame. If respectable conservatives had any memory at all, the gun-grabbers would be in very deep trouble. But respectable conservatives are an intellectually inbred bureaucracy of city people who know nothing about guns. Whenever the subject comes up, they are truly pathetic.
The problem is that they speak for us in public debate, and we never object.