It Is Dangerous to Be Right When the Government Is Wrong - Andrew P. Napolitano [79]
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Now, at first you may be sympathetic to a ban on “assault weapons,” but in reality, these weapons are no more potent than your or your neighbor’s legal hunting rifle. In fact, the bullets are fired one at a time, at the same speed, and produce the same damage as a hunting rifle. So then, what is the difference? The rifle’s plastic casing. That’s right, the government is not protecting you from machine guns producing a spray fire; no, it is restricting your right to own a dangerous-looking hunting rifle.
Fortunately, the Violent Crime Control Act expired in 2004, and not surprisingly, the United States did not dissolve into chaos. Rather, there was no uptick in crime rates, and the FBI reported a 3.6 percent drop in violent crimes the following year. This was the first drop in five years, and the states that maintained the assault weapon ban experienced the smallest drop in murder rates. Of course, the government claims we were safer with the ban, and the drop in crime rates did not make the national news; but the numbers do not lie.
By creating gun bans and stripping you of your natural right to protect your personal property, the government is not keeping you any safer; rather, the government is giving criminals more firepower for their crimes. This can only be exemplified through a close analysis of the numbers, numbers which the government continually chooses to ignore.
Numbers Don’t Lie; People Do
The argument is simple: More guns mean less crime. Year after year, the statistics prove the number of gun crimes committed lessens as prohibitions on guns are weakened. Yet, if you were to listen to the mainstream media and government bureaucrats, they would like you to believe the opposite. Whether it is for political gain or their own personal beliefs, our government officials continuously preach the myth that guns create, instead of prevent, harm.
Currently, there are approximately 300 million privately owned firearms in the United States. This includes nearly 100 million handguns. On average, the number of firearms rises by more than 4 million annually. There are about 70 to 80 million gun owners in the United States, which is about 40 to 45 percent of all American households. In 2009, about 125 million Americans lived in households with guns. As of 2007, there were 5 million Americans carrying concealed handguns, and thirty-nine states maintained right-to-carry laws, with another nine states maintaining “may-issue” laws. Only two states, Illinois and Wisconsin, completely ban all people who do not work for the government from carrying handguns.13
The reality is that almost every year, guns kill about 30,000 Americans, and about 1,000 of these deaths are accidental. While these numbers appear staggering, fewer than 2 percent of handguns and 1 percent of all guns in this country will ever be used to commit a violent crime.14 Thus, the use of blanket prohibitions against owning guns is like burning a haystack to get to a needle. The individuals using guns to kill crime victims are most likely already prone to crime and are not going to refrain from these actions simply because their gun’s registration has not come in the mail or they failed to pass a background check. Have you ever seen a TV show in which a convicted felon claims he did not commit more crimes because he was afraid he’d be arrested for an unregistered gun? Have you ever even heard such nonsense? Probably not. No one watching would believe it.
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However, the statistics do show criminals refrain from crimes when they know the victim may be armed. Take, for example, the disparity of “hot burglaries” in Canada and Great Britain compared to the