Do You Really Want to Lower The Body Count, or Do You Just Want to Ban Guns?

Several people on the political left in the wake of Jacksonville (or any other shooting): Can't we please agree something needs to be done about firearms?

Neither I nor any other gun rights activist I'm aware of has a problem with keeping guns out of the hands of violent felons and the mentally ill.

However, in all the times I've had this discussion, never ONCE has the anti-gun lobby or anyone affiliated with it been willing to discuss measures to do that. No matter how many times we have explained to them it's a bad idea that won't work, is unconstitutional, and that cold hard experience and real scientific studies we can cite at length says in no uncertain terms it will not work, they want to ban guns. Or at least certain types of guns, which they can't seem to define in such a way as to limit the types of guns they want to ban. Especially not in any way that makes sense to someone who understands what guns are and how they work.

I'm going to go so far as to say this approach is arguing in bad faith. They have no intention of absorbing the information the other side is providing, especially where it might disturb their ignorance.

In short, they don't want to learn what might lower the casualty count. They want to ban guns, and any representation otherwise is a lie, and to the extent any of them believe it, self-deception.

ALL efforts to keep guns out of the hands of felons in my lifetime have failed, in large part because the very people who claim they want guns kept out of the hands of criminals won't enforce the few regulations that have been passed. People caught dead to rights with violations that should send them back to prison for crimes they've already convicted of and they're on parole for walk out of custody no worse off for having been caught. Others caught with fifty counts of more of weapons possession or illegal sale - their rights to carry having been previously forfeited by due process of law - walk with no more than a misdemeanor for which they receive no jail time. All sanctioned by the same politicians who claim they want guns kept out of the hands of violent criminals. If you think this is the way you lower the body count, you are clinically insane. Guns are too easy to make; even true automatic weapons. If you want to have any effect at all on criminals obtaining them, there have to be real and significant consequences to those criminals. No consequences beyond confiscation? They'll simply acquire more.

Praxeologically, the actions of the anti-gun lobby are clearly demonstrating these people do NOT want to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.

NONE of the methods the anti-gunners are proposing would restrict the supply of illegal guns, by the way. Few would even restrict the ability of those not allowed to possess guns from obtaining them from more or less legal channels. All they seem to be concerned about is restricting the supply of guns to law-abiding, mentally competent citizens through legal channels.

If that's what the anti-gun lobby wants, get busy trying to repeal the Second Amendment. If that's too hard for you, tough. There's a reason why the Constitution is supposed to be difficult to amend. Tell me, would you like your rights to speak, to organize, to privacy, to presumed innocence to be easily legislated away?

So what's it going to be, anti-gunners? Are you going to start enforcing the laws against possession for those who've had the right to bear arms legally removed? If so, pretty much every gun rights activist I've ever met or corresponded with would be fine with it; most would help you pass good legislation aimed at precisely what you claim you want and what would really make a difference.

But if - as your actions illustrate - what you really want is to disarm law-abiding citizens, then NO we're not going to go along meekly with your idiocy, no matter how many slaughters of the innocent you enable. Get used to it. We're well aware of your dissembling and bad faith arguments these past several decades. You're not going to move us, and we will use every legal means at our disposal to fight you from now until the end of the world.

So stop being dishonest, and stop arguing in bad faith. If you really want to solve the problem, honestly define what you want. If it's banning all weapons, my answer (and that of every other student of history) is going to be 'no.' But at least your self-deception will be gone, and we'll be talking about the real issue.

On the other hand, if you want to lower the casualty count from people who really shouldn't have weapons, the gun rights side has got some good, historically tested solutions we'd like you to listen to and maybe try.