There is still a rather large element of the left leaning faction of our society who want to take firearms away from law abiding citizens naively thinking that it would reduce the violence on the street.

The fallacy of this kind of reasoning holds absolutely no water. It may be a rude awakening to some people but the violence in our streets is not caused by law-abiding people and the guns used in this violence are not legal.

The latest victim of this insanity is Australia where the outlawing of guns owned by private citizens has driven up the crime rate.

Like it or not the problem is not with the guns but with the people who use the guns for violence. The silly part of the equation is that these people are mostly criminals with records of previous violations and they are forbidden by law to own or carry a firearm already.

So please tell me what difference one more law is going to make to them? Are they suddenly going to say, "Well the government has taken away the law abiding public’s guns so we’ll turn ours in too?”

You can bet your life that they would have a reaction to it but it sure wouldn’t be that one, no, it would be more like, "We can rob stores, invade homes and do just about anything else we want to and not worry about being shot.”

Just look at New York City. If they catch you with a hand gun they’ll do everything short of boiling you in oil. But has it lowered the murder rate?

Myself and millions of Americans own guns and would never even dream of using them for offensive purposes, defensive purposes and sporting use only.

It’s the same old thinking. Nobody is responsible for their own actions. There is some ulterior social flaw responsible for what they do up to and including taking a Mac 10 and blowing away a couple of people.

After all, it’s not the criminal’s fault, it’s the gun manufacturer’s fault.

If somebody gets lung cancer from smoking cigarettes it’s not the smoker’s fault it’s the cigarette’s fault.

I hate cigarettes with a passion and kicked a four pack a day habit over thirty years ago. Easy? No. Doable? Absolutely.

If you really want to get at the heart of the problem of violence in the street we’ve got to get to the cause and the case is not the fact that millions of guns are under lock and key in the homes of millions of law abiding citizens.

So where are we going wrong?

My opinion:

1. Unwanted, unloved and unsupervised children.

It’s no secret that the “great society”, though well intentioned has been a dismal failure. Instead of accomplishing what Lyndon Johnson intended, to help the poorest of the poor become self sufficient, it has created three generations of welfare families who are even more dependent on the federal government.

The “more babies the more money” philosophy of our social welfare programs has caused the birth of children who mean little more than a fatter check every month.

You think I’m exaggerating? Talk to anyone who works in juvenile detention and attends court on a regular basis.

These children run wild in our streets regularly slaughtering each other in turf wars and senseless drive by shootings, all perpetrated with illegally obtained firearms.

These street gangs have guns that are against the law for the ordinary citizen to buy. It’s funny how upset people get over semi- automatic assault weapons which are the same in many cases as hunting rifles but just hold more ammunition, while the street gangs are running around with fully automatic machine guns totally unlawful.

2. An out of control, out of touch judicial system.

How many times have you heard about a child molester or murderer given a light sentence and turned back out on the street to take up where they left off?

Is a human life so cheap that it only means a few years behind bars? Does the horrible molestation of a child not merit more punishment than a lot of judges mete out? Do these people not need to be kept off the street?

Check and see how much violent crime is being committed by
people who have records of violence and after serving light sentences come out and kill some productive citizen?

3. Pandering politicians who shudder at the thought of losing a vote by passing meaningful laws because they might offend someone and they’d be taken to task by the left wing media.

By the way, hats off to Florida for passing a law that requires a mandatory sentence of 25 years without parole for a first offense of violent child abuse.

That law should be Federal.

It all boils down to this. You can take away every privately owned weapon down to the slingshots in this country and it’s not going to make the slightest dent in violent crime. In fact it’s going to make it worse.

Pray for our troops.

What do you think?

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels
August 29, 2005