"I see free people!" Hysterical anti-gun activists
are in a tizzy now that the Colorado legislature has passed two
bills that give citizens slightly more freedom to exercise their
fundamental human right of self-defense. Bring out the paper
bags. It's hard to believe that only a hundred years ago people
survived without a single federal firearms law. What would
happen to today's nanny statists if they suddenly found
themselves living in a truly free society, in which citizens
didn't need a (stinkin') permit from the (damn) government in
order to carry a concealed handgun?
I'll review only a few of the humorous and ridiculous
comments to grace the pages of Denver's mainstream newspapers,
starting with those of Jim Spencer of the Post (who,
incidentally, sometimes writes very good columns).
Spencer writes, "Fear drives most people to purchase and
carry handguns. The idea that anyone can be secure without a
firearm is anathema to the gun lobby... Trouble is... [that
Republicans] can impose their will on localities that never
shared their paranoia."
And how does Spencer "know" what "drives most
people to purchase and carry handguns?" Did he analyze
sociological studies that support his claim? Did he talk to a
bunch of gun owners and ask them what their motivation is? Or is
he simply expressing his own prejudice and paranoia about gun
owners?
The NRA training
class in which I'm occasionally involved in fact teaches
people how to be more secure without a firearm. But owning a
firearm does make you more secure against violent criminal
attack, and this is especially true for people being stalked or
otherwise harassed. What Spencer calls the "gun lobby"
-- which is really just a group of concerned citizens that takes
on the "anti-gun lobby" -- doesn't want to force
people to own guns if they don't want to, only allow people to
own guns if they do want to.
Obviously concern about violent crime motivates people to buy
guns for defensive use. But is concern about violent crime
"paranoia?" No more so than when concern about
premature death prompts people to buy life insurance. Again,
Spencer is the one fomenting "paranoia." Indeed,
Spencer slanders some of the most civic-minded people in his
community. Carrying a concealed handgun necessarily creates
external benefits because the practice deters crime generally.
Thus, a few people with the moral courage and personal
responsibility to practice self-defense are keeping the
community as a whole safer from violent crime.
If people have a fundamental human right of self-defense,
then localities cannot justly deny that right. Thus, the issue
is not whether the legislature has imposed its will on local
governments, but whether local politicians have wrongly imposed
their will on peaceable citizens.
Spencer also doesn't like the provision that allows an
emergency concealed carry permit to be issued to adults ages
18-20. "You wonder who's going to protect the rest of us
from a terrified, hormone-roiled adolescent," he writes.
But why does he assume an adult who seeks out permission from
the sheriff's office to carry a concealed handgun will be a
"terrified, hormone-roiled adolescent?" Might the
person instead be a sensible, young, single mother who is being
stalked by a violent ex-boyfriend? But treating gun owners as
real people rather than as crazed monsters is, apparently, too
much to ask of some "professional" journalists.
A May 18 story in the Denver Post by Karen Rouse begins,
"Math professor Kent Goodrich said he used to think of the
University of Colorado campus as a 'safe zone' because its
no-guns policy was so strictly enforced." Goodrich is
exactly right: tax-funded campuses that deny adults their right
of self-defense are "safe zones" for violent
criminals. Of course, private campuses are free to set whatever
firearms policy they like: if they want to disarm their students
and render them more vulnerable to criminal attack, they are
free to do so.
A May 17 story in the Rocky Mountain News by John Sanko and
Sarah Huntley reports one person "was worried because many
of his co-workers had said they were planning to apply for
permits." Yet the only rational basis for worry is if the
person intends to commit murder in his or her office, and thus
wants to eliminate any possibility of armed resistance. Colorado
is the 35th state to allow concealed carry, and time has shown
lawful carriers are among the most responsible and safe people
in the world.
Sanko and Huntley comment, "[P]redictions made on either
side of the bill -- the horror stories from opponents and claims
of a major help to law enforcement -- have not come true."
But the prediction is not that concealed carry will result in
citizens helping the police to stop violent criminals, though
that's certainly a possibility. Instead, the prediction -- the
one that has "come true" -- is that citizens will be
able to deter and defend against violent attackers.
Cynthia Stone, "a spokesperson for the anti-gun
coalition, Colorado Ceasefire" and formerly a leader of
Sane Alternatives to the Firearms Epidemic, the name of which
likens gun ownership to a disease, doesn't like the law that
repeals Denver's "ban on assault weapons and Denver's safe
storage law." The absurdity of the "assault
weapons" distinction has been covered elsewhere
in detail. In The Bias Against guns, John Lott finds storage
laws don't impact rates of unintentional death or suicide, but
they do dramatically increase violent crime by rendering guns
useless for self-defense.
But to some, promoting feel-good, nanny-state,
counterproductive laws seems to take a higher priority than
actually keeping people safe.
