Death by Leftism: How to Increase Gun Homicides? Institute a Gun Ban.

This irrational sacrifice is always justified by the benefit to the greater good. In this case, the supposed decreases in crime and murder. But over and over again this proves to be false. There is little correlation between the increase in guns and murder rates. In fact, the opposite tends to be true. Levy and Mellor note that in Europe:

For the nine nations having the most guns…1.17 persons per 100,000 are murdered on average each year. By contrast, the murder rate is 5.5, almost five times higher, for the nine nations having 5,000 or fewer guns per 100,000. Handguns are allowed in the four countries lowest in violence…Handguns are banned in Luxembourg (with a murder rate nine times higher), Lithuania and other former Soviet nations (ten or more times higher), and Russia (twenty times higher).

Both the National Academy of Sciences and the Center for Disease Control and Protection (not exactly NRA nut-jobs) have shown that draconian gun regulation comes to little avail.

Again, although it’s difficult to clearly show that widespread gun ownership is the deciding factor in lowering crime and murder rates, there are reasons to think that it is: if criminals know that there is a strong likelihood their victim pool is armed, they will be less inclined to risk an offense. Also, in many cases, “defensive” gun use (just brandishing a gun or firing a warning shot) will cause an assailant to flee immediately — before he can rape, murder or rob you.

The beauty of the Second Amendment, one that I don’t think gets enough credit, is that it is a kind of privatized law enforcement/public safety mechanism. It is an implicit acknowledgement that the state cannot (and should not) be omnipresent — the police can neither predict crimes, nor often stop them when they are in progress. But this shouldn’t come at the expense of personal safety. The right to bear arms is a check on the inherent failings and limitations of the state; of which the founders were keenly aware. With homicide rates at the level we see in Washington D.C., it’s easy to see why.

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