Gun Myths and Ownership

Joe Cathey has some excellent coverage of firearms and gun control myths. It is long but very good and cites original sources which isn't something you see everyday in the blogosphere.

One of myths worth addressing is the "less guns are more dangerous." Now in the theoretical abstract this looks like a good idea. If everyone had fewer weapons, the world would certainly be safer. But...

The problem is that there is no way to make everyone have less guns. The truth about gun control laws which restrict ownership is that they only effect the honest law-abiding people. The criminals all purchase their guns on the black market, which is obviously unregulated. So when ownership is restricted, the criminals keep their guns and the honest people lose them. So this unbalances the natural conflict between criminal and citizen. It turns honest people who were capable of defending themselves into easy targets for violent crime.

You see criminals fear armed citizens. They know how long it will take the cops to respond to an emergency call. They know cops won't shoot them if they give up. On the other hand an armed homeowner has zero response time and just might shoot them no matter what. I like scared criminal.

Which is why I support civilian gun ownership. Civilian gun ownership is fault tolerant. In a perfect world, nobody needs guns. But we don't live in a perfect world, we live in a world full of armed criminals. We must give honest men and women the capacity to oppose them with physical force unhampered by excessive regulation.