Joe Cooper
2016-12-20 13:09:51 UTC
Sometimes someone inadvertently performs a public service by bringing an
unbelievably stupid and dangerous idea to the surface, where it can be
exposed for what it is.
The New York Times can be credited -- if that is the word -- with
performing this public service in a recent editorial against proposals to
allow law-abiding citizens to carry concealed guns. They refer to what
they call the National Rifle Association's "fantasy that citizens can
stand up to gunmen by shooting it out."
Nobody has suggested any such thing. Data collected over many years --
but almost never seeing the light of day in the New York Times or the
rest of the mainstream media -- show many thousands of examples of people
defending themselves with a gun each year, without having to pull the
trigger.
If someone comes at you with a knife and you pull out a gun, chances are
they will stop. The only time I ever pointed a gun at a human being, it
was when someone was sneaking up toward me from behind a shed in the
middle of the night. I never fired a shot. I just pointed the gun at him
and told him to stop. He stopped.
Actually having to shoot someone is the exception, not the rule. Yet the
New York Times conjures up a vision of something like the gunfight at the
OK Corral.
Concealed guns protect not only those who carry them but also those who
do not. If concealed guns become widespread, then a mugger or a car
jacker has no way of knowing who has one and who does not. It makes being
a mugger or a car jacker a less safe occupation. Gun control laws are in
effect occupational safety laws -- OSHA for burglars, muggers, car
jackers and others.
The fatal fallacy of gun control laws in general is the assumption that
such laws actually control guns. Criminals who disobey other laws are not
likely to be stopped by gun control laws. What such laws actually do is
increase the number of disarmed and defenseless victims.
Mass shootings are often used as examples of a need for gun control. But
what puts a stop to mass shootings? Usually the arrival on the scene of
somebody else with a gun.
Mass shooters are often portrayed as "irrational" people engaged in
"senseless" acts. But mass shooters are usually rational enough to attack
schools, churches and other places where there is far less likelihood of
someone being on the scene who is armed.
Seldom do we hear about these "irrational" shooters engaging in
"senseless" attacks on meetings of the National Rifle Association or a
local gun show or a National Guard armory.
The fallacy of believing that the way to reduce shootings is to disarm
peaceful people extends from domestic gun control laws to international
disarmament agreements. If disarmament agreements reduced the dangers of
war, there would never have been a World War II.
The decades leading up to that war were filled with international
disarmament agreements. As with domestic gun control laws, the agreements
were followed by peaceful countries and ignored by belligerent countries
that built up huge war machines, such as in Nazi Germany and imperial
Japan.
The net result was that the belligerent countries had every incentive to
start wars, and that they inflicted devastating losses on the peaceful
countries that had drastically curtailed their own military forces.
Eventually the Western democracies got their act together and turned
things around, after they belatedly beefed up their military forces. But
thousands of lives were lost needlessly before that happened. World War
II was in its third year before Western forces won a single battle.
Undaunted by history, the same kind of thinking that had cheered
international disarmament treaties in the 1920s and 1930s once again
cheered Soviet-American disarmament agreements during the Cold War.
Conversely, there was hysteria when President Ronald Reagan began
building up American military forces in the 1980s. Cries were heard that
he was leading us toward nuclear war. In reality, he led us toward an end
of the Cold War, without a shot being fired at the Soviet Union.
But who reads history these days, or checks facts before leading the
charge to keep law-abiding people disarmed?
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution,
Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His website is
www.tsowell.com. To find out more about Thomas Sowell and
read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and
cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at
www.creators.com.
Source: http://bit.ly/2hPkqdz
unbelievably stupid and dangerous idea to the surface, where it can be
exposed for what it is.
The New York Times can be credited -- if that is the word -- with
performing this public service in a recent editorial against proposals to
allow law-abiding citizens to carry concealed guns. They refer to what
they call the National Rifle Association's "fantasy that citizens can
stand up to gunmen by shooting it out."
Nobody has suggested any such thing. Data collected over many years --
but almost never seeing the light of day in the New York Times or the
rest of the mainstream media -- show many thousands of examples of people
defending themselves with a gun each year, without having to pull the
trigger.
If someone comes at you with a knife and you pull out a gun, chances are
they will stop. The only time I ever pointed a gun at a human being, it
was when someone was sneaking up toward me from behind a shed in the
middle of the night. I never fired a shot. I just pointed the gun at him
and told him to stop. He stopped.
Actually having to shoot someone is the exception, not the rule. Yet the
New York Times conjures up a vision of something like the gunfight at the
OK Corral.
Concealed guns protect not only those who carry them but also those who
do not. If concealed guns become widespread, then a mugger or a car
jacker has no way of knowing who has one and who does not. It makes being
a mugger or a car jacker a less safe occupation. Gun control laws are in
effect occupational safety laws -- OSHA for burglars, muggers, car
jackers and others.
The fatal fallacy of gun control laws in general is the assumption that
such laws actually control guns. Criminals who disobey other laws are not
likely to be stopped by gun control laws. What such laws actually do is
increase the number of disarmed and defenseless victims.
Mass shootings are often used as examples of a need for gun control. But
what puts a stop to mass shootings? Usually the arrival on the scene of
somebody else with a gun.
Mass shooters are often portrayed as "irrational" people engaged in
"senseless" acts. But mass shooters are usually rational enough to attack
schools, churches and other places where there is far less likelihood of
someone being on the scene who is armed.
Seldom do we hear about these "irrational" shooters engaging in
"senseless" attacks on meetings of the National Rifle Association or a
local gun show or a National Guard armory.
The fallacy of believing that the way to reduce shootings is to disarm
peaceful people extends from domestic gun control laws to international
disarmament agreements. If disarmament agreements reduced the dangers of
war, there would never have been a World War II.
The decades leading up to that war were filled with international
disarmament agreements. As with domestic gun control laws, the agreements
were followed by peaceful countries and ignored by belligerent countries
that built up huge war machines, such as in Nazi Germany and imperial
Japan.
The net result was that the belligerent countries had every incentive to
start wars, and that they inflicted devastating losses on the peaceful
countries that had drastically curtailed their own military forces.
Eventually the Western democracies got their act together and turned
things around, after they belatedly beefed up their military forces. But
thousands of lives were lost needlessly before that happened. World War
II was in its third year before Western forces won a single battle.
Undaunted by history, the same kind of thinking that had cheered
international disarmament treaties in the 1920s and 1930s once again
cheered Soviet-American disarmament agreements during the Cold War.
Conversely, there was hysteria when President Ronald Reagan began
building up American military forces in the 1980s. Cries were heard that
he was leading us toward nuclear war. In reality, he led us toward an end
of the Cold War, without a shot being fired at the Soviet Union.
But who reads history these days, or checks facts before leading the
charge to keep law-abiding people disarmed?
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution,
Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His website is
www.tsowell.com. To find out more about Thomas Sowell and
read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and
cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at
www.creators.com.
Source: http://bit.ly/2hPkqdz
--
Don't let Democrats get away with pretending to care about blacks while
they fight tooth and nail against any policy that would give blacks a
chance to earn their share of the American Dream." (Tom Trinko)
Don't let Democrats get away with pretending to care about blacks while
they fight tooth and nail against any policy that would give blacks a
chance to earn their share of the American Dream." (Tom Trinko)