People, not guns, are the problem

People, not guns, are the problem

It has been said many times, not the least of which is here, but somehow it seems to ring with a more powerful appeal here ... at the ultra-liberal, ultra-antigun Seattle Post Intelliger OPINION section.

Laurel S. Barton, 'guest columnist', states the facts and not the anti-gun spin:

Body counts garner attention from the media like a flashy neon sign. They create buzz, such as Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels' gun control stance that quotes the figure of 550 violent firearms crimes in 2005 ("Seattle weighs in on handgun ban," Wednesday).

Most people will be horrified and will fail to ask the crucial, underlying question: How many of those guns were purchased legally? After all, laws will affect guns legally acquired, not those from secondary sources. The answer: 15 percent of guns used in crimes are legally obtained. That leaves 85 percent unaffected by changes to gun control laws.

...

The Second Amendment was not an invention by its author, James Madison. It has a long common-law history, a history that afforded this nation the ability to defeat the British during the Revolutionary War. Moreover, in 1856, almost 100 years after the Bill of Rights, the Supreme Court affirmed the interpretation of the Second Amendment in the Dred Scott decision, stating every man has the right "to keep and carry arms."

The problem in this country is not gun control, it's the people. That's right: you. The foundational documents were written with faith in its people. That we were the safest reservoir for absolute power to reside in, and that, if we were not free-thinking enough to exercise that power correctly, the solution was not to take power away, but to educate.

Perhaps the most telling comment in Barton's screed is:

Mommy government is not always going to be there to protect you.

This is the basic credo which is often overlooked in PI-Land.

"Mommy Government" ... essentially, Socialism ... is an attempt to establish The State as the ultimate arbiter of the public good. That is, it puts The State not only as the first and last resource for protecting its citizens, but the ONLY means by which we can be protected from each other.

As we have found to be true with every other bureaucracy, and every other government program, it just doesn't work.

Witness Russia, Zimbabwe, and every socialist state in history.