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Jewish World Review / July 2, 1998 / 8 Tamuz, 5758
Thomas Sowell
POLITICAL REACTIONS to this year's rash of schoolhouse shootings have been classic
liberalism: The government should crack down on gun owners who haven't shot
anybody. Meanwhile, liberals have very little interest in punishing the young murderers,
and instead are ready to listen to psychobabble excuses.
The latest ploy in the anti-gun crusade is shifting from emphasis on gun "control" to
emphasis on gun "safety." As with so many other safety issues, few people -- least of
all politicians -- seem ready to acknowledge that one kind of safety often comes at the
expense of other kinds of safety.
If you are serious about stopping smaller children from firing guns that they may find
around the house, there is an incredibly simple way to prevent that: Don't leave the
guns loaded. Moreover, most guns already have safety devices.
Maybe some parents are not responsible enough or thoughtful enough to remember to
take the bullets out of guns that they keep in their homes. But are such parents any
more likely to remember to lock the gun?
More important, how often does this happen? More children die each year from bicycle
accidents than from gun accidents, but where is there any such orchestrated hysteria
about a need to ban bicycles?
There is a dangerous down side to locking guns -- and especially adding a child-lock to
the existing safety devices. Many people keep guns in their homes to protect
themselves and their families. Studies show that these guns have in fact saved great
numbers of people from being victims of intruders in their homes.
Multiple safety devices slow down the very people who need to be able to fire in
self-defense. Criminals with guns will undoubtedly already have them unlocked and
loaded. Zealots for gun-control laws never seem to understand that criminals do not
obey laws. Gun control means unilateral disarmament of law-abiding citizens.
These law-abiding citizens have used guns to defend themselves at least 760,000
times in a single year. Some people with gun permits have saved policemen's lives by
coming to their rescue.
None of this fits the liberal vision, so you are unlikely to hear about it in the mainstream
media. In the liberal vision, the rest of us are such irresponsible slobs that we will go
around shooting members of our family or our friends, whether in anger at the moment
or out of sheer carelessness.
But what are the facts? Since the mid-1980s, there has been a 50 percent increase in
gun ownership. If guns are the problem, then we should have seen a rise in murders.
Instead, there has been a decline in murder and other violent crimes -- especially in
places where gun ownership has gone up.
In a country with more than a quarter of a billion people, you can find isolated examples
of almost anything. But the handful of accidental deaths from guns are far outweighed
by the reduced murder rate with increased gun ownership.
If guns are the problem, then there should be higher murder rates in rural areas, where
guns are more prevalent, or among whites, who have a higher rate of gun ownership
than blacks. In both cases, the facts are directly the opposite.
A careful and extensive study of the actual effects of gun ownership has just been
published by Professor John Lott of the University of Chicago. It is titled "More Guns,
Less Crime." You may not hear much about this book in the media because its factual
data annihilate the liberal shibboleths about gun control.
The truly ugly side of the gun-control crusade is in its typical liberal assumption that
ordinary people must be deprived of self-reliance and have the government take care
of them instead. Unfortunately, the government is in no position to put a cop on every
street corner, much less in every home.
As Professor Lott discovered, gun ownership deters crime. But what will deter liberals?
Certainly not the facts. They have too much invested in their vision of themselves as the
saviors of us all.
Gun-safety starts with
parental responsibility
Child-locks for guns are the latest safety craze. But schoolhouse shootings are not
being done by infants and toddlers. They are being done by people old enough to figure
out any lock that an adult can figure out. Child-locks provide no protection whatever
against the premeditated murder of school children and their teachers.
6/30/98: When more is less
6/29/98: Are educators above the law?
6/26/98: Random Thoughts
6/24/98: An angry letter
6/22/98: Sixties sentimentalism
6/19/98:Dumbing down anti-trust
6/15/98: A changing of the guard?
6/11/98: Presidential privileges
6/8/98: Fast computers and slow antitrust
6/3/98: Can stalling backfire?
5/29/98: The insulation of the Left
5/25/98: Missing the point in the media
5/22/98: The lessons of Indonesia
5/20/98: Smart but silent
5/18/98: Israel, Clinton and character
5/14/98: Monica Lewinsky's choices
5/11/98: Random thoughts
5/7/98: Media obstruction of justice
5/4/98: Dangerous "safety"
5/1/98:
Abolish Adolescence!
4/30/98: The naked truth
4/22/98: Playing fair and square
4/19/98: Bad teachers"
4/15/98: "Clinton in Africa
"
4/13/98: "Bundling and unbundling
"
4/9/98: "Rising or falling Starr
"
4/6/98: "Was Clinton ‘vindicated'?
"
3/26/98: "Diasters -- natural and political"
3/24/98: "A pattern of behavior"
3/22/98: Innocent explanations
3/19/98: Kathleen Willey and Anita Hill
3/17/98: Search and destroy
3/12/98: Media Circus versus Justice
3/6/98: Vindication
3/3/98: Cheap Shot Time
2/26/98: The Wrong Filter
2/24/98: Trial by Media
2/20/98: Dancing Around the Realities
2/19/98: A "Do Something" War?
2/12/98: Julian Simon, combatant in a 200-year war
2/6/98: A rush to rhetoric
