Why Do Gun Control Zealots Insist on Trying to Punish the Law-Abiding for the Acts of the Criminals?

I am a fan of lawful concealed carry, and everyone who knows me knows this. It is a fundamental part of my Second Amendment philosophy. Lawful concealed carry is important in making a community safer.

My views on lawful carry, concealed and open, are not abstract. As the chief law enforcement officer of my jurisdiction I want as many lawful concealed carry permit holders in my jurisdiction as possible. My own experience, backed up by statistics, bear out the fact that this is a significant crime deterrent. This is one reason I teach free concealed carry classes.

For these and many other reasons, I will also fight tooth and nail to resist any effort, no matter how seemingly small, to diminish our Second Amendment rights.

Gun control zealots have many arguments why it would be OK to have “just a little” gun control, which they usually label “common-sense.“ David French of the National Review does a good job here explaining why most of these “straw man” arguments fail. One of his main points is that most gun control arguments fail to weigh the benefits of private gun ownership against the costs. This is not surprising, as most people refuse to take a rational view of the subject.

Far more insidious, however, is that almost every gun control proposal would punish law-abiding citizens for the actions of a criminal few. As Mr. French points out: “All too often gun-control proposals operate as a form of collective punishment on the law-abiding while serving as barely a speed bump in the path of the criminal. There is a cost in the “let’s just try” approach, and that cost is borne by the men and women who comply with the law.”

In the gun control debate, attempting to hold law-abiding gun owners accountable for the acts of criminal gun users is doubly insulting. First, there’s the obvious problem of punishing the innocent for the acts of wrongdoers. In any other area of the law, this suggestion would literally be laughable. The fact that it’s so often promoted with a straight face as a “common sense” gun control solution is an indication of how far off base the thinking has become on this.

Further, our Second Amendment rights doom this argument from the start. Even the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, widely recognized as being the most liberal, recently affirmed a Second Amendment right to carry openly.

There is no question that we should work to identify the root causes of violence in this country. This includes not only gun violence, but knife violence, vehicle attacks, and injuries inflicted with any manner of objects, including feet and hands. After we identify the root causes, we should try to fix them. Whatever fix it requires, however, has to be constitutional. I thought that might go without saying but apparently it does not.

Changing the rules to accommodate law-breakers is a bad idea. Taken to its logical conclusion it results in anarchy. In a lawless society, let us recall, the best armed will prevail. Gun control advocates might wish to remember this. They should also cease and desist in their ridiculous attempts to punish the law-abiding for the acts of the criminals. That will only make our communities less safe.