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BY Jeffrey R. Snyder

OUR SOCIETY has reached a pinnacle of self-expression
and respect for individuality rare or unmatched in history.
Our entire popular culture — from fashion magazines to the
cinema — positively screams the matchless worth of the
individual, and glories in eccentricity, nonconformity,
independent judgment, and self-determination. This enthu-
siasm is reflected in the prevalent notion that helping
someone entails increasing that person’s “self-esteem”; that
if a person properly values himself, he will naturally be a
happy, productive, and, in some inexplicable fashion, re-
sponsible member of society.

And yet, while people are encouraged to revel in their
individuality and incalculable self-worth, the media and the
law enforcement establishment continually advise us that,
when confronted with the threat of lethal violence, we
should not resist, but simply give the attacker what he
wants. If the crime under consideration is rape, there is
some notable waffling on this point, and the discussion
quickly moves to how the woman can change her behavior to
minimize the risk of rape, and the various ridiculous, non-
lethal weapons she may acceptably carry, such as whistles,
keys, mace or, that weapon which really sends shivers down a
rapist’s spine, the portable cellular phone.

Now how can this be? How can a person who values him-
self so highly calmly accept the indignity of a criminal
assault? How can one who believes that the essence of his
dignity lies in his self-determination passively accept the
forcible deprivation of that self-determination? How can he,
quietly, with great dignity and poise, simply hand over the
goods?

The assumption, of course, is that there is no incon-
sistency. The advice not to resist a criminal assault and
simply hand over the goods is founded on the notion that
one’s life is of incalculable value, and that no amount of
property is worth it. Put aside, for a moment, the outra-
geousness of the suggestion that a criminal who proffers
lethal violence should be treated as if he has instituted a
new social contract: “I will not hurt or kill you if you
give me what I want.” For years, feminists have labored to
educate people that rape is not about sex, but about domina-
tion, degradation, and control. Evidently, someone needs to
inform the law enforcement establishment and the media that
kidnapping, robbery, carjacking, and assault are not about
property.

Crime is not only a complete disavowal of the social
contract, but also a commandeering of the victim’s person
and liberty. If the individual’s dignity lies in the fact
that he is a moral agent engaging in actions of his own
will, in free exchange with others, then crime always vio-
lates the victim’s dignity. It is, in fact, an act of
enslavement. Your wallet, your purse, or your car may not
be worth your life, but your dignity is; and if it is not
worth fighting for, it can hardly be said to exist.

The gift of life

Although difficult for modern man to fathom, it was
once widely believed that life was a gift from God, that to
not defend that life when offered violence was to hold God’s
gift in contempt, to be a coward and to breach one’s duty to
one’s community. A sermon given in Philadelphia in 1747
unequivocally equated the failure to defend oneself with
suicide:

He that suffers his life to be taken from him by
one that hath no authority for that purpose, when
he might preserve it by defense, incurs the Guilt
of self murder since God hath enjoined him to seek
the continuance of his life, and Nature itself
teaches every creature to defend itself.

“Cowardice” and “self-respect” have largely disappeared
from public discourse. In their place we are offered “self-
esteem” as the bellwether of success and a proxy for digni-
ty. “Self-respect” implies that one recognizes standards,
and judges oneself worthy by the degree to which one lives
up to them. “Self-esteem” simply means that one feels good
about oneself. “Dignity” used to refer to the self-mastery
and fortitude with which a person conducted himself in the
face of life’s vicissitudes and the boorish behavior of
others. Now, judging by campus speech codes, dignity re-
quires that we never encounter a discouraging word and that
others be coerced into acting respectfully, evidently on the
assumption that we are powerless to prevent our degradation
if exposed to the demeaning behavior of others. These are
signposts proclaiming the insubstantiality of our character,
the hollowness of our souls.

It is impossible to address the problem of rampant
crime without talking about the moral responsibility of the
intended victim. Crime is rampant because the law-abiding,
each of us, condone it, excuse it, permit it, submit to it.
We permit and encourage it because we do not fight back,
immediately, then and there, where it happens. Crime is not
rampant because we do not have enough prisons, because
judges and prosecutors are too soft, because the police are
hamstrung with absurd technicalities. The defect is there,
in our character. We are a nation of cowards and shirkers.

Do you feel lucky?

In 1991, when then-Attorney General Richard Thornburgh
released the FBI’s annual crime statistics, he noted that it
is now more likely that a person will be the victim of a
violent crime than that he will be in an auto accident.
Despite this, most people readily believe that the existence
of the police relieves them of the responsibility to take
full measures to protect themselves. The police, however,
are not personal bodyguards. Rather, they act as a general
deterrent to crime, both by their presence and by apprehend-
ing criminals after the fact. As numerous courts have held,
they have no legal obligation to protect anyone in particu-
lar. You cannot sue them for failing to prevent you from
being the victim of a crime.

Insofar as the police deter by their presence, they are
very, very good. Criminals take great pains not to commit a
crime in front of them. Unfortunately, the corollary is
that you can pretty much bet your life (and you are) that
they won’t be there at the moment you actually need them.

Should you ever be the victim of an assault, a robbery,
or a rape, you will find it very difficult to call the

police while the act is in progress, even if you are carry-
ing a portable cellular phone. Nevertheless, you might be
interested to know how long it takes them to show up. De-
partment of Justice statistics for 1991 show that, for all
crimes of violence, only 28 percent of calls are responded
to within five minutes. The idea that protection is a serv-
ice people can call to have delivered and expect to receive
in a timely fashion is often mocked by gun owners, who love
to recite the challenge, “Call for a cop, call for an am-
bulance, and call for a pizza. See who shows up first.”

Many people deal with the problem of crime by convinc-
ing themselves that they live, work, and travel only in
special “crime-free” zones. Invariably, they react with
shock and hurt surprise when they discover that criminals do
not play by the rules and do not respect these imaginary
boundaries. If, however, you understand that crime can
occur anywhere at anytime, and if you understand that you
can be maimed or mortally wounded in mere seconds, you may
wish to consider whether you are willing to place the re-
sponsibility for safeguarding your life in the hands of
others.

Power and responsibility

Is your life worth protecting? If so, whose respon-
sibility is it to protect it? If you believe that it is the
police’s, not only are you wrong — since the courts uni-
versally rule that they have no legal obligation to do so —
but you face some difficult moral quandaries. How can you
rightfully ask another human being to risk his life to
protect yours, when you will assume no responsibility your-
self? Because that is his job and we pay him to do it?
Because your life is of incalculable value, but his is only
worth the $30,000 salary we pay him? If you believe it
reprehensible to possess the means and will to use lethal
force to repel a criminal assault, how can you call upon
another to do so for you?

Do you believe that you are forbidden to protect your-
self because the police are better qualified to protect you,
because they know what they are doing but you’re a rank
amateur? Put aside that this is equivalent to believing that
only concert pianists may play the piano and only profes-
sional athletes may play sports. What exactly are these
special qualities possessed only by the police and beyond
the rest of us mere mortals?

One who values his life and takes seriously his respon-
sibilities to his family and community will possess and
cultivate the means of fighting back, and will retaliate
when threatened with death or grievous injury to himself or
a loved one. He will never be content to rely solely on
others for his safety, or to think he has done all that is
possible by being aware of his surroundings and taking
measures of avoidance. Let’s not mince words: He will be
armed, will be trained in the use of his weapon, and will
defend himself when faced with lethal violence.

Fortunately, there is a weapon for preserving life and
liberty that can be wielded effectively by almost anyone —
the handgun. Small and light enough to be carried habitual-
ly, lethal, but unlike the knife or sword, not demanding
great skill or strength, it truly is the “great equalizer.”
Requiring only hand-eye coordination and a modicum of abili-
ty to remain cool under pressure, it can be used effectively
by the old and the weak against the young and the strong, by
the one against the many.

The handgun is the only weapon that would give a lone
female jogger a chance of prevailing against a gang of thugs
intent on rape, a teacher a chance of protecting children at
recess from a madman intent on massacring them, a family of
tourists waiting at a mid-town subway station the means to
protect themselves from a gang of teens armed with razors
and knives.

But since we live in a society that by and large out-
laws the carrying of arms, we are brought into the fray of
the Great American Gun War. Gun control is one of the most
prominent battlegrounds in our current culture wars. Yet it
is unique in the half-heartedness with which our conserva-
tive leaders and pundits — our “conservative elite” — do
battle, and have conceded the moral high ground to liberal
gun control proponents. It is not a topic often written
about, or written about with any great fervor, by William F.
Buckley or Patrick Buchanan. As drug czar, William Bennett
advised President Bush to ban “assault weapons.” George Will
is on record as recommending the repeal of the Second Amend-
ment, and Jack Kemp is on record as favoring a ban on the
possession of semiautomatic “assault weapons.” The battle
for gun rights is one fought predominantly by the common
man. The beliefs of both our liberal and conservative
elites are in fact abetting the criminal rampage through our
society.

Selling crime prevention

By any rational measure, nearly all gun control propo-
sals are hokum. The Brady Bill, for example, would not have
prevented John Hinckley from obtaining a gun to shoot Presi-
dent Reagan; Hinckley purchased his weapon five months
before the attack, and his medical records could not have
served as a basis to deny his purchase of a gun, since
medical records are not public documents filed with the
police. Similarly, California’s waiting period and back-
ground check did not stop Patrick Purdy from purchasing the
“assault rifle” and handguns he used to massacre children
during recess in a Stockton schoolyard; the felony convic-
tion that would have provided the basis for stopping the
sales did not exist, because Mr. Purdy’s previous weapons
violations were plea-bargained down from felonies to misde-
meanors.

In the mid-sixties there was a public service advertis-
ing campaign targeted at car owners about the prevention of
car theft. The purpose of the ad was to urge car owners not
to leave their keys in their cars. The message was, “Don’t
help a good boy go bad.” The implication was that, by leav-
ing his keys in his car, the normal, law-abiding car owner
was contributing to the delinquency of minors who, if they
just weren’t tempted beyond their limits, would be “good.”
Now, in those days people still had a fair sense of just who
was responsible for whose behavior. The ad succeeded in
enraging a goodly portion of the populace, and was soon
dropped.

Nearly all of the gun control measures offered by
Handgun Control, Inc. (HCI) and its ilk embody the same
philosophy. They are founded on the belief that America’s
law-abiding gun owners are the source of the problem. With
their unholy desire for firearms, they are creating a socie-
ty awash in a sea of guns, thereby helping good boys go bad,
and helping bad boys be badder. This laying of moral blame
for violent crime at the feet of the law-abiding, and the
implicit absolution of violent criminals for their misdeeds,
naturally infuriates honest gun owners.

The files of HCI and other gun control organizations
are filled with proposals to limit the availability of
semiautomatic and other firearms to law-abiding citizens,
and barren of proposals for apprehending and punishing
violent criminals. It is ludicrous to expect that the
proposals of HCI, or any gun control laws, will significant-
ly curb crime. According to Department of Justice and
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) statistics,
fully 90 percent of violent crimes are committed without a
handgun, and 93 percent of the guns obtained by violent
criminals are not obtained through the lawful purchase and
sale transactions that are the object of most gun control
legislation. Furthermore, the number of violent criminals
is minute in comparison to the number of firearms in America
— estimated by the ATF at about 200 million, approximately
one-third of which are handguns. With so abundant a supply,
there will always be enough guns available for those who
wish to use them for nefarious ends, no matter how complete
the legal prohibitions against them, or how draconian the
punishment for their acquisition or use. No, the gun con-
trol proposals of HCI and other organizations are not
seriously intended as crime control. Something else is at
work here.

The tyranny of the elite

Gun control is a moral crusade against a benighted,
barbaric citizenry. This is demonstrated not only by the
ineffectualness of gun control in preventing crime, and by
the fact that it focuses on restricting the behavior of the
law-abiding rather than apprehending and punishing the
guilty, but also by the execration that gun control propon-
ents heap on gun owners and their evil instrumentality, the
NRA. Gun owners are routinely portrayed as uneducated,
paranoid rednecks fascinated by and prone to violence, i.e.,
exactly the type of person who opposes the liberal agenda
and whose moral and social “re-education” is the object of
liberal social policies. Typical of such bigotry is New
York Gov. Mario Cuomo’s famous characterization of gun-
owners as “hunters who drink beer, don’t vote, and lie to
their wives about where they were all weekend.” Similar
vituperation is rained upon the NRA, characterized by Sen.
Edward Kennedy as the “pusher’s best friend,” lampooned in
political cartoons as standing for the right of children to
carry firearms to school and, in general, portrayed as
standing for an individual’s God-given right to blow people
away at will.

The stereotype is, of course, false. As criminologist
and constitutional lawyer Don B. Kates, Jr. and former HCI
contributor Dr. Patricia Harris have pointed out,
“[s]tudies consistently show that, on the average, gun
owners are better educated and have more prestigious jobs
than non-owners…. Later studies show that gun owners are
less likely than non-owners to approve of police brutality,
violence against dissenters, etc.”

Conservatives must understand that the antipathy many
liberals have for gun owners arises in good measure from
their statist utopianism. This habit of mind has nowhere

been better explored than in The Republic. There, Plato
argues that the perfectly just society is one in which an
unarmed people exhibit virtue by minding their own business
in the performance of their assigned functions, while the
government of philosopher-kings, above the law and protected
by armed guardians unquestioning in their loyalty to the
state, engineers, implements, and fine-tunes the creation of
that society, aided and abetted by myths that both hide and
justify their totalitarian manipulation.

The unarmed life

When columnist Carl Rowan preaches gun control and uses
a gun to defend his home, when Maryland Gov. William Donald
Schaefer seeks legislation year after year to ban semiau-
tomatic “assault weapons” whose only purpose, we are told,
is to kill people, while he is at the same time escorted by
state police armed with large-capacity 9mm semiautomatic
pistols, it is not simple hypocrisy. It is the workings of
that habit of mind possessed by all superior beings who have
taken upon themselves the terrible burden of civilizing the
masses and who understand, like our Congress, that laws are
for other people.