Letter: Gun ban won’t end violence
Date: Oct 23, 2006 9:07 AM
PUBLICATION: Belleville Intelligencer (ON)
DATE: 2006.10.23
SECTION: Opinion
PAGE: A6
WORD COUNT: 300

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Gun ban won’t end violence

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Re: Letter to the editor, Don’t register guns, ban them – Oct. 13

It is only natural that simplistic minds come up with simplistic answers
to complex problems; “ban guns” is just about as simplistic, and simple
minded, as you can get.

In typical nanny-statist fashion, the letter writer has unilaterally
decided who can and cannot have guns, what particular kinds of guns they
will be allowed to have, and for what particular purposes. This is, of
course, for our own good, rights and freedoms be damned. After all, if
it saves only one life…

Except that it doesn’t. It can’t, and it never will.

England has banned handgun ownership, and has severely restricted the
legal ownership of shotguns and rifles. Just this past week, British
cops said they were at a complete loss on how to deal with the plethora
of illegal guns that are flooding that country. Violent crime rates are
up, especially those involving guns.

Jamaica banned guns back in the ’70s, and even set up special gun
courts. They have sentences of life in prison for possessing even one
single bullet illegally.

What happened?

Illegal guns have flooded the island – which one would think would be
easy to stop – and criminal gangs there have running gun battles in the
streets with the police. And the police routinely lose.

Banning guns, like ALL prohibitions, just don’t work. And even if the
letter writer could wave his magic wand and make all those bad guns
disappear, criminals would still steal or smuggle them from those that
do.

If they can’t, the knowledge to make them would still remain.

Every high-school level metal shop has all the requisite equipment to
make fully-automatic firearms by the crateload.

The gun genie is out of the bottle, and cannot be put back in. It makes
no sense to focus on prohibiting an object, when it is patently obvious
that doing so does not work.

It is time to put the focus back where it belongs: on actual criminals,
who commit real criminal acts – not law-abiding and responsible gun
owners.

Bruce N. Mills Dundas, Ont.

The Second Amendment IS Homeland Security !