The federal government may not be taking our guns, but local municipalities. . . run by Democrats. . . are. Deerfield, Illinois is the latest to join another Chicago suburb to ban guns. Bolder, Colorado is considering a ban on “assault rifles,” but Deerfield has decided to ban ALL semi-automatic guns, including handguns, rifles, and even shotguns “with certain features.” What those certain features are, we don’t know. If Deerfield residents don’t dispose of those guns by turning them in or moving them out of Deerfield by June 13, they will face a $1000 per day fine as soon as their anti-gun neighbors turn them in. Shades of Nazi Germany with neighbor turning against neighbor and citizens left defenseless! And, since this gun ban has now been nationally broadcast, I hope the 40-man police department of Deerfield is ready for the influx of gangs, drugs, and burglars who will be flooding their town. . . a town where they know, none of the 18,000 plus citizens has a gun with which to defend himself. But I doubt the town council, who made the decision, will care much, unless, of course, it is they who are burglarized and their children who become victims.
So if our citizens are unarmed, does that make us safer? Let’s take a look at the rest of the world. In 2017, Europe and Russia saw on average one terrorist attack every seven days! None was committed with guns, only vans, cars, bombs, knives and even a hammer. London where the British have long smugly touted the safety of their gun-less society against the “lawlessness” of their former colony, namely us, has seen a spate of non-terrorist knife and acid attacks, driving their murder rate in the last two months higher than that of New York City. And so, like the liberals in the U.S., Londoners have rushed to curb the violence with a ban. . . on knives. “This government has always stood for law and order and to tackle violent crime effectively, robust legislation and powerful law enforcement must be in place,” the home secretary said. “That’s why we will introduce a new offensive weapons bill that includes a new offence of possessing acid in public without good reason, prevents sales of acids to under 18s and stops knives being sent to people’s homes when bought online.” That proposal comes from the conservatives in government!
Those Londoners who are known to be “prolific knife carriers” are being stopped and searched on the streets, (remind anyone of “stop and frisk” which Democrats in New York found racist?) and the Metropolitan Police say they have already taken “thousands” of knives off the streets.
“No excuses: there is never a reason to carry a knife,” London Mayor Sadiq Khan tweeted on Sunday morning. “Anyone who does will be caught, and they will feel the full force of the law” (Benson, Guy. Townhall. 9 April 2018).
Benson also reports that, “Dr John Crichton, the new chairman of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland, wants the sale of pointed kitchen knives to be banned to help reduce the number of fatal stabbings” (Townhall.). So, no more steak knives or carving knives in London kitchens! They are also considering requiring a photo ID to purchase cutlery, including plastic knives!
No guns, no knives. When will they get to “no cars, vans, or trucks?” In the United States, despite all the angst and angry accusations of teenagers like David Hogg, car accidents remain the number one killer of teenagers, not school shootings. Cars. 2,820 teens were killed in car accidents in 2016. In the same year, 456 people were killed in mass shootings (being a shooting with two or more victims) and most of them were NOT teens! And those who are concerned about the safety of children are unimpressed by the 893,000 innocent babies who were murdered in abortion clinics in 2016. Those children have no advocates on the left!
The easiest answer is always to blame the instrument of destruction rather than the human destroyer who uses it. Of course we can not ban cars, but should we consider whether or not the driving age should be raised to 24, an age at which the number of vehicular fatalities drops off considerably? I doubt many Americans would agree to that. To ban knives, kitchen knives and plastic knives in London is illogical, and when London mayor Khan claims that no one has a reason to carry a knife in London, he could not be more wrong. Since Londoners can not carry guns, carrying a knife as protection against the murderous attacks on London citizens seems a logical choice.
But as always, in London it is the knives that are evil, not the criminals who use them to murder, just as in the U.S. the left has proclaimed that it is guns which are evil, not those who use them to kill innocents. Like London, we can ban guns. Then, like London, we will be forced to ban knives, and then bleach, drain cleaners, and oven cleaners. We will need to ban fertilizer since it can be used in the manufacture of homemade bombs. There will be no end to the banning and no end to the deaths. Because it is not the drain cleaner or the knife or the gun that kills. It is the person who uses it.
We must instead, do several things:
We must remove the mentally ill from the streets where they endanger both their own health and the health and safety of the general public. In urban areas they beg, urinate and defecate on the sidewalks, and often physically threaten passers-by. Their presence there is in part due to the efforts of the American Civil Liberties Union. Bruce Ennis became legal director of the ACLU in 1977 and was known as the father of the “mental health bar.” In 1974 he said, “My personal goal is either to abolish involuntary commitment or to set up so many procedural roadblocks and hurdles that it will be difficult, if not impossible, for the state to commit people against their will.” And so, they remain at large, threatening the safety of others, and sometimes, committing mass murder.
We must insure that the mentally ill, the criminal, the domestic abuser can not legally purchase a firearm of any kind by more careful reporting to authorities and by the enforcement of laws already in existence. The shooting in Parkland as well as the shooting at YouTube were both examples of disturbed individuals whose family and acquaintances warned the police that they were dangerous, but to no avail, and the church shooting in Texas was by an individual whose domestic abuse in the air force was never reported to federal authorities at all.
We must insist that every teenager or adult who breaks the law or who threatens bodily harm to another is arrested, regardless of his ethnic background or the color of his skin. The Obama era plan to avoid the so-called “School to Prison” pipeline failed fatally in Parkland, Florida. It must be stopped everywhere. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of a time when people were judged by “the content of their character” rather than the color of their skin. That must work both ways. No one should be unfairly treated because of his skin color, but neither should he be held unaccountable for crimes because he happens to be black or brown.
We must make sure that hospitals, nightclubs, and schools are protected by several armed guards, so that if one is neutralized, there is at least another to engage the shooter. Willing and well-trained teachers with concealed carry permits would be especially beneficial to the safety of students during an active shooter situation.
Finally, we must get over the notion that this is the wild west of old T.V. westerns where “gun-toting” citizens are going to pull out their guns and shoot it out in MacDonald’s. Armed citizens are safer citizens. According to the Center for Disease Control, in situations where victims defend themselves with a gun, whether they actually fire it or not, there are fewer incidents of injury to the victim. A study conducted by John Lott and his research partner twenty years ago found that there were no more gun accidents when people were allowed to conceal carry, but that had concealed carry laws been passed in all states in 1992, “approximately 1,570 murders; 4,177 rapes; and over 60,000 aggravated assaults would have been avoided yearly.” Yearly!
Blaming the inanimate object used to commit a crime is illogical. Unfortunately, it is also popular with the left and far easier than treating the underlying cause of crimes. Until the left is willing to admit that, the arguing will continue, and so will the killing.