The Liberty Papers

I just finished reading Larry Correia’s “An opinion on gun control“, a tour de force attacking the logic and arguments of those who want to control guns. His view on those who want to control guns is damning:

In conclusion, basically it doesn’t really matter what something you pick when some politician or pundit starts screaming we’ve got to do something, because in reality, most of them already know a lot of what I listed above. The ones who are walking around with their security details of well-armed men in their well-guarded government buildings really don’t care about actually stopping mass shooters or bad guys, they care about giving themselves more power and increasing their control.

If a bad guy used a gun with a big magazine, ban magazines. If instead he used more guns, ban owning multiple guns. If he used a more powerful gun with less shots, ban powerful guns. If he used hollowpoints, ban hollowpoints. (which I didn’t get into, but once again, there’s a reason everybody who might have to shoot somebody uses them). If he ignored some Gun Free Zone, make more places Gun Free Zones. If he killed a bunch of innocents, make sure you disarm the innocents even harder for next time. Just in case, let’s ban other guns that weren’t even involved in any crimes, just because they’re too big, too small, too ugly, too cute, too long, too short, too fat, too thin, (and if you think I’m joking I can point out a law or proposed law for each of those) but most of all ban anything which makes some politician irrationally afraid, which luckily, is pretty much everything.

They will never be happy. In countries where they have already banned guns, now they are banning knives and putting cameras on every street. They talk about compromise, but it is never a compromise. It is never, wow, you offer a quick, easy, inexpensive, viable solution to ending mass shootings in schools, let’s try that. It is always, what can we take from you this time, or what will enable us to grow some federal apparatus?

I can’t add much to this, other than to relay an experience I once had walking through the Wembley neighborhood of London. I was with some relatives who lived in Birmingham and we were going to visit central London that day. We parked a few blocks from Wembley Station and walked over there. In the day, one could easily sense that the fresh stucco facade of the public housing was hiding a rough neighborhood. It turned out not to matter at that point.

After going into London and having a perfectly pleasant day, we took the tube back to Wembley station. By this time, the sun had gone down. The neighborhood we had to walk through was downright scary at night. My sense was that this was a place where the weak didn’t last long. This was soon confirmed as a band of twenty young men wielding pipes and other weapons ran unchallenged through the streets. No guns, but enough brawn and metal to make this gang very deadly.

I had never felt fear like this in my life. I’ve had to fight off two muggers in my time, both of whom fled quickly when they realized I was going to fight. (Both fights were unarmed, as legally carrying a weapon in California is effectively impossible for those without political connections. But, I digress.) In both those cases, even while being mugged, I didn’t feel or believe that the environment was dominated by lawlessness. If someone had seen the mugging going on, they would have tried to help or at least called a cop.

That night in Wembley, I felt none of that security. These young men acted like they were immune from any harm as they rampaged through the street. There were no police. There were no citizens willing to stand up for the innocent. It was terrifying. I started looking around, what elements in the environment could I use in a fight with these guys. How could I keep them away from my relatives?

In my head, though, it always ended the same. We were dead. Twenty strong, armed young men vs. two guys, a woman, and two kids, all unarmed. No police. No hope of assistance. Any confrontation would end with our deaths, simple as that.

It was a truly savage environment where might ruled without exception. This is the end result of gun control. There were only two types of people in that environment: aggressors and eventual victims. I’m writing this because we weren’t victims that night. But if we repeated that walk enough times, it would have been us.

When I hear politicians talk about gun control, this is the environment I think of. It’s the same kind of environment that our crime statistics say we have in Richmond and Oakland, just an hour’s drive from me. These two cities account for over 150 murders every year. It’s the same kind of environment we have in Detroit, which is now suffering from profound urban decay. It’s the same kind of environment that produced over 600 murders in Chicago last year.

Keep this in mind as you read Larry’s piece. It’s long, but it’s worth it… most of all if you’re a supporter of gun control.