Hey, gun control boosters: Gun sales soar, but murders don't. Why?

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Gee, we're confused:

• Sunday's edition included a story that chronicles the soaring sales of guns in the country, primarily handguns. Ruger's sales have increased 86 percent in the past four years. Smith & Wesson's sales have gone up nearly 44 percent, the article said, whereas total retail sales only increased 18 percent in that period.
• The United States is a safer nation now than it was 20 years ago, according to all the crime statistics. Oh, sure, there are blips: an 18 percent increase in reported violent crime last year - but that's the first increase since 1993, meaning that the increase over the past 20 years is minuscule.

Gee, if the availability of guns is the major reason for the murder of people, why isn't the murder rate up by 40 to 80 percent, in tandem with the sales of guns?
The answer, of course, is found in the cliche: "Guns don't kill people. People kill people."
We absolutely support the concept of gun control in this country. We don't want to put heavy machine guns into the hands of ordinary citizens.
Even the National Rifle Association supports the concept of gun control. It agrees that most convicted felons have no business owning guns.
Ah.
There is "gun control," and there is "gun control."
Some Americans want to disarm us, despite the Second Amendment.
We oppose that.
Some Americans want better enforcement of current laws.
We support that.
We also support a few "gun control" measures opposed by the National Rifle Association, including prompt reporting to police of stolen handguns, and a national registry of stolen handguns, the better to track their redistribution and imprison those who make their livings in whole or in part by stealing and then reselling stolen guns.
But that's OK. Reasonable people can and do disagree about the best limitations on gun control.
What irks us is the senseless blather by advocates of civilian disarmament that more gun control equals greater safety and security.
Gun sales have gone through the roof since President Obama took office.
Yet in terms of violent crime, the United States is safer today than it was 20 years ago.
Does that mean that more guns make us safer? We don't accept that logically fallacious argument, because most violent crimes occur for other reasons besides the availability of weapons, e.g., a need for money, a crime of passion, permanent or temporary irrationality, or just for the hell of it. If guns weren't available, weapons might include swords, knives, baseball bats, crossbows, atlatls, lances, piliums, halberds, glaives, bills, pikes - and that's just for starters.
We have guns, and we have violent crime - just as we have deer and we have trout. They both live hereabouts, but one doesn't breed the other.
Fluctuations in the murder rate are not linked to the availability of handguns among the general populace.
- Denny Bonavita