Dangerous Cities, and Guns 2021 :: 11/15/2021

We’ve heard the advocates of gun-control say they haven’t done enough and we need even more gun-prohibition laws than we already have. They say that disarming honest citizens stops criminals from committing violent crimes. Those are bold claims, but that doesn’t make them true. Politicians lie to us all the time. I’ve looked at the record. I am not convinced that gun-prohibition works as advertised, and we have some tragic stories to consider as well. The closer I look the more I think that gun-control laws cost lives.

VIOLENT CRIME IN FAILED CITIES

Much of our so called “firearms policy” is driven by emotion. We all feel compassion for the people of Chicago, Saint Louis, and Baltimore who cringe at the sound of gunfire every night. The war raging between rival drug gangs fighting for turf leaves innocent civilians caught in the nightly crossfire. Over four-thousand people were shot in Chicago so far this year.

Notice the long causal chain that ties this together. Bad public policy lead to business failure- to unemployment- to addiction and depression- to broken families- and finally to more gangs and violent crime. I wish you could break that viscous chain of events by passing more gun-prohibition laws. You can’t, but politicians need to deflect blame for their mistakes. They need a scapegoat. They passed 23 thousand gun control regulations so far, and still there is no peace.

Violence is concentrated rather than ubiquitous. Ask yourself why Chicago, Detroit, and Baltimore are dangerous, but San Jose, Henderson, Austin, and San Diego are not. More than half of the counties in the US will not have a single murder this year. A mere 2 percent of our counties produced more than half our murders.

Maybe it isn’t the guns, but the violent people we leave on our streets. In every city, the politicians and the powerful are protected with guns. It is the poor who are disarmed in the name of “gun-control”.

LIVES THAT WERE DAMAGED BY GUN PROHIBITION LAWS

There is a real cost when gun prohibition fails. Sure, we see the body count every weekend from our failed blue cities. Beyond that is the tragedy of the honorable men and women we’ve thrown in prison as we feed the fantasy of gun-prohibition. It takes about a thousand dollars, over a year of waiting, and a week off work to get your carry permit in Chicago. If you’re a parent who was robbed and saw your children shot, then that is too long. Many people who couldn’t wait are arrested and thrown in prison for the non-violent crime of wanting to protect their families. How long should they have to wait to protect the people they love?

Support for the right to bear arms in public has come from unexpected quarter now that public defenders in both Chicago and New York have called for expanding and simplifying the permit process. To quote them,

“Embedded in the (US Supreme Court) justices’ inquiries- full of racially coded language and myths about “high-crime areas” and “muggings”- was a false assumption that police keep communities safe, and a dangerous distinction between “these people with illegal guns” (read: Black people living in cities) and “ordinary hardworking people” who have to commute home every night (read white people in the suburbs).”

Being a felon under President Trump was one thing when the Trump economy virtually eliminated black unemployment. It is phenomenally harder to be a black man who served time for a felony conviction now that the Biden economy has seen unemployment soar. Disfavored minorities and people with a criminal record find it much harder to find work today. They work they can find is part time and for lower wages. Some occupations with licensing requirements are barred to felons.

The Lords in power tell us it is all done for the public good.

That is what the nobles always tell the serfs.

https://slowfacts.wordpress.com/2021/11/13/dangerous-cities-and-guns-2021/