Guns Save Lives
By: Ra Gulamhusein
Tags: Politics, United States, Gun Control, Justice, Republican Party

Guns Save Lives

Photo by Steve Woods on Unsplash

“Guns are killing machines”

I am Pro-Gun, Pro-Life, and Pro-Capital Punishment. When most people hear these beliefs, the temperature of a room drops immediately — the mere expression of such ideas precipitates a tension so thick you could cut through it. Any hospitality transitions into hostility as conversations are stopped, heads turn, and jaws drop.

The second and third statements are based on arguments that are fundamentally more philosophical and abstract than that of the first, which is why it is surprising how many people dismiss any kind of evidence that supports guns or don’t even realize such evidence exists. Anyone objective can see that there are clear benefits to firearms (whether or not these benefits outweigh the negative is the argument most individuals hold). These individuals refer to guns as “killing machines” and level derogatory epithets at whomever disagrees.

The media, teachers, and anyone on the Left will typically address guns with visceral disdain throughout any conversation. However, policy cannot be made with visceral feeling and disregard for reason and rationality; blatant subjectivity leads to irrelevant platitudes that dismiss context (as with most policies from collectivists). Thankfully, most people don’t believe in the same unconstitutional ideas that are more frequently published by prominent outlets.

Outlets like the New York Times who suggested the second amendment should be repealed, or Mother Jones who declared the United States should ban semiautomatic handguns or Vox who proclaimed we should ban assault weapons (a term which has no definition).

The evidence supporting guns, the Constitution, and the United States of America is not at all addressed by these sources who attempt to continue in their blatant demagoguery. The only context for which they propose their defended policies are mass shootings — these instances are not unimportant, but they do not capture the reality of guns in America.

Critically, one of the most important facts about why gun ownership exists in the United States in the first place, and why citizens need the right to bear arms, is often left out of the conversation — a critical piece of context that is typically ignored.

“In God we Trust” — Not in Government

One of the most important elements in the discussion on guns is the context in which the second amendment was created:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” — U.S. Bill of Rights

American citizens have the right to fight against tyranny and totalitarianism. This idea was also proposed by John Locke (the father of classical liberalism) who believed that citizens had a right to revolt if a government ever acts in a tyrannical manner and infringes on its citizens’ inalienable rights. This does not mean that the mentally ill or felons should have the ability to purchase a legal gun, but it does mean that law-abiding (and healthy) citizens should be able to.

The very founding of the United States of America occurred after the Thirteen Colonies fought against the British during the American Revolutionary War; the war began with the Battle of Lexington and Concord where the British immediately attempted to seize colonist weapons.

After the failure of the British at the start of the war, William Knox (Under Secretary of State in the British Colonial Office) circulated a proposal in 1777 where he demanded:

“The Arms of All The People Should Be Taken Away”

It is the duty of the individual to stand up to tyranny when they see it, and the second amendment is crucial to the American people's ability to do this.

Such a proposition may seem unnecessary today, but even twentieth-century dictatorships followed the suit of the British and frequently moved to disarm the populous as they enforce their policies of statism upon them.

The Mises Institution released a review of such instances in 2018 that included:

The Soviet Union — Governments have a monopoly of force, but Marxist governments have used that monopoly to infringe on the rights of their citizens. In Lenin’s Letters from Afar, he shows he is a proponent of a people’s militia. Lenin reversed his stance in 1918 after he became head of Soviet Russia. On December 10th of that year, the Council of People’s Commissar mandated that Soviet citizens turn in their firearms. Failure to do so led to criminal prosecution. Similar policies continued during the twentieth century. Around twenty million Soviets died under this totalitarian rule. Nazi Germany — The Weimar government before Nazi rule was responsible for passing gun registration in Germany. Weimar officials rationalized the passage of gun control in the name of public order, for fear of Nazis and Communists and their gains in power. Nazis would later use this legislation to disarm the Jewish population as well as a new Gun Control Act passed by Hitler in 1938, barring Jews from firearms. Later, in 1940, Germany moved to disarm French citizens as soon as Germany took control of France. A minimum of six million Jews died from the Third Reich. Communist Cuba — Fidel Castro took power in Cuba in 1959. His policies resulted in over 140,000 deaths and he ruled as a ruthless dictator. Part of these dictatorial policies was the disarming of the Cuban people. He famously said “Guns, for what? To fight against whom? Against the Revolutionary government that has the support of the people?” The Castro government began by targeting rival revolutionary groups, who fought the Batista government but were not Communist affiliates. Soon after, the Castro government expanded the definition of “rival revolutionaries” to disarm the general population.

These are just some examples in the plethora of incidents where authoritarian regimes disarm their people to enforce their rule and continue their tyranny — taking away citizens’ ability to revolt allows for the state to violate their natural-born individual rights without any significant internal opposition.

3,000,000

Photo by Courtney Hedger on Unsplash of a couple with an American flag

After the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012, there seemed to be a surge in anti-gun sentiment across the country. Following this, President Obama ordered the CDC to analyze gun violence in the United States to provide some context on guns in America.

Among other controversial claims, the CDC stated:

“Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million, in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008.”

That would be around 8,200 cases a day if the estimate is liberal. All in all, the study fundamentally changes the way gun violence is approached.

This report also tells us that guns are 16 to 100X more likely to protect life than take life.

We already knew that gun-control laws do not equate to a reduction in crime rates or homicide rates, but this particular study did provide more context into the issue of “gun control.” Further context has also been provided by more recent studies.

The Foundation of Economic Education released an article covering such studies that state similar statistics:

“Guns prevent an estimated 2.5 million crimes a year, or 6,849 every day. Most often, the gun is never fired, and no blood (including the criminal’s) is shed”

“Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies”

“60 percent of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they knew the victim was armed. Forty percent of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they thought the victim might be armed”

“Felons report that they avoid entering houses where people are at home because they fear being shot”

“Fewer than 1 percent of firearms are used in the commission of a crime”

Forbes released a similar article in 2018 that helped detail the importance of guns:

“Another study estimates there are 1,029,615 DGUs per year ‘for self-protection or for the protection of property at home, work, or elsewhere’ excluding ‘military service, police work, or work as a security guard,’ (within the range of the National Academies’ paper), yielding an estimate of 162,000 cases per year where someone ‘almost certainly would have been killed’ if they ‘had not used a gun for protection.’ (In comparison, there were 11,208 homicide deaths by firearm in the US in 2012. There were a total of 33,636 deaths due to ‘injury by firearms,’ of which the majority were suicides, 21,175.)”

This same article goes over misconceptions that are used by outlets like The Washington Post that claim “For every criminal killed in self-defense, 34 innocent people die.” However, the effectiveness of the defensive use of guns should not be measured in the lives of criminals killed, but the number of crimes stopped. The National Research Council notes:

“[E]ffective defensive gun use need not ever lead the perpetrator to be wounded or killed. Rather, to assess the benefits of self-defense, one needs to measure crime and injury averted. The particular outcome of an offender is of little relevance.”

The Heritage Foundation also complied various statistics in a report that showed direct contrast between the United States and Great Britain concerning home invasions (among other things):

“Great Britain has some of the strictest gun control laws in the developed world, but the violent crime rate for homicide, rape, burglary, and aggravated assault is much higher than that in the U.S. Further, approximately 60 percent of burglaries in Great Britain occur while residents are home, compared to just 13 percent in the U.S., and British burglars admit to targeting occupied residences because they are more likely to find wallets and purses.”

This is just some of the expanse of accessible evidence that we have that concludes guns save lives.

Criminals will continue to commit crimes and continue to murder as seen in Great Britain where homicide rates spiked in the years immediately following the imposition of severe gun control measures, despite other developed countries seeing an overall decrease in violent crime. Australia’s National Firearms Act is another example and appears to have had little to no effect on suicide and homicide rates, which were falling before the law was enacted and continued to decline at a statistically unremarkable rate compared to worldwide trends.

Taking away handguns and banning assault weapons does not make Americans safer— it does the opposite.

“I would’ve heard about it”

No, you would not have — not unless you went looking for it.

Left-wing media pushed lies about Russia on Trump for his entire first term and would never dare be so bold as to say they are “Pro-Gun” despite the evidence they are presented with. These sources have no interest to contradict their own dogma they’ve enforced for years. However, there are cases of legal gun owners defending themselves and defending others with legally bought guns.

Oklahoma (2017) — Wagoner County officials declared that a 23-year-old who shot three different home invaders with an AR-15 was innocent. Zach Peters shot all three intruders after they broke in through a back glass door with the intention of “hitting a lick” by robbing Peters’ house. Peters immediately called 911 after shooting the intruders and asked for medical assistance. Illinois (2018) — A man and a woman began to attack a resident of the Oswego Township apartment complex as a result of a “neighbour dispute” which escalated to a stabbing. The neighbour of the man being attacked came out of his apartment with his AR-15 but did not fire any shots. Instead, he used his weapon to have the attackers — who are now in custody — stop and put down their knives. Alabama (2018) — A brave father shot down a masked gunman (killing him) with his pistol after the gunman opened fire inside a McDonald’s. The father and one of his sons were injured in the shootout, but both were recovering at the time of the published story. A McDonald’s employee would later talked about the father:

“He’s my hero. Because I can only imagine how it would’ve went if he wasn’t armed. We might not be here having this interview” — Markus Washington, McDonald’s employee

These are just three stories among many. Other stories include:

Catawba County, North Carolina (2018) — A 17-year-old successfully fought off three armed attackers with his AR-15.

— A 17-year-old successfully fought off three armed attackers with his AR-15. Houston, Texas (2017) — A homeowner survived a drive-by shooting by defending himself with his AR-15.

— A homeowner survived a drive-by shooting by defending himself with his AR-15. Ferguson, Missouri (2014) — African-American men protected a white man’s store from rioters by standing outside armed with AR-15s.

— African-American men protected a white man’s store from rioters by standing outside armed with AR-15s. Texas (2013) — A 15-year-old boy used an AR-15 during a home invasion to save both his life and that of his 12-year-old sister.

— A 15-year-old boy used an AR-15 during a home invasion to save both his life and that of his 12-year-old sister. Rochester, New York (2013) — Home intruders fled after facing an AR-15.

There is an assortment of statistical and anecdotal evidence that tells us that guns do save lives, and the former tells us that the positive impact of guns greatly outweighs that of the negative impact.

Mass Shootings and Misconceptions

Most people who support the banning of handguns, or of repealing the second amendment, point to mass shootings — specifically, school shootings — as their reason for their visceral contempt for firearms.

However, mass shootings do not provide any kind of decent context on guns in America. While gun homicides have been steadily declining for decades in the U.S., mass shootings have been trending upward. The trends oppose each other. The former, however, is more important because it includes homicides from all types of shootings — and it has been declining for forty years.

The United States is often pointed at as the epitome of mass shootings in the world, but such claims are often misleading since the metrics of various measurements are not adjusted for variations among countries.

An obvious example of such falsehoods is seen when the number of deaths from mass shootings is adjusted for population.

After a shooting in North Carolina in 2015, President Obama proclaimed:

“At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries.” — President Obama

Sen. Harry Reid propagated his rhetoric and said:

“The United States is the only advanced country where this kind of mass violence occurs.”

Democrats and Left-Wing media have long claimed that the US leads the world in mass shootings and continue on their belief “America’s gun culture.”

However, once such adjustments are made to better normalize the data, these claims prove untrue.

An economist named John Lott from the Crime Prevention Research Center compiled data from 2009 to 2015 where he looked specifically at mass shootings. The research shows that the US trails many other advanced nations in mass shooting death rate and frequency.

Table via The Foundation for Economic Education compares the annual death rate from mass public shootings between various countries and the United States.

Even when the frequency of such attacks are compared, the United States does not finish in the top ten.

Table via The Foundation for Economic Education compares the frequency of mass public shootings between the various countries and the United States.

Evidently, many of the claims about mass shootings (which provide minimal context about guns in the United States) are already rooted in misconceptions that — when adjusted for — illustrate a far less pervasive problem than is originally proposed.