The Follies of Gun Control – Video by G. Stolyarov II
A satirical commentary by Mr. Stolyarov on the wildly unrealistic assumptions made by those who wish to restrict private individuals’ gun-ownership rights.
This video is based on Mr. Stolyarov’s essay, “The Follies of Gun Control“.
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3 thoughts on “The Follies of Gun Control – Video by G. Stolyarov II”
Good attack on the argument for gun control as a crime prevention measure. A few points:
1. Many (perhaps most) prominent gun control advocates make it clear that their objective is not to reduce crime but to control the law-abiding citizenry. When Diane Feinstein says “turn ’em all in,” she’s explicitly speaking to Mr. and Mrs. America, not to criminals.
2. The claim that it is the job of the police to protect citizens is false. U.S. courts, including SCOTUS, have consistently ruled that the police do not have any duty at all to protect citizens. No city, county, or state, nor the federal government, has a legal mandate to provide police protection.
3. Re the “knife control” reductio ad absurdum, U.K. now has draconian knife controls. Pocket knives are illegal. Caterers have been arrested en route to dinners for carrying kitchen cutlery in their vehicles. It’s been proposed that kitchen knives be legally required to be blunt to prevent stabbings, or simply outlawed>/a<. And (I know, it all sounds like a joke, but isn't) it's proposed that glassware be banned from pubs in favor of lightweight unbreakable plasticware and bottles to prevent clubbings and stabbings with broken glass.
I bungled the last two links in my previous post. Here they are again.
Kitchen knife ban.
Glassware ban.
Why don’t they simply cut to the chase and require everyone to wear handcuffs?
Dr. Steele,
I am in agreement that prominent gun-control proponents have as their foremost objective the control of the citizenry, and Feinstein is a particularly unpleasant character with regard to this issue and many others. Fortunately, I do not believe that her proposed assault-weapons ban has any chance of passing in the current political environment. In the UK (and in most of Europe), the situation is much farther gone in the direction of coercive disarmament, and this is sad (as evidenced by the unfortunate defenselessness of many law-abiding Englishmen in the face of last year’s riots). The only saving grace is that European countries generally have laxer enforcement of drug laws and less cultural machismo and anti-intellectualism, so some of the underlying causes of crime are less prevalent, even in the absence of the deterrent provided by private gun ownership.
The Supreme Court precedents regarding the lack of a police obligation to protect citizens certainly further reinforce the case for private gun ownership and the right of self-defense. The decisions are quite unfortunate, as it would have been easily possible for the court to issue a milder ruling – e.g., that police are protected from findings of ordinary negligence, but not gross negligence (e.g., ignoring repeated calls for help from victims of violent rape). This is similar to the liability standard to which most (non-unionized) public officials are held – and it would have been enough to protect police departments from liability for failing to prevent each and every crime. But because of powerful lobbying organizations, police departments have been able to secure for themselves not only immunity from all forms of negligence – but also from outright violent abuse of peaceful citizens in some cases. While most policemen are, I think, fundamentally decent people, the “bad apples” among them are thereby allowed to inflict their sadism on the general population with impunity – very much unlike the situation in much of Europe, by the way.