GUN LAWS FAIL AGAIN: And People Die

By Rob Morse

I used to think that gun laws stopped crime and made us safer.

I would read about some violent attack and think that more regulation would stop the next criminal. Now, I’ve studied some of our 23,000 firearms regulations. That is when I changed my mind. Now I see a violent crime as another failure of the many gun control laws we already have. Gun laws don’t work, and we can’t achieve safety by piling more regulations on honest people.

Recent events are clear examples. We had a mass murderer in Las Vegas, Nevada. We had another one in Edgewood, Maryland. Though the events are wildly different, our gun laws failed in both cases. They did not protect us from these attacks. As Senator Diane Feinstein admitted, no law would have stopped the Las Vegas gunman. The Senator is so right.

The Las Vegas murderer broke the rules as is usually the case. Let’s face it, if you’re going to murder scores of people you’re not going to be bothered by breaking a few hotel regulations. The Mandalay Bay Casino where the murderer stayed was a gun free zone. It was such a gun free zone that that even the hotel security guards were unarmed. The result was that the murderer had guns while the honest gun owners left their guns at home. Those gun-control restrictions left us less safe rather than making us safer.

The Las Vegas murderer also bought his guns legally. He passed the background checks for every one of his gun purchases. His only brush with the law was a traffic violation. Gun control failed to stop mass murder..again. We can’t reach perfect safety by regulating the honest people.

The Maryland murderer also broke the rules. He went to his employer and shot five people. Three of them died. Before he was captured, the murderer drove to Delaware and shot another person at whom he was mad. The Maryland murderer had a very long record of criminal activity.

The murderer had been arrested 42 times. He had 15 felony convictions for burglary. He had four misdemeanor convictions. Charges included theft, sale of stolen goods and conspiracy to sell stolen goods, parole violations, possession of drug paraphernalia, shoplifting, possession of marijuana, possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, four separate charges of assault and assault and battery, being a felon in possession of a firearm, and unlawfully carrying a handgun in a vehicle. There were plenty of laws that should have kept this murderer in jail. We certainly don’t need more gun control to do that.

Felons aren’t supposed to have guns. In theory, our gun laws stop them. That isn’t true in practice. None other than the Washington Post lists Maryland as one of the top six states for gun control laws. One of Maryland’s laws is a ban on gun possession “for those convicted of a felony.” Maryland goes farther than that. Maryland does not issue concealed carry permits to ordinary law-abiding citizens. The murderer’s victims were disarmed. I’m noticing a pattern here.

Ordinary citizens with a gun stop violent criminals thousands of times every day. These good guys protect themselves and their family until the police arrive. These good guys are people just like you. You don’t read those stories in the mainstream media, but they happen. I cover them, and I talk about them every week. It is dangerous to disarm these good men and women.

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