I remember watching Disney as a child. As an adult I find reality far more interesting and entertaining than fantasy. Not everyone feels that way. Today, lots of us ask for 144 character solutions. That is too bad. These faux answers might sooth our conscience, but they seldom work out well. For example, this week I read some crime reports where we disarmed the victims rather than the bad guys.
Look at these examples and put yourself in this situation.
You and your wife arrive home just before midnight. You park in your driveway and start to get out of your car. A man runs out of the darkness and says, “give it up.” Your attacker has a gun pointed at your wife. You’re on the driver’s side of the car and you reach for your gun. The attacker shoots you, and then grabs your wife’s purse. You shoot your attacker. He runs and you call the police. Your attacker was a convicted felon.
The problem with this story is that convicted felons cannot legally possess guns. In theory, that gun law stopped armed criminals. In practice, gun laws only disarmed law abiding citizens. That is the difference between fantasy and reality. Fortunately, this man had a gun to protect himself and his wife.
What would have happened if he lived in a state that disarmed law abiding citizens? I saw a different example last week that gives us a likely answer.
You’re making a Youtube video. You and your crew, one man and three young women, stop for pizza in Oakland, California. It is 10 at night. All of you get out of your car and start across the parking lot. Two men approach you. They draw their weapons and point their pistols at your head. They take your cameras, cellphones, and a laptop computer.
The director of the film said he wouldn’t work in Oakland again without private security.
How did it feel to hope for mercy from the merciless? Ask the residents of Oakland. They live with violence every day, and they can’t take personal bodyguards as a tax deduction. The honest citizens in California have to go through extraordinary lengths to buy a gun. The law abiding citizens in Oakland can’t get permits to legally carry a concealed firearm in public. Do you think those firearm restrictions bother criminals at all?
If you wonder, here is your proof. Oakland was the 9th most violent city in the United States last year despite the labyrinth of strict California gun laws.
Did California’s gun laws protect these four people and the residents of Oakland, or did the laws disarm them and leave them vulnerable? It is an important distinction, yet most of us will never consider that question. We are in love with simplistic answers.
Ask a blue state politician and he’ll offer to pass another gun law for you. Ink on paper is cheap, and it makes everyone feel better.
”This new regulation would do wonders if criminals obeyed the law!”
Shame on them…and shame on us for living in fantasy land.
photo credit: Excerpted from: Eats blue crayon The voyage via photopin (license)
