Why were guns such a prominent feature in the Black Panther movement
in the 60’s and 70’s? Because under Jim Crow blacks were not allowed
access to gun ownership, and understood, rightly, that guns are the most
potent means of resisting oppression.
In Jamaica gun laws are so strict that you can go to jail for
possessing a single bullet. Yet, gun crime is rampant. Why? First,
because the police, being the only ones allowed to own guns, frequently
use them on defenseless Jamaicans. Second, because just as in the drug
trade, if you make something illegal, you boost the profits associated
in trading with outside the law.
How has banning drugs worked out over the last 30 years? Mexico,
which is another nation with VERY strict gun control laws, is awash in
both drugs and guns bought with the profits of those drugs from
countries around the world.
Banning assault rifles will create an underground market for assault
rifles, meaning that ONLY criminals possess them, as is the case in
Mexico.
And the intent of the Second Amendment is clear: the right and duty
of each and every State to provide for its own defense is absolute, and
therefore the Federal Government would make no law preventing
individuals or groups from owning guns. It is important to keep in
mind, in this regard, that a standing army was also greatly feared at
that time, as such armies were often used for oppression, as for example
the Redcoats oppressed us. We had guns, though, and it ended well for
us.
Guns were intended, specifically, in my view, as a block to the
aggregation of power of an absolutist Federal government. Guns
represent, even today, a huge problem for any group that would want to
impose tyranny by force. Guns, quite simply, are anti-authoritarian,
but only to the extent they are DEMOCRATIZED.
And empirically, crime is lowest in the areas with the highest rates
of gun ownership: rural America, where virtually every home has multiple
guns. Crime also drops whenever Concealed Carry laws are passed.
I own a gun, and view anyone who doesn’t as misguided. Banning
assault rifles would not have prevented this crime. It could have been
done as effectively with handguns.
What we need to be asking is why our social order is imploding.
These crimes do not happen in socially coherent societies. These
crimes are a reflection of a mass media culture and the anomie that goes
with it.