We have fine officers like the one featured below to protect us from the bad guys.

Some have argued that guns should be banned because the state will provide adequate protection of the citizenry. A brief filed in the Supreme Court case regarding the DC gun ban makes a compelling argument against state protection.

The four core empirical subparts of the brief are titled: “The MPD Has A Significant Problem Hiring And Retaining Qualified Police Officers.” “The MPD Has A Significant History Of Mismanagement.” “The District’s ‘911 System Is A Joke’.” and “The MPD Has A Significant History Of Corruption.” Every one of these points is proven beyond a reasonable doubt, relying almost entirely on reports in Washington newspapers.

Moreover, although paying for security, through a private security guard firm, is still legal in DC, the MPD controls the licensing of security guards, and works hard to suppress the private security business through licensing abuse, and by prosecuting security guards on specious charges.

The brief then points out that the DC government enjoys civil immunity from persons who are injured because the MPD’s non-feasance, even when persons were injured because they relied on false promises from DC 911 operators that help was on the way.

Its unbelievable that a city government could have the power to take a way the most obvious option in self defense and then fail to provide adequate protection. Of course this is to be expected. Since the state has monopoly on protection there is no competition forcing them to be efficient. Why people argue on behalf of the government to give the state a monopoly is always beyond me. It seems to violate the most fundamental of common sense. To honestly think you can trust the state more than a company is borderline laughable.

Over at Reason Magazine I found this jewel:

In Chicago, the racial aspects of gun control have come up before. In February 1994, a black Democrat State Senator from Chicago, Rickey Hendon, had his home robbed. One of the items taken was an unregistered handgun. The Senator refused to apologize. “I have a right to protect myself,” he told the Sun-Times. Because of historical economic disparities between blacks and whites in all parts of the country, gun control disproportinately affects blacks, who tend to live in higher crime areas; lack the resources for private security, alarm systems, and other measures; and aren’t particularly trusting of or willing to rely upon the police to protect them. Going back to Chicago, when the city instituted a freeze on handgun registrations in 1983, some of the loudest objections came from black politicians, who said the ban discriminated against black Chicagoans in rough neighborhoods who lacked the resources to protect themselves in other ways.

Oh wait, I totally forgot that with gun bans there will be no guns in poorer areas of town so people will no longer need to worry about defending themselves against criminals carrying guns.

This story talks about how in michigan over the last six years there has been no siginficant increases in violent crime since ever since legislation was passed making it easier to acquire a firearm.

The incidence of violent crime in Michigan in the six years since the law went into effect has been, on average, below the rate of the previous six years. The overall incidence of death from firearms, including suicide and accidents, also has declined.

The story also covers a more rigorous academic analysis.

John Lott, a visiting professor at the University of Maryland who has done extensive research on the role of firearms in American society, said the results in Michigan since the law changed don’t surprise him.

Academic studies of concealed weapons laws that generally allow citizens to obtain permits have shown different results, Lott said. About two-thirds of the studies suggest the laws reduce crime; the rest show no net effect, he said.

But no peer-reviewed study has ever shown that crime increases when jurisdictions enact changes like those put in place by the Legislature and then-Gov. John Engler in 2000, Lott said.

Hate to say it but if an expert doing science says its true it has to be. I look forward to some of my readers changing their position on gun control now that they know the truth.

Darwin writes on one of my posts about gun control:

The liberal position trusts people to be smart enough to realize that’s it’s just not practical for every single individual independantly to protect themselves and their family, become an expert on the safety and nutrition of every food and and product and drug they buy, to be an expert in every field of medicine so they know that their doctors are competent, to monitor every factory in their state for dangerous emmisions and form boycott networks when a factory is poisoning their rivers or their air, to build roads and research charities and understand what scientific research should be funded and help hurricane survivors and etc and etc and etc. The liberal position believes that people are smart enough to relize that centralizing many of these functions is much more efficient and effective than leaving them to individuals, and it trusts those people to vote for a government that will give them those things that they want.

This argument has the unfortunate implication that those who do not concede that its more efficient for the state to manage safety, nutrition, health safety, industry pollution, roads, research, and releif efforts are not smart. I’m sure you don’t mean to imply I’m not smart enough to see the efficiency in centralizing these things and yet that ugliness is right there in the first sentence of that paragraph.

It simply is not the case that its more efficient to centralize all of these different things. Its alarming to see centralization push through to this century given it’s abysmal performance in the last century. On second thought, the desire to sign over so many responsibilities to a benevolent government has always appealed to certain kind of person.

The reason why the libertarian argument has the upper hand on your position is that you want to force your values on those that don’t share your values. The libertarian argument simply holds that citizens should have the freedom needed to protect themselves. This argument leaves it open to each individual to determine the extent they wish to exercise that freedom themselves. Some will be more willing to rely on state intervention while others will adopt a more independent attitude by arming themselves. The point is that the libertarian argument accommodates both choices. The libertarian position tolerates diversity in self defense and I mostly certainly chose those words intentionally.

Your liberal argument on gun control does not afford the same freedom. This liberal argument holds that citizens should not have the freedom to protect themselves with firearms. Your personal belief is that citizen protection by firearm should only by done by the state. On your say so, those that disagree with your personal belief regarding firearm protection when caught, will have their firearms confiscated and sent to prison. The liberal position is intolerant of firearm protection and reduces self defense diversity.

At the end of the day, you aim to jail those that dissent from your position. You aim to jail the libertarian.

Link Here.

Taken from this editoral is this lovely chunk of statistics. Numbers don’t lie.

Different parts of this country display disparities in rates of serious crimes. But that crime rate has been falling steadily for almost 20 years. While many factors undoubtedly contribute to that trend, including tougher sentencing laws, the ability of people to defend themselves also counts.

The 40 states (including Maine) where concealed-carry permits are readily available to law-abiding people report on average a 22 percent lower violent crime rate, a 30 percent lower murder rate, a 46 percent lower robbery rate and a 12 percent lower aggravated assault rate than the 10 states where the possession of firearms by honest citizens is greatly…restricted.

Its makes basic sense that the appropriate policy response to mass shootings is letting citizens arm themselves. Bringing in a large state aparatus to remove all the guns is would only work in the fantasy land of liberalville.

Darwin writes:

The fact is as long as guns are all the hell over the place, any crazy person can get one, and as long as guns are legal they can carry it down the street to their target without fear of interference.

I take issue with your argument that as long as there is large quantity of guns crazy people will get a hold of them and fire away. If one were to ban all guns there would still be a black market for guns which would allow crazy people access to firearms. Crazy people using guns for mass shooting has very little to do with the availability of weapons and everything to do with the nature of guns. Guns enable someone to wreak massive harm in a short period of time. That’s their intended purpose.

Often times, crazy people will use this to their advantage by selecting targets in which gun bans are enforced. This enables them to do the most amount of harm without having to worry about someone else doing the same kind of harm back to them. It is worth noting that the recent attempt at a mass killing in Colorado was stopped by the lawful use of a firearm by a citizen, illustrating that the capacity to do harm with a gun is indirectly proportional to the amount of armed citizens in the collection of would be victims.

A plethora of guns is not even close to the controlling factor in mass killings. I would also argue that preventing people from going crazy is probably the controlling factor, but would be impossible to control. Would you suggest placing draconian laws to detect and control potential crazy people from executing mass shootings? You are already up in arms with the expanded powers of our intelligence gathering agencies.

This reminds me of the war drugs. Given your liberal disposition I suspect you would take issue with this kind of rhetoric. First you probably object to the state telling people what they can and can’t do with their bodies. But given your reasonableness, you probably realize that the state must have some laws on drug usage, but that the state, particularly the federal has no business vigorously prosecuting the illegal drug industry. You probably view the draconian drug laws as begin fundamentally illiberal and largely ineffective because people are going to drugs no matter what.

Assuming I have characterized your position on the war on drugs then l ask you how a ‘war on guns’ would fair any better? Crazy people are going to go on mass shootings no matter what laws there are in place restricting gun ownership.

That being the case, why in your view is it desirable to take the guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens knowing that this will leave them completely vulnerable to the whims of crazy people that, given crazy people’s desire to conduct mass killings, have already indicate a disinclination to follow the law?

The Sentiment Informing Libertarians and Liberals

I really think this issue highlights nicely the difference between liberals and libertarians. The problem of mass shooting can be handled in a variety of different ways. The liberal solution is to interfere with an explicit constitutional right in an attempt to completely eliminate access to guns. They argue that protection should not be handled by the citizen, but by the state in the form of the police. The libertarian solution is to embrace the constitutional right that citizens should have access to the firearms need to protect themselves. During a mass shooting protection should be handled by the citizen until it is clear the state has control of the scene.

Putting aside the feasibility of the two different solutions lets examine the sentiment that informs them. The libertarian sentiment is pretty simple. Citizens should be responsible for their own protection. While the state can assist, at the end of the day, the citizen should have the maximum amount of freedom to protect themselves. The liberal sentiment is that citizen can’t be trusted with the freedom of protecting themselves, and therefore to protect all citizens, the state should be responsible for citizen protection. While the citizen can assist in their own protection, at the end of the day, the citizen should only have a minimum amount of freedom to protect themselves since this freedom could be used irresponsibly to harm others.

We can see then that libertarians have a fundamental trust in the citizenry while the liberal position rests firmly on a distrust of the citizenry. The liberal distrust of his fellow man translates into policy that uses the state to remove certain freedoms to allay his concern that citizens may exercise that freedom in a disapproving fashion. This is no different then the conservative putting in place laws against sodomy because he doesn’t trust his fellow citizen to use his right to privacy in a proper fashion. Meanwhile the libertarian works hard to keep both the rights of self protection and privacy free of state interference motivated by a healthy distrust of the state.

After all, the state does have a monopoly on coercion. Something liberals and conservatives tend to forget anytime they want to force their values on the citizenry.

How do you like this gun control policy?

My first recommendation is that every state pass a Conceal Handgun law; one that requires not only a full background check, but also a significant amount of training. In Texas, I feel the training requirement (10 hours) should be doubled. But every state should have a similar law.

Then, if any business (except bars and clubs) wants to enhance security very cheaply, all it has to do is place very large, prominent signs near all entrances with the following, then abide by its contents:
All Concealed Carry License holders Are Welcome!

Show your Concealed Carry License and Receive 5% off!

Sign me up. Heck with those kind of discounts I might have to get myself a gun.

Over at Instapundit.com Glen Reynolds makes an interesting point.

I HEARD NEAL BOORTZ holding forth on the Omaha mall shooting this morning on the way to work, and I realized I haven’t posted on it. I don’t really have anything to say that I haven’t said before. But it’s worth noting — since apparently most of the media reports haven’t — that this was another mass shooting in a “gun-free” zone. It seems to me that we’ve reached the point at which a facility that bans firearms, making its patrons unable to defend themselves, should be subject to lawsuit for its failure to protect them. The pattern of mass shootings in “gun free” zones is well-established at this point, and I don’t see why places that take the affirmative step of forcing their law-abiding patrons to go unarmed should get off scot-free. There’s even an academic literature on mass shootings and concealed-gun carriage.

I would probably support this kind of legislation. Darwin might like it to because it sets up incentives to influence behavior.