Gun control is a failure. Our own city of Washington has proven it.
The city is not only our capital, but a cesspool of violence and death.
According to the theories and rantings of the liberal left and other advocates for the elimination of the right to keep and bear arms, this should not be the case.
Washington should be a shining city, free from all violent crime. It should be safe to wander the brightly lit streets of Southeast alone at three o'clock in the morning.
We should all be able to leave our doors unlocked as we sleep because no law-abiding citizen has a gun or the right to own one. No one should have to hurry past dark alleys with fear in their eyes. And not a single life should be taken by firearms.
Unfortunately, this theory gets shot full of holes in the real world. The reasoning is simple: we don't need to worry about the law-abiding citizens. They are not the ones who are going to pull out semi-automatic handguns and blow away Joe Smith up the street for his wallet with six bucks and pictures of his family and dog in it.
No, the people who use guns to commit the majority of the murder and mayhem in this city and country are not law-abiding citizens. They don't care if it is illegal or not for them to carry around a gun. They are criminals and criminals do not follow the law.
Thus the only people that these laws hurt are the people who obey the law. It follows the old logic that if you outlaw guns, only the outlaw will have a gun.
The gun control advocates are willing to take away the decent people's right to defend themselves. The reply of the said advocates is that we have the police to protect us from the horrors of the criminal element.
Despite their assurances and those of the police, the crime rate continues to rise. The police are simply overwhelmed; they cannot protect everyone every minute of every day.
We, the people, need to be able to keep and bear arms as a form of self-defense.
The advocates for these measures point out that gun control will keep guns out of the hands of our children. No one wants to hear about a little third grader accidentally shooting his best friend during recess.
There are few greater tragedies in this world than the death of a child. The cold hard reality is that gun control is not going to keep guns out of the hands of our children.
Children are not allowed to buy guns, thus preventing adults from buying guns is not going to keep weaponry out of the hands of the young. Certainly a lot of parents need to be more careful about keeping their guns out of the hands of their kids.
The problem is that kids can buy their guns on the street, along with anything and everything else, whether legal or illegal.
The question of what will get crime in the U.S. under control again is one that cannot be answered easily. No one really knows the answer. Perhaps that answer lies in harsher penalties for violence or in larger police forces.
However, rescinding the Second Amendment and taking away the law-abiding citizens' rights is not going to do anything to slow down the spread of crime across the nation.
Brad Dicken a freshman in the School of Public Affairs.
