Guns prevent crime and why it isn’t reported

No one will argue that the Sandy Hook shooting wasn’t an unspeakable tragedy; in fact, this might be one of the very few things all Americans agree on.

What we do now seems to be where parties fall into the normal left vs. right, us vs. them, conservative vs. liberal divide that seems to make all problems nearly impossible to solve due to deeply held ideological beliefs. Chief among those beliefs in this case is whether guns themselves are the reason we have gun violence.

Without delving into the stupidity of celebrity PSAs, calls to shot NRA members, conservatives being dragged behind Chevy trucks, the NRA is the new KKK, publishing lists of gun owning assholes, and tougher guns laws that have a history of failure, the debate must center aound one question.

Are lawfully armed citizens safer than unarmed citizens?

When Obama may use an executive order to ban guns, this can be no more important a question for people on both sides of the issue to ask, especially when the government is claiming they are trying to make us safer without telling us that the result of proposed legislation does not accomplish that goal.

“The ostensible purpose of gun control legislation is to reduce firearm deaths and injuries. The restriction of access to firearms will make criminals unable to use guns to shoot people. Gun control laws will also reduce the number of accidental shootings. Those are the desired effects, at least in theory. It is important, however, for conscientious policymakers to consider not only the stated goals of gun control regulations, but the actual results that they produce.” (cato.org)

Further, Tim Lynch, director of Cato’s Project on Criminal Justice, writes that among the study’s significant conclusions is the statistical confirmation that, “The defensive use of guns happens much more often than most people realize,” and, “Each year gun owners prevent a great deal of criminal mayhem – murders, rapes, batteries, and robberies.”

The president recently said of Joe Biden’s gun control panel, working group, crisis action team, or whatever they are calling it, “If your actions result in only saving one life, they’re worth taking.” Seems an odd statement to make when a Cato Institute white paper states that “tens of thousands of crimes” are prevented each year in the United States by legally armed citizens exercising their Second Amendment right to self-defense.

Is this exploiting a tragedy in typical “never let a tragedy go to waste” form to achieve a pre-existing end goal of disarming America? Is the Tragedy at Sandy Hook a “Black Swan” the government is using in a lame attempt at risk management when the risk management in place by legal gun owners is already sufficient enough?

In the book, The Black Swan: The Impact of The Highly Improbable, author Nassim Nicholas Taleb says, “…but few reward acts of prevention.” This, at least to me, explains why we collectively rush to find knee jerk solutions to major, yet highly improbable events, while ignoring solid and effective preventative measures that are already in place.

Granted, Sandy Hook is a newsworthy event but what about the thousands and thousands of shootings that did not take place because of the mere presence of guns?

The fact that something doesn’t happen can provide more evidence that a system is working than a very few events can prove that it is not.

Read more from James Alfred here.