RE: Canada isn’t immune to gun violence, Jan. 28 – Feb. 3, 2016.
Many in Canada seem to pride themselves on the tight restrictions this nation has on firearms. A recent letter in The Charlatan citing the La Loche, Saskatchewan shooting suggested still not enough has been done in this regard.
Guns are simply not correlated with violence or homicide. If one correlates gun ownership rates or gun control rates with total homicide rates we see no correlation, or a statistically negligible one. Indeed, Vermont—the state with what is viewed as the weakest gun laws—happens to have one of the lowest crime rates in the country. Similar trends exist in Maine, New Hampshire, and most other states with loose gun laws. California, which has the highest gun murder rate, has one of the lowest gun ownership rates in the country. Conversely, nations such as Norway and Switzerland have high levels of gun ownership and very little in the way of crime.
But what of Europe, Canada, and Australia? Despite the lower populations contributing to the lower rate of violence, these nations all had much lower gun violence than the U.S. even before gun restrictions came into effect. The U.K. enacted its handgun ban in 1996. From 1990 until the ban was enacted, the homicide rate fluctuated between 10.9 and 13 homicides per million. After the ban, homicides went up until they reached a peak of 18 in 2003. Australia shows a similar pattern with all crime. This hardly supports the idea that getting rid of guns will help save people.
The amendments found in the U.S. Constitution do not provide rights to the people. No, these rights are deemed inherent to the people and the Constitution serves to protect these rights from government authority by denying government the power to touch them.
The rights found in the U.S. Constitution are the rights tyrants go after. It is the removal of these rights that sets up the formation of totalitarian regimes. All tyrannical regimes have gone after similar rights for some or all of their people. The founders of the U.S. had certainly seen this under the rule of the British. The freedom to express dissent, due process under the law, and the last resort of resistance by force, are all important to protecting national and personal liberty. And strangely, Canada and its citizens seem quite happy to try and restrict every one of them.
Guns protect people, stop and deter crimes, and should the worst befall a nation, they allow the people to stand for the principals of freedom and resist. They come with a cost, but so do cars, which kill far more people than guns.
“But car crashes are accidents!” many say. But an accident implies there is no one to blame, and cars don’t just crash. Very rarely is there a real mechanical failure. We could end the millions of lives lost through cars by banning them as many propose for guns, or we could limit the maximum speed of cars. But, strangely, no one will propose that.
As much as many don’t want to admit it, they are happy to allow millions to die for their convenience. Yet when it comes to guns—which kill far less, prevent crime, and serve as a cornerstone to protecting liberty—the loss of a few thousand is too much to bear.
America is not protecting lives over a privilege, nor are they protecting lives over a right inherent to the people. For Americans, and many others, there is no body count so high it will warrant the removal of personal liberty. No slaughter will dissuade from the importance of personal freedom or of the rights of the individual. Freedom is that important, and it should not be surrendered to cowardice.
