Lone Star Times.com
by Jeremy Weidenhof
Thursday, March 9, 2006

http://lonestartimes.com/2006/03/09/gun-control-reduces-violence/

Our friends across the pond in England have enacted fairly strict gun control measures in recent years in response to rising violent crime rates, and have an extensive network of cameras to keep a governmental eye on the populace. In fact, things are so peaceful in this now gun-free utopia that schoolchildren are sent to class in body armor to protect against being stabbed.

A 16-year-old London youth, fearing for his safety after a fight over a girl, has been given permission to wear body armor to class. The boy was allowed to wear a stab-proof vest under his uniform after the school and teachers reviewed the "exceptional circumstances" of the situation, the London Mirror said.

"I had a conflict over a girl and threats were made against me," the boy said. "Two guys I know have been stabbed — one ended up in intensive care. I don’t want that to happen to me."

Apparently replacing morality with gun control fails to curb the violent instincts of some members of “civilized” society. Meanwhile, those who would protect themselves with firearms from the depredations of the violent are disarmed by the government they entrust to protect them. Notes Thomas Sowell:

While England has not yet reached the American level of murders, it has already surpassed the United States in rates of robbery and burglary. Moreover, in recent years the murder rate in England has been going up under still more severe gun control laws, while the murder rate in the United States has been going down as more and more states have allowed private citizens to carry concealed weapons — and have begun locking up more criminals.

In America we have the Second Amendment to our Constitution which guarantees the right to keep and bear arms. Unfortunately that does not always matter to those in authority. Ask citizens of Washington D.C. or other gun-ban municipalities if their rights are intact or their violent crime rates low. In New Orleans, an NRA lawsuit has been filed because officials confiscated legally owned firearms in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Honest citizens, victims of the storm and the criminal among them, were thus deprived by their government of the means to defend their lives and property when they most needed it.

Further, American concealed carry laws have not resulted in a “bloodbath in the streets,” and the expiration of the so-called “assault weapons ban” has not brought full-scale military operations to our front yards as claimed by inflammatory anti-gun rhetoric. Instead violent crime rates have generally declined even as gun freedom has increased. More and more the ammunition in favor of gun control proves to be blank.