The Brady Campaign to create 'gun crime'

[ericire12]

http://www.examiner.com/x-2581-St-Louis-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m7d9-The-Brady-Campaign-to-create-gun-crime

I don't like the term "gun crime"--crime is crime, and while crimes, of course, vary in heinousness, that variance is not a function of the criminal's equipment.  The term is useful here, though, because today's discussion is about "crimes" that are only "criminal" due to the fact that guns are involved.

An example is perhaps called for.  Take, for instance, laws--such as California's--prohibiting faux "assault weapons."  A violator of such a law need not do any harm--need not, indeed, intend any harm, but intent to do harm is irrelevant to the forcible citizen disarmament lobby--all that matters is that the violator is a "gun criminal."

In Jeff Snyder's brilliant A Nation of Cowards: the Ethics of Gun Control (required reading, if it were up to me--I know it isn't--for anyone who wishes to argue either side of the "gun control" debate), he explains the concept of "fighting crime by creating crime."

    Stated simply, the laws CREATE crimes in order to STOP crimes. English common law distinguished between crimes that were "malum in se", or morally wrong in themselves, like rape, murder or robbery, and crimes that were "malum prohibitum", wrong because prohibited by a legislative pronouncement.

    There is nothing inherently wrong, or evil, with purchasing a firearm across state lines, entering a post office while carrying a firearm, purchasing a firearm without first enduring a background check, or owning an "assault weapon" or magazines capable of hold more than 10 rounds. These activities in and of themselves harm no one; the deed in itself is not immoral.

When one thinks about it, every gun law criminalizes behavior that in and of itself does no harm.  Take the Gun Control Act of 1968--which made it illegal for felons to own guns, despite the fact that mere ownership of a gun (or a million guns) by a felon hurts no one.

Since then, as it became clear that simply outlawing possession of firearms by felons wasn't accomplishing much, because being inclined to criminality, they tended to acquire them despite the law, more laws were added to try to stop that acquisition process. So we have background checks. Selling a gun without a background check hurts no one, but without such a check, it's easier for felons to buy guns. Remember that a felon buying a gun is not in and of itself harmful to anyone, either, so now we have two layers of laws against behavior that harms no one.

Now, it's proposed that we close the "private sale 'loophole,'" adding a third layer--now we make it illegal to sell one's own property privately, even though conducting such a sale violates no one's rights, because doing so makes bypassing background checks easier. Bypassing background checks, you'll remember, harms no one, either, but it has to be stopped in order to help make sure that felons don't buy guns. Felons buying guns, remember, is also in and of itself harmless, but since felons tend to be dangerous people, they have to be kept disarmed.

So, to how many layers of laws against behavior that is not, in and of itself, harmful are we to be subjected?  Lots, if the Brady Campaign's Dennis Henigan has his way.

    Gun shows are a primary venue for these no-check sales. A licensed dealer who was selling at a Texas gun show recently complained, "I have had people that failed background checks, and yet they are carrying guns out of here that they bought from someone else."

    According to the "enforce current law" argument, we should allow criminals to exploit this loophole in the background check system, but devote more enforcement resources to tracking down the criminal after he has the gun. Doesn't it make more sense to prevent the no check sales in the first place?

    This Spring, in a little over a month's time, over 50 people were killed in mass shootings in the United States. In virtually all of these incidents, the shooter either attacked police officers who already were "enforcing current laws," or the shooter committed suicide after the rampage, strongly suggesting that "more enforcement" would not have deterred him.

By that approach, every gun law is "a good first step" (indeed, those are words you will here at the passage of every gun law).  Every such law, even if infallibly enforced, accomplishes nothing on its own--it is simply a tool to make compliance with other laws more easily enforceable.

I've borrowed very heavily from Snyder so far, but now I'm going to venture into territory I've not seen him address.  In passing new gun laws--criminalizing heretofore legal behavior--the forcible citizen disarmament lobby creates new classes of criminals.  With more gun laws to be broken, there is inevitably more "gun crime."

Henigan succinctly explains what the "gun control" lobby's approach is to more "gun crime"--more gun laws!  With the new gun laws, we have yet more "gun criminals," and thus more "gun crime," so the "good first step" (the most recent "first step") must be followed up by a second step (but they won't call it that).  And so on ad infinitum.

I've written before about "What the Brady Campaign really wants."  The above is how I believe they intend to get there, and I fear that the Supreme Court's Heller decision will prove to be a rather small speed bump in their road, at best.

Here is his other great read:

What the Brady Campaign really wants
http://www.examiner.com/x-2581-St-Louis-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m5d1-What-the-Brady-Campaign-really-wants