To Michael Nevin: My Thoughts on Gun ControlFriday, October 14, 2005
Dear Mr. Nevin,
Bearing in mind that laws, in general, are directed against the law-abiding, I'm taking the liberty of repeating a letter I wrote to ChronWatch regarding the vexing question of gun control.
A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The vexing question of Gun Control has again become subject of debate. I know that comparisons are odious, but this is as good a time as any to compare the Swiss Confederation with the City of Oakland in California. Switzerland has all the potential of a nasty little Bosnia. It is inhabited by two mutually antagonistic races, the Latin and the Teutonic. Further, it is linguistically divided into three mutually antagonistic nationalities, the German, and French & the Italians, and the German & French-speaking parts are religiously divided into two mutually antagonistic Christian denominations, the Roman Catholic and the Calvinists, and to top it all off, every male between the ages of 20 through 50 after having finished his mandatory military services must keep an assault rifle with 20 rounds of live ammunition at home and be prepared to arm himself and report to his assigned position at a few hours noticeĀa minuteman in fact.
Bearing this in mind it is reasonably to assume that Switzerland, a nation of about 7 million is awash in blood, but in the year 2003, there were less than 40 murders committed there while in the City of Oakland, California with a population of less than 400,000 the butcher's bill was 114.
Why the difference? Could it be that Switzerland is a bourgeois democracy (dreadful words, so debased by Marxian venom that I scarcely dare use it) with its concomitant values of sobriety, thrift, obedience to the rules they themselves have voted into law, and above all the fact that they are the government, while in Oakland, governed by Utopian Marxists (no, I will not call them liberals) with former governor Jerry ''Moonbeam'' Brown at its helm and with all its gun controls the results of which are that there are 'hoods where guns rule at night.
Of course, there might very well be other more pertinent explanations. If so, I'd like to hear about them.
On a more personal level, I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and our local law enforcements solve less then 25% of all murder cases (how many of these result in a conviction is another matter) and in the cases of break-ins, they don't even pretend do investigate them.
Which brings me to another point. We all are familiar with the Wild West and its gun-totting inhabitants. The cowboys and the miners didn't pack irons because it was a macho thing to do; they did so because the law simply was not strong enough to protect them. However, since the 1890s an unspoken agreement was reached. The populace-at-large would disarm and the authorities would protect them. This accord began unraveling since the 1970s, and it seems to me, at any rate, that we might have to protect ourselves again. As the old adage has it: ''I'd rather be judged by twelve than be carried by six.''
Regards,
David Litvak
http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=17314.
