Upon hearing about the events in Las Vegas, I, like everyone else, was shocked and distraught. What happened was a horrible event beyond basic human comprehension. Additionally, Stephen Paddock, the gunman who took his own life, is an abhorrent human being who deserved death. Despite my anger, I applaud those who willingly donated blood and started campaigns to help the victims of this attack.
Now, in an ideal society, we would all come together to voluntarily help those who have suffered and fight the very cause of these events. Unfortunately, in our society we have to deal with those who have offered intellectually vapid takes regarding this sensitive event. But the worst take to these events that still prevail are the calls for gun control. The reality is that no law, no background check, and no form of control will stop these mass shootings. Real solutions will be found if Americans became more level-headed and pointed their anger away from guns because frankly, gun control remains an irrational and illogical response to mass shootings.
The Las Vegas shooting in particular proved that background checks are inherently worthless. Such checks do not check for criminals since criminals attain weapons from the black market and not gun stores. But what is startling is that background checks didn’t even stop Stephen Paddock. The same background checks that leftists praise were utilized when Paddock sought to buy his weapons. Furthermore, Paddock was seen as mentally capable of buying a gun, thus proving the worthlessness of the mental health regulation. Overall, the policies leftists promulgate were in place when Paddock was buying guns, but the Las Vegas mass shooting was not stopped.
Leftists also repeatedly make the argument that no one should ever own the amount of guns Paddock did. This argument proves itself logically useless because politicians have no right to tell Americans what they do and do not need, and in what quantities. Even if the argument was legitimate, then alcohol could be prohibited. If anything, alcohol poisoning is a big killer and drunkenness results in countless drunk driving accidents. Once the argument is applied to other products, leftists find themselves in a position that they are unlikely to stand by. The argument of necessity is fallacious and inapplicable to nearly everything.
While debating gun control, one must be cognizant of the reasons why mass shooters commit the crimes they commit. Leftists often cite gun crime statistics as a justification for gun control, while ignoring basic human nature. In reality, human beings do not murder because guns exist. If you were to investigate the reasons why gun violence occurs, you would find specific reasons such as gang affiliation, radical ideologies, or racism. You would be hard-pressed to find any evidence or data that supports the notion that people murder because of the mere existence of firearms.
Lastly, it must be argued that gun control policies have not halted the terror attacks in Europe. As stated in the previous paragraph, the existence of a firearm is not a reason for murder. That said, it is easy to see why Islamic extremists continue to attack with different weapons such as knives or trucks. Evidently, gun control has not protected European citizens. Though some may point to Australia’s buy-back program as the proper model for gun control, it still raises a few points that need to be made. One is that it would be rather naive to believe that criminals would even abide by a law dictating that guns must be returned. Even outside of criminals, would proud gun owners abide by such a policy? In addition, one must be aware of the different problems present in Australia and the USA. In the USA, we have gang violence that is present in Chicago as well as race relations that are reaching toxic levels. But most importantly, the USA has adopted outlandish foreign policies that have created hostility towards itself in the Middle East. The aforementioned problems are not present in Australia.
Overall, there will be no mass shooting that will make gun control logical or rational. I propose that instead of vilifying law-abiding gun owners and trying to attain moral high-ground for gun control, we should actually find root causes of mass shootings and find solutions to stop those causes. In other words, Chicago’s gun violence can be stopped with stricter law enforcement and terrorist attacks can be stopped with tightened national security measures. In general, mass shootings can be stopped without infringing on the right to personal property and the 2nd Amendment.
(via: Liberty Conservative)
