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Why the People in Favor of Gun Control are the Reason that it Could Never Work Here in America

Let’s pretend for a moment, that the anti-gun crowd finally wins the gun control debate, and all law abiding citizens voluntarily surrender all of their firearms. What would happen then? Almost everyone reading this is sharp enough to predict that the criminals would have a field day. Most of us have heard and used this phrase before, “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.”

OK, so most of us are in agreement here that simply passing a law to make gun ownership illegal would not be enough to eliminate gun crime and violence, so let me set up the scenario again.

Let’s imagine that we made gun ownership illegal in the U.S., all the law abiding citizens turned in all of their guns, and we were now facing the problem of armed criminals running around with nothing but a woefully outnumbered police force to stop them. What then?

Obviously, we would have to enact extremely strict laws to address gun crime and possession. We would also have to be consistently willing to hand out swift and harsh punishment to anyone and everyone who broke such laws, like they do in Singapore.

source: The Strait Times Asia Report

SPECIAL FEATURE ON GUN LAWS

In Singapore: Stiff penalties for unlawful possession

The recent series of public shootings in Malaysia has raised questions about access to firearms. ST's regional bureaus take a closer look at gun laws in the region, and the laws in place to restrict them.

GUN control laws in Singapore are among the strictest in the world.

The two main statutes governing firearms are the Arms Offences Act and the Arms and Explosives Act.

They spell out tough penalties for both illegal possession and unlawful use of guns.

For instance, anyone caught unlawfully possessing a gun or ammunition can be jailed for between five and 10 years, and given at least six strokes of the cane, according to the Arms Offences Act.

Anyone caught using an illegal firearm faces the death penalty. Arms traffickers also face the death penalty, or they can be jailed for life and given at least six strokes of the cane.

A licence is required for legal gun ownership in Singapore, for which the applicant must fulfil a series of strict requirements.

Some of these requirements include a genuine reason for possessing a gun, and the ability to prove that there is a "serious threat to his life and no other way of overcoming/removing the threat".

Applicants must pass stringent background checks that would look into their criminal, medical and mental health records. They are also required to pass a shooting proficiency test.

As a result of the tough laws and regulations, private gun ownership in Singapore is among the lowest in the world.

According to a 2007 study by Small Arms Survey, an independent research outfit in Geneva, the rate of private gun ownership in Singapore is about one gun per 200 people.

This is compared with 88.8 privately held guns per 100 people in the United States, which topped the list of 178 countries that were surveyed.

Gun violence and crime is virtually nonexistent in Singapore, but it is not simply because they made legal gun ownership almost impossible. They have strict laws against gun crimes that carry lengthy sentences and brutal punishment. This is the only successful formula which a nation can use, to control gun violence and crime through use of the police and judicial system alone.

Here is where the American liberals’ strategy to end gun violence falls apart. We all know that they are typically soft on crime and the punishment of convicted criminals, but that undermines the formula of successfully eradicating gun crime through legislation.

Liberals have no problem with step one of the formula - Take guns away from law abiding citizens, but they get all squishy with step two - Harshly punish convicted criminals, and in all reality, step two of the formula is much more effective in reducing gun violence than step one.

Law abiding citizens that are in favor of protecting our second amendment rights have no problem with step two, so I ask you: Which group of people is really in favor of effectively controlling gun violence and crime here in America?

2 comments:

Thank you. I bet that you already thoroughly understood this before you read it. So now the question is: Why would liberals be in favor of gun control, when they are not willing to do what it takes to follow up on it. I bet that you (and most other people reading this) already know the answer to that too, but I might write a post answering that question anyway.