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By Hugo Gurdon
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Posted: 04/17/07 07:58 PM [ET] |
A few years ago an effective political cartoon depicted customers ducking for cover (who wouldn’t?) during an armed robbery at a bank.
The cartoon invited viewers to consider what thought was likely to be racing through the heads of those people cowering in fear for their lives. The choices were along the lines of A) “There should be more gun control legislation” or B) “I wish I had a gun.” We’d guess most people would go with B.
The cartoon comes to mind following the murder of 32 people at Virginia Tech on Monday, many of whom apparently were lined up, utterly defenseless, and executed. If a law-abiding citizen carrying a handgun had been among them, surely fewer people would now be dead.
But fewer people would also be dead if the killer had not been able to obtain firearms. In countries where private ownership of handguns is illegal, such as the United Kingdom, shooting deaths are rare. But the law there, and any such law, tips the scales in favor of the criminal, setting down by statute that only people willing to break the law will have guns. And the incidence of breaking and entering and burglary is also much higher.
The arguments are familiar enough. The truth is that there are strong points to be made on both sides of this issue and neither is conclusive. Some pressure groups and pundits are using the Virginia Tech murders as ammunition for their cause for or against guns, but the horrible incident actually resolves little or nothing.
The issue comes down, as it always will, to the question of how much members of the public want to delegate their protection to the state. Protecting them is the state’s first and pre-eminent duty, but that does not necessarily mean the state should have a monopoly on the use of force.
The issue does not divide neatly along party lines. As The Hill’s Sam Youngman reported yesterday, there is disquiet among Republicans’ conservative grass roots about the commitment to gun rights, or lack thereof, among their party’s leading presidential candidates. And Democrats, who were once likely to support restrictive gun legislation, have long since backed away from it as both more complex and less popular than might superficially be supposed.
Debate over the extent to which handguns should be in the hands of private citizens will continue, as it should. We hope and suspect, however, that Congress will decline to legislate in haste. To do so would leave everyone else to repent at leisure. |
