Barry aims for gun-ban hiatus

The nation's capitol has had a gun ban for thirty years. During that time the crime and murder rate have become an embarrassment. The former mayor and current member of the city council, Marion Barry is as clueless about what to do about the violence now as he was as mayor. He has introduced a bill to give the citizens ninety days to register the handguns they now own illegally and then the ban will go back into effect, or non effect if you will. The penalties for owning an unregistered gun will go up dramatically. To Councilman Barry's credit, he is not the only clueless member of the council. In fact he has many co-sponsors. The great tragedy however is the members who both support and oppose the bill do so for reasons as clueless as the bill itself.

The failures of this bill are many. Philosophically, why would those who register their guns now be given a right that future citizens could not enjoy? The crime statistics imply that the criminals are not in fear of being disarmed so how would this law change that? Most critical however, is the very real possibility that when it is discovered that the law would have no effect on crime, the city council could just take the list of those with registered guns and have the police confiscate them by passing a new law giving the city the power to do so. Then those who risked the current ban to protect themselves will have lost even that protection after having come back into compliance through this amnesty bill. Remarkably none of the council members who object to this bill raise any of these concerns.

"The intent is right, to deal with gun violence," Mr. Mendelson said. "The amnesty thing, I think, goes against the need to reduce the number of guns in our city." He said the bill would likely be considered during the course of a larger hearing on gun violence.

Gee, I thought the problem was criminals not guns, but that's just me.

One has to wonder how citizens who have no criminal record holding permits for registered guns are contributing to the problem. Never does the concept that these people are armed because the city cannot or will not protect them. The grim reality is the police of any jurisdiction can only apprehend a criminal after he has committed a crime. They have little if any ability to prevent crime. That leaves the individual to defend himself. Hard to do when the city takes the tools necessary for the job out of the citizen's hands.

When thirty years of something does not bring about the desired results, more of the same will most likely deliver more disappointment. A lesson that politicians at all levels of government seem never to learn..

Seen at the ninth edition of the Second Amendment Carnival




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