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With the South Carolina incident we are again being treated to innumerable impassioned pleas that only more draconian gun control laws will prevent these shootings. It would be nice to hear impassioned, resolute statements about how popular gun control laws restrain ordinary citizens and leave criminals and psychopaths free to murder at their leisure.

President Obama even made the false comparison of our level of violence with that of other first world countries. However, a Harvard University study later discussed here proves violence is independent of or inversely related to the presence of firearms in the general population.

Once again an individual had to violate several existing laws to achieve his murderous objective. Once again I am reminded of one of my favorite sound bites which says, “Never enter a gun free zone unarmed”.

What follows it the last essay I wrote on the subject, with the links probably more valuable than the words. I only wish the Republicans could follow the links and find similar words.

Futile Gun Control Initiatives

The anniversary of Newtown resurrects only futile gun control proposals as later confirmed with the September Washington Navy Shipyard shootings.

The children and staff at Newtown enjoyed all the protections afforded by a gun free zone, including evacuating, communicating, notifying, coordinating, and counseling. The principal even confronted Adam Lanza, but he failed to submit before rules prohibiting firearms on campus.

Later I read a World Magazine article listing the supposed worst mass shootings in the United States since 1999. This article chronicled 25 instances with 220 dead, 242 injured, and 17 predator suicides. The shootings occurred at schools, churches, retail malls, and businesses, and in 19 to 24 cases at locations that would have prohibited firearms. In every case the police arrived for body counts and paperwork. In every case no one except the assailant had a gun.

The most recent World citation involved Adam Lanza who stole his mother’s guns (which was against the law), and then killed her with them (which was against the law). Next he transported these loaded guns onto school property and inside the building (which was against the law). He discharged the weapons within the city limits (which was against the law), and murdered 26 people (which was against the law). Finally, Mr. Lanza committed suicide (which was against the law).

In reaction President Obama, Dianne Feinstein, Chuck Schumer et al. proposed severe gun-control provisions including an “assault weapons” ban, a limit on magazine size, and a requirement for background checks for all private sales. Not only did their initiatives fail legislatively, but would have proved useless concerning the next notorious mass shooting by Aaron Alexis at the Washington Navy Yard in September. Following Joe Biden’s advice, he bought a shotgun from a reputable, licensed dealer and passed a federal background check.

The presence or absence of guns among the general population and violent incidents has been researched in many ways. Following are a few of the more rigorous studies.

U.S. Justice Dept research estimates that over a third to just less than one half of Americans adults own guns and half of those consider personal protection a significant inducement. The research inferred that annually well over 1,000,000 people find the presence or use of firearms necessary to defend themselves.

Harvard Law School completed a study discovering that within the U.S. and across European countries, violent criminality and suicide were unrelated and often inversely related to gun ownership. Instead basic social, economic, and cultural factors determined human actions.

The Center for Disease Control, which habitually considers guns comparable to viruses or bacilli, conducted a review of 50 studies. It found no positive benefit from laws concerning bans, restrictions, waiting periods, registration, licensing, or concealed carry.

The Clinton Administration commissioned a National Science Foundation (NSF) study that could not find a positive correlation between gun control laws and other measures after consulting 400 sources and doing its own research. The only dissent was detailed in Appendix A saying John Lott’s conclusion from his studies that concealed carry laws do drive down murder rates had in fact survived all attempts at reanalysis.

Here the dissenter referred to a twenty-year study by John Lott and William Landes from the University of Chicago Law School. That and subsequent Lott studies the NSF reviewed correlated passage of concealed carry laws with large decreases in multiple victim shootings, and reduced harm from shootings when they did occur. The use of citizen deadly force made startling interruptions causing assailants to abandon or improvise, and allowing police to respond to incidences in progress, instead of arriving for body counts and paperwork.

Also important were the absence of shootings. Public place shootings provide perpetrators leading roles in malevolent fantasies. Previously imagined screams and explosions suddenly penetrate their beings, embellished by intimate, self-created visual stimuli of human terror, bloody mists, broken bodies, culminating in splendid, convulsive suicides at their chosen moment. The latent presence of armed citizens provides a deterrent disqualifying certain places, leading prospective murderers to abandon their fantasies, or to seek the supportive environment of a “gun free” zone.

In contrast those touting the value of “gun free zones” site disturbing protocols for evacuating, witnessing, communicating, containing, coordinating, notifying, and counseling. They conspicuously avoid understanding minimum police response times provide murderers five to ten minutes for uninterrupted violence.

Evidently psychopaths and criminals in general follow a pattern of lawlessness and gun control legislation has no effect. However, numerous editorials, Feinstein’s bill, and supporters thereof demonstrate that recent events preclude consideration of information developed at more pacific times. We have seen countless initiatives, and state and Congressional committees adopting as props the pervasive audios and visuals of distraught parents juxtaposed with idyllic photos of the massacred children at Newtown. Over this tragedy hovers ongoing Hollywood style theatrics presenting frightened children beneath the sinister specter of black rifles. The passionate, contra-factual, asymmetrical marketing of the Sandy Hook Elementary and other events provides the emotional cover necessary for driving deferred agendas that are unrelated to enhancing safety or curbing criminality.

Of course this debate would probably never begin with the precondition that any solutions must first protect Constitutional guarantees. In recent history such concerns did not seem paramount for Congressional debates from The Patriot Act and The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act through The National Defense Authorization Act of 2011. Opponents saw these pieces of legislation doing irreparable harm to Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, Posse Comitatus, speech and religious freedoms, and Ninth Amendment freedoms guaranteed, but not enumerated by our Constitution.

If protecting Constitutional guarantees regarding firearms in common usage was paramount, very likely only the most promising and durable proposals regarding guns could survive. A focus on personal freedom would likely lead to a focus on predators and criminals, and not revive the failed strategies previously implemented.

A Town Clothed in Misery
http://www.worldmag.com/2012/12/a_town_clothed_in_misery/page3

Washington Navy Yard Shooting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Navy_Yard_shooting

Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/165476.pdf

Harvard Law School Gun Study
http://illinoiscarry.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=6297
Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide?
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pd

Center for Disease Control
First Reports Evaluating the Effectiveness of Strategies for Preventing Violence: Firearms Laws
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5214a2.htm

National Science Foundation: Firearms and Violence, A Critical Review
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309091241

Study by John Lott and William Landes from the University of Chicago Law School
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=272929

Patriot Act of 2001
http://epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html

USA Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c109:6:./temp/~c109jbWSuV::

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c111:7:./temp/~c111j3sqUu::

National Defense Authorization Act of 2011
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c112:7:./temp/~c112gIPx5x::

Blacks and Gun Control
http://www.youtube.com/embed/9RABZq5IoaQ?feature=player_embedded

Pro-2A speaker at New Jersey hearing hits home run!
http://thegunwire.com/blog/video-pro-2a-speaker-at-new-jersey-hearing-hits-home-run/

Mass Shootings: America’s Psychosis
http://www.nationalreview.com/node/358981/print

‘Loner’ Held in Charleston Church Killings
http://www.wsj.com/articles/charleston-church-shooting-suspect-dylann-roof-in-police-custody-1434642237?mod=trending_now_2

NRA Official: Slain Charleston Churchgoers ‘Might Be Alive’ If Pastor Had Supported Guns In Church
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/19/guns-church-charleston_n_7621988.html
The Huffington Post article sites a Mother Jones investigation that states none of the 62 mass killings over 30 years were stopped by a civilian with a gun. Well, that is because only the assailant had a gun in most cases. Lott’s point in his mathematically rigorous study is that passage of concealed carry laws correlate with large decreases in multiple victim shootings, and reduced harm from shootings when they do occur.