Gun Bans Don't Work, and Marion Barry is Living Proof, Says CCRKBA

usnewswire.com ^ | 01-05-2005 | usnewswire.com

[Coral Snake]

Gun Bans Don't Work, and Marion Barry is Living Proof, Says CCRKBA

1/3/2006 3:37:00 PM

To: National Desk

Contact: Alan Gottlieb of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, 425-454-4911

BELLEVUE, Wash., Jan. 3 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The armed robbery Monday of Washington, D.C. Councilman and former Mayor Marion Barry should not have happened to him, nor should any citizen in the District face such a crime, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) said today.

"Unfortunately," said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, "Barry and his anti-gun colleagues on the city council have steadfastly opposed repeal of the gun ban in the District. It is mind boggling that in the capital of the Free World, where the original Constitution of the United States resides, that the citizens of that city may not exercise their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

"This may not mean much to Mr. Barry," Gottlieb observed, "because his crack cocaine conviction in 1991 disqualifies him from legally owning a firearm. But it would mean a great deal to law-abiding citizens without criminal records who desperately need the means to defend themselves against criminals who currently enjoy a risk-free working environment."

According to the Associated Press, Barry was robbed at gunpoint by some youths who had helped him carry his groceries to his apartment. They took his wallet containing cash and credit cards.

"What happened to Marion Barry is a symptom of a larger problem," Gottlieb said. "Over the years, since passage of the notorious handgun ban, there have been anecdotal incidents of VIPs being mugged and hard evidence that disarming law-abiding citizens has done nothing to stop armed criminals from committing violent crimes. Barry, of course, could easily discuss this phenomenon, since he is walking proof that laws against smoking crack cocaine don't stop people from doing that, either."

"It's time," Gottlieb continued, "to tell anti-gun city leaders like Barry that 'we've tried it your way, and it was a disaster; now let's try it a different way.' It is time for citizens in Washington, D.C. to once again be secure in their homes and businesses, and the only way to accomplish that is to make it possible for them to fight back."

"If the gun ban had worked," he said, "Marion Barry would still have his wallet."

---

With more than 650,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (http://www.ccrkba.org) is one of the nation's premier gun rights organizations. As a non-profit organization, the Citizens Committee is dedicated to preserving firearms freedoms through active lobbying of elected officials and facilitating grass-roots organization of gun rights activists in local communities throughout the United States.

http://www.usnewswire.com/

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/© 2006 U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/

[SteveMcKing]

There's plenty more "dead proof" that it doesn't work.

[Racehorse]

It is time for citizens in Washington, D.C. to once again be secure in their homes and businesses, and the only way to accomplish that is to make it possible for them to fight back."

"If the gun ban had worked," he said, "Marion Barry would still have his wallet."

Baloney and salami.

I fall on the side of CCRKBA.  I'm against banning most gun ownership.  (Nobody wants a felon to own a weapon, for instance.)

But . . .

Owning a gun does not make anybody secure in their homes or businesses . . . automatically.

Every time you answer a knock at the door, do you open your door with firearm in hand?  Do you take a peek, decide you don't like the looks of your visitor, then run off to find your gun?

If you've got small kids and have your weapon(s) locked up to keep them out of reach, can you get to it in time to fight off an intruder?

Barry could well have had a weapon and still lost his wallet and his life.

[ncountylee]

Every time you answer a knock at the door, do you open your door with firearm in hand?

Of course not, the gun is on the hook on my side of the door.

[Racehorse]

Then . . . I say . . . man . . . your home is secure! :-)

[quantim]

Marion Barry

Marion Barry, proof that evolution isn't perfect. In a more primitive world he'd be recycled by now back into the planet without even a prayer.

[supercat]

Owning a gun does not make anybody secure in their homes or businesses . . . automatically.

An individual's ownership does not. But aggregate ownership does, even for non-owners.

There are three ways a firearm can provide protection. In reverse order of desirability:

1. Crook decides to attack you, you shoot him, and the bullet wound renders ineffectual any further attack by the crook.
2. Crook decides to attack you, you draw your gun, and crook realizes he has an urgent appointment elsewhere.
3. Crook thinks about committing robbery, realizes many of his intended targets might have the audacity to shoot him, and decides to take up knitting instead.

Even if a crook believes--correctly--that he'd probably "win" if he engaged his target in battle, that's hardly a good reason for him to try it. Even 10:1 odds aren't favorable if one has little to gain and everything to lose. Concealed-carry laws don't have to shift all the odds into the citizen's favor to be worthwhile; it's quite sufficient for them to shift the odds against the crook enough to make crime unacceptably dangerous.

[chae]

The point is, how do you know that I don't? Odds are that if I live in D.C., I'm probably unarmed. In a state with a law allowing concealed carry, do you really want to gamble with your life?

[B4Ranch]

"Every time you answer a knock at the door, do you open your door with firearm in hand? Do you take a peek, decide you don't like the looks of your visitor, then run off to find your gun?"

You know those hard woven baskets that look like a D? Hang one on your door and put a small handgun inside it with some plastic flowers. Looks like something a woman would do and keeps her safe because the man of the house keeps his toy in there too. No running around frantic wondering where the gun is, it's right there at the door where it should be.

[TYVets]

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms..disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.

Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants;

they serve rather to encourage than prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed one."

- Thomas Jefferson,,,,,, 1764.

[tiger-one]

You ask, "Every time you answer a knock at the door, do you open your door with firearm in hand?"

I carry in the open, when in the house, and outside on our property, except when the grand children are here.

[El Gato]

Nobody wants a felon to own a weapon, for instance.)

Do you know how recent the ban on convicted felons owning firearms is, at least at the federal level. 1938's Federal Firearms Act. Prior to that, if you were OK to let out on the street, you could have the tools to defend yourself. Sounds like a good idea to me. It's at least consistent with the second amendment, which makes no exception for convicted felons who have "paid their debt" as it would have been put at the time. I can't see that the ban has done much good, lo these 68 years.

[Racehorse]

. . . if you were OK to let out on the street, you could have the tools to defend yourself. Sounds like a good idea to me.

Nobody wants a felon to own a weapon, for instance.

After all these years, you'd think I'd know better than to make an absolute declaration about anything.  Common sense, if not common experience, should have kicked in to remind me someone would most likely express a contrary point of view.  :-)

Do you know how recent the ban on convicted felons owning firearms is, at least at the federal level. 1938's Federal Firearms Act . . . It's at least consistent with the second amendment, which makes no exception for convicted felons who have "paid their debt" as it would have been put at the time.

As far as I'm concerned, and as far as the States are concerned, denial of gun ownership is part of paying the debt.  If people believe differently, then the places to change the laws are primarily the Congress and then the State legislatures.  That would certainly test my revised assertion most people do not want felons to own a weapon.

Even should you be correct in claiming that gun ownership by felons is consistent with the Second Amendment, the States could still forbid it.  The Second Amendment only blocks what the Federal government might do.

I can't see that the ban has done much good, lo these 68 years.

And, I would have to ask, compared to what?  Banditry in the Nueces Strip of the 1870s?

That might actually be a good place to start, for arguably along the border there are today more guns in violent use by felons than McNelly ever faced when he and his Rangers cleaned it out.  Nor can a modern McNelly mete out the frontier justice of the 19th Cenury.  (Though a south Texas rancher once showed me a photograph taken during the early 1950s, which he claimed was a rustler strung from a tree while mounted cowboys looked on.)

But a felon caught with a gun in his or her possession is likely headed back to jail.  Since you can't arbitrarily shoot the bad guys or string them up, and you certainly can't stop them from acquiring weapons, we most certainly can find ways to fast-track the felons' return to a cage.  In this respect, I'd say the ban has done more than a little good.

Whether or not the ban should apply to all felons, regardless of the type of crime for which they were convicted, or whether the return of their rights ought to be simplified, is a better, more relevant question, I think.  What threat is someone convicted of fraud or any number of other non-violent felonies?