Not gun grabbers. Gun monopolists.

Not long ago, the following pronouncement from Hillary Clinton upset me enough that in desperation I turned to Ayn Rand:

"Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police, of soldiers, and civilians."
Ugh! (That is the Secretary of State, talking, after all....)

In a great PJM piece today, Bob Owens takes a critical look at this utterance:

Sadly, media already sympathetic toward gun control take such claims at face value, even when the evidence proves that the most dangerous weapons used by cartels in Mexico come from sources outside of the civilian U.S. gun market. Yes, there are small arms and ammunition being smuggled illegally into Mexico by cartels battling the authorities and each other for supremacy. Yes, many of those firearms presently come from the United States, but they are brought in by cartels that specialize in international smuggling.
What Owens proposes is to allow Mexicans to own guns in self defense, along the Iraqi model:
Mexico should look to the more successful gun policies of a nation that overcame a far more brutal reign of gunmen. That nation is Iraq.

Iraqi culture has always been a gun culture, even during Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. Even after the coalition invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, Iraqi families were allowed to keep firearms and a limited supply of ammunition for home defense. These included not just aging British colonial-era rifles, but modern firearms like AK-47 assault rifles and Glock pistols.

I think that's a brilliant idea, and totally in keeping with human rights and individual dignity. (Probably why it will never be implemented.)

People forget that many of those we call "gun grabbers" are not stereotypical anti-gun pacifists trying to achieve a John Lennon "Imagine" society where guns magically disappear. Many of them are gun monopolists, who think gun ownership should be the exclusive province of the government and government-favored elites. Plenty of "gun grabbers" either carry guns, or are surrounded by people who do. But if you're not a member of their club, you have no right to your guns. The idea of ordinary people being able to defend themselves fills them with terror. Self sufficient people are not as easily frightened, and this makes their rulers feel irrelevant. Hence they want a gun monopoly for themselves. Makes a lot of sense.

It wouldn't surprise me if the guys who run the Mexican drug cartel feel pretty much the same way about keeping ordinary people disarmed and disempowered.

Elites tend to think alike.

posted by Eric on 04.03.09 at 09:26 AM





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Comments

You are entirely correct about "gun grabbers" versus "gun monopolists." I reside near Chicago, what we now call "Obama Country" I suppose, and Chicago Mayor Daley is a very vocal advocate of gun control. Daley perfectly exemplifies a gun-monopolist mentality, because he does not trust everyday citizens to be armed in defense of themselves and their families within his city (or indeed the state), but he is at all times surrounded by a sizeable, heavily-armed security detail.

Pete   ·  April 4, 2009 01:28 AM

Perhaps if the authorities tried to control criminal activity instead of guns it would help.
Guns alone are not a problem.

Hugh   ·  April 4, 2009 10:18 AM

The rise of de-centralized manufacturing in the this century has rendered gun control obsolete.

Universal Assemblers


Home made submachine gun (using ordinary home tools)

Robert   ·  April 5, 2009 09:44 AM

I don't know how to prove this, but it is my belief the arms going into Mexico from the US are being purchased by the civilians who are trying to arm themselves against the drug cartels and other "professionals" whom they fear.

Oh, bother   ·  April 10, 2009 03:31 PM

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