By Defender O’Freedom
Below is a recent headline from the Wilmington News Journal (December 14, 2020):
At least 17 people shot in 5 days in Delaware
According to the story:
“More people have been shot in Delaware in the past five days than in any five-day stretch since at least 2017, the earliest year in Delaware Online/The News Journal’s statewide shooting database. Of the 17 people shot in the past five days, six have died.”
Further, it goes on to report:
“More people have been shot in Delaware in 2020 than in any year since Delaware Online/The News Journal began tracking shootings statewide in 2017. This year, 238 people have been injured and 65 have been killed by gunfire in Delaware.”
This level of gun violence is, unfortunately, not an exception. In major city after major city – Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia and others – crimes committed using firearms are increasing at alarming levels. The answer, according to many of the progressive elected officials, is more gun control – increased requirements for background checks, permits to purchase, background checks for ammunition purchases, limitations on number of gun purchases per month, restrictions on magazine capacity, and outright bans on whole classes of commonly-owned and constitutionally-protected firearms.
Unfortunately, none of these proposals will have any positive effect in reducing the levels of gun violence currently plaguing our communities. Why not? The answer is simple – none of these measures will affect anyone intent on committing a crime with a gun. Criminals do not go through background checks to obtain the tools of their trade. Criminals could care less what guns are “legal.” Criminals will ignore any and all of these so-called “common-sense restrictions.” Take Chicago, for example. That city already has some of the strictest restrictions on firearms purchase and ownership in the entire country, and yet, they also are a perennial leader in shootings and gun-related homicides. Isn’t it ironic that the highest levels of gun violence are in jurisdictions which already have the tightest restriction on firearms and that those jurisdictions with “the most liberal gun laws”
typically have far lower levels of gun violence?
It is a matter of cause and effect, but the cause of more crime is not more guns – at least not in the hands of law-abiding citizens. In fact, competent statistical analysis shows just the opposite – more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens equals less crime. If you want the details, I suggest that you check out two books by noted economist and researcher John Lott, Jr., More Guns, Less Crime and Gun Control Myths.
So, if more guns is not the cause, what is?
The answer, at least in part, may be found in another article which appeared that same day in the News Journal:
Wilmington teens arrested after chase
Several shots fired during pursuit
This story references one of the shooting incidents mentioned in the first story. In this case, Pennsylvania State police identified a car traveling on I-95 as potentially being one reported stolen in a car-jacking incident in Delaware several days earlier. They attempted to pull the vehicle over, but the driver attempted to escape, resulting in a high-speed pursuit which continued back over the PA-DE state line. In Delaware, two pursing patrol cars attempted to force the suspect vehicle over, but the driver, apparently with intent, deliberately drove into the side of one of the police cruisers. When troopers opened fire, he tried it again. The chase ended with the suspect car crashing into a berm and the driver attempting – unsuccessfully – to flee on foot. Turns out that there were four teenagers in the stolen vehicle, including the 17-year-old driver, a 13-year-old who was found to be in possession of a handgun and ammunition, a second 13-year-old, and a 15-year-old wanted on two capiases.
Note that NONE of the individuals taken into custody was legally allowed to have possession of a handgun. They were found to be in a stolen vehicle. The driver attempted to use a deadly weapon – in this case, the vehicle itself, to ram two PA State Police cars. So, what happned in the aftermath?
The 17-year-old driver of the stolen vehicle was “charged with multiple felonies before being released on $4,000 unsecured bond.” The 13-year-old who was found to be in possession of the handgun was “charged with multiple felonies and was released on $2,000 unsecured bond.” The other 13-year-old taken into custody was not charged and was released. The only person retained in custody was the 15-year old, who “was arraigned on two capiases and committed to the New Castle County Detention center, in lieu of $1,000 secured bond.”
This is a classic example of the “catch and release” policy in effect in Wilmington and many other urban communities being plagued by gun crime. The criminal justice system is doing nothing to deter repeat offenses. In case after case, perpetrators of gun crimes, when they are arrested, are found to be persons already prohibited from the possession of firearms due to prior criminal history. Yet, they were out in society and able to obtain a gun to commit yet another crime. This only serves to highlight that the cause of gun crime is not the gun – it is something much deeper in the socio-economic fabric of the communities from which the perpetrators come. More gun control laws which will only affect the law-abiding will do nothing to address the true underlying issues. In the meantime, the offenders are put back on the streets to strike again, while elected officials only want to further infringe on the rights and abilities of potential victims to defend themselves.
It is time to stop the “revolving door” on our criminal justice system, putting dangerous felons back on the streets with a slap on the wrist. It is time to deter gun crime by giving the perpetrators sentences of sufficient severity to serve as a deterrent to potential future crimes. It is time to stop trying to pass more restrictive gun laws which will only serve to further infringe on what is already the most heavily regulated of all of our Constitutionally-protected basic freedoms – the right to keep and bear arms!
Instead, it should be time to identify and resolve the true root causes of the gun violence epidemic, including things like lack of economic opportunities, a failing public educational system, and breakdown of the stable family unit, just to mention a few.
It is time for each and every one of us to pick up a phone, write a letter or send an email to each and every one of our elected officials and tell them, in no uncertain terms, that we expect them to do their jobs and find real solutions to the real problems – which does not include advancing a fatally-flawed, rights-infringing, gun control agenda!!