Banning guns doesn’t make places safer
Re: “Anti-gun legislation stance shallow right-wing talking points” (online letters, May 11)
People who live in talking-point glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
One does not have to be right wing to be pro-gun. His own counter to the “talking points” is uncritically and unironically parroting inaccurate Liberal Party/anti-gun lobby talking points word-for-word.
Most gun crimes in the United States happen in cities where they have strict gun control laws, including over handguns. Justin Trudeau stated he wanted to give municipalities the power to ban handguns, because Toronto Mayor John Tory is seeking to emulate places like Washington, DC, which, during many years of their handgun ban, the murder rate was the highest in the U.S. Other large cities in the U.S. that banned or heavily restricted gun possession also did not lower their murder or gun crime rates by doing so. Why should we follow in their footsteps, then?
Before anyone comes in here saying, “Well, they got their guns from somewhere else with less restrictions!”, the point is that criminals can always get guns, even if they have to smuggle or make them themselves, thus the restrictions do not automatically make people safer. The Bataclan Theatre attack in 2015 in France was committed with fully automatic AK-47 true military rifles, despite those guns being illegal to buy or own in France. Chicago once had stickers to give to homeowners to plaster on their windows stating “this is a gun-free home.” Guess which homes kept getting broken into? Needless to say, that sticker campaign didn’t last.
Despite popular belief, handguns are not useless for hunting. Rifles are better, but hunting with a handgun is done successfully in the U.S. Semi-automatic weapons are one trigger pull, one bullet. They are not full auto which is one trigger pull, many bullets. Did the letter-writer confuse the point? These guns are not deadlier than a “hunting rifle”; they only look scary to some people. Also, I’d love to know how one of the now-banned weapons “designed to kill a lot of people all at once” can do so with a five-round clip that has been mandated for many years.
April J. Gibson
Duncan
