“The change is in the behavior of people, not the presence of guns.”
By Paul Craig Roberts (pictured)
The tragic murders of Virginia Tech students, apparently by an insane person, will prompt new attempts to ban private ownership of guns. Once guns are banned, crime will explode. Households and vulnerable members of society will lose the ability to defend, which will invite more intrusions and attacks. Knife crimes will rise as they have in Great Britain.
Gun prohibition will create a new industry for criminals—gun running and black market sales. Police will conduct stings by posing as black market gun dealers and entrap innocent citizens driven by fear and threat to secure means of personal protection.
A large industry of family businesses dedicated to meeting the needs of shooters, who would never shoot at anything but a paper or clay target, will be wiped out. Gun clubs will close their doors. Collectors of valuable Winchesters and Colts, beautiful pieces of Americana, will have to give them up or be at risk of prison sentences.Gun banners might be surprised at the number of Americans who provide parts and repairs for firearms that have been out of production for 70 or 80 years. Other businesses provide components from which dedicated hobbyists fashion ammunition that is no longer commercially produced.
Marksmanship is an Olympic sport. A large number of marksmanship events are hosted all over the country, with the national championships at Camp Perry being the best known. I have been a member of gun clubs for decades, and no member has ever shot anyone, accidentally or intentionally. For an older person, marksmanship is one of the few outdoor convivial pursuits, and the challenge of mind- eye-hand coordination and windage calculation is rewarding.
Guns have been around for a long time, but these crazy shootings are a new development that point to a failure of culture to produce people with a sense of responsibility and self-control. When I was a kid, a youngster could walk into a local hardware store and buy a gun. There were no restrictions. If a kid was so young that he couldn’t see over the counter, the store owner might call a parent for approval. We all had guns, and we never shot ourselves or anyone else.
http://vdare.com/roberts/070416_ban.htm