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Disarm public?

To the Journal editor:

Recently, there have been several opinions in The Mining Journal about recent shootings in schools and around the country. This has brought the usual cry for the government to “do something.”

To a politician, this means gun control or more likely ban something. Politicians and some activist groups assert they would have fixed the problem if not prevented by the evil National Rifle Association.

However, many of us believe that with an excess of 650 million guns in civilian hands, any such law will accomplish nothing. One could not possibly reduce this number to notice a difference.

A more reasonable approach is to concentrate on the much smaller number of individuals that show signs of violence to themselves or others.

This is where we are now but with constant evidence that some of these cases will slip through the cracks. Part of this problem is in some cases law enforcement must wait until the individual under watch actually breaks some law before he (or she) can be incarcerated.

There is a hidden data point which gives room for hope: that being the number of successful interventions that go unreported or undetected. I would assert that this number is actually hundreds of times more that actual shootings.

Something else that would be considered is; who is most likely to comply with gun control and who isn’t. The most likely to comply are law-abiding citizens. Hence the old cliche: “when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns” will become a self full filling prophesy.

What will not happen is a majority of people will turn in their firearms especially in rural areas where self defense is largely their responsibility.

For this reason, I am not particularly concerned about gun control laws, as a majority of gun owners will simply not comply.

At which point, no politicians will risk the blood on their hands that would occur trying to forcibly disarm the public.

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