http://www.austinchronicle.com/feedback/2013-07-09/1459060/
Gun Control Costs Lives
RECEIVED Tue., July 9, 2013
Dear Editor,
The reader comment from the July 5th issue [Postmarks] accurately points out the absurdity of those who support capital punishment (and oppose access to sex education, birth control, and STD screenings) calling themselves pro-life, but then veers into absurdity itself with "People who vote against gun control time and time again cannot accurately be called pro-life," which is a patently ridiculous argument. Gun control does not save lives; ask the next of kin of the hundreds of people shot to death in Chicago, Ill., and Washington, D.C., every year how effective those cities' openly unconstitutional de facto handgun bans are at saving lives. You can't even get accurate statistics for how many people are shot and injured in those cities; the local governments won't release the numbers because they are so appallingly high they would make it unambiguously obvious that gun control policies are abject failures.
Abortion, gun control, and marijuana legalization are the three hot-button issues where both left and right are exactly as stupid as each other, in exactly the same way. Making abortion illegal (or functionally illegal per current Republican strategy, since they know they don't have public support for an outright ban) doesn't stop abortions from happening, it just stops them happening legally and safely, and anyone who thinks laws banning pot are effective at all is high as a kite. In the exact same way, gun control has no effect whatsoever on denying criminals access to guns; it only makes it illegal and unsafe for the law-abiding to defend themselves, and criminals know that. Gun control costs lives. All three issues are also ways for our corporate-owned government to exercise quiet control over minorities and the poor; if you think gun control isn't about race and class, then you're not paying attention to its real-world application.
Fetishizing guns as some kind of willfully malicious avatars of death and destruction doesn't make the left look any more rational or intelligent than the right.
The reader comment from the July 5th issue [Postmarks] accurately points out the absurdity of those who support capital punishment (and oppose access to sex education, birth control, and STD screenings) calling themselves pro-life, but then veers into absurdity itself with "People who vote against gun control time and time again cannot accurately be called pro-life," which is a patently ridiculous argument. Gun control does not save lives; ask the next of kin of the hundreds of people shot to death in Chicago, Ill., and Washington, D.C., every year how effective those cities' openly unconstitutional de facto handgun bans are at saving lives. You can't even get accurate statistics for how many people are shot and injured in those cities; the local governments won't release the numbers because they are so appallingly high they would make it unambiguously obvious that gun control policies are abject failures.
Abortion, gun control, and marijuana legalization are the three hot-button issues where both left and right are exactly as stupid as each other, in exactly the same way. Making abortion illegal (or functionally illegal per current Republican strategy, since they know they don't have public support for an outright ban) doesn't stop abortions from happening, it just stops them happening legally and safely, and anyone who thinks laws banning pot are effective at all is high as a kite. In the exact same way, gun control has no effect whatsoever on denying criminals access to guns; it only makes it illegal and unsafe for the law-abiding to defend themselves, and criminals know that. Gun control costs lives. All three issues are also ways for our corporate-owned government to exercise quiet control over minorities and the poor; if you think gun control isn't about race and class, then you're not paying attention to its real-world application.
Fetishizing guns as some kind of willfully malicious avatars of death and destruction doesn't make the left look any more rational or intelligent than the right.
Jason Meador
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