EDITOR’S NOTE: This is one of a series of articles on gun rights. Each addresses a common anti-gun trope.

“There’s no reason for anyone but police and the army to have guns!”

It must be nice to live in a world where only the Good Guys have guns, and only the government decides who are the Good Guys. That world, one we can dub Fantasyland, is among the biggest disconnects from reality that anti-gunners exhibit.

Lets start with the dissonance exhibited herein. Very often, the folks who want the populace disarmed are the folks who distrust police and start from a presumption of guilt whenever a cop shoots a minority. Why would they only want the police to have guns if they think the police are untrustworthy? Do they somehow think that cops will become better behaved and more civically minded if they were the only ones armed?

Next, lets consider a basic reality of the law: Police have no obligation to protect you. It’s their job, but if they fail at it, you can’t sue them for that failure. Furthermore, there’s an old gun-rights adage, expressed by Clint Smith:

When seconds count, the cops are just minutes away.

The police have a difficult and demanding job, and they cannot be in all places at all times. The latter is a simple fact, not a knock on officers’ abilities or commitment to their job. Your personal safety is amplified, not guaranteed, by police, and it is within your rights as an individual to take steps to improve that safety. Being aware of your surroundings when walking in public, not carrying your wallet or purse in a manner that invites robbery or theft, locking your house doors, and other behaviors are all part of improving your personal safety. Carrying a gun is as well. Not everyone wants to, but debarring everyone from doing so harms us.

Now, consider that the core purpose of the Second Amendment was as a defense against government. Consider, also, that the worst cases of mass murder perpetrated by governments against their citizens were preceded by gun confiscation (discussed in Gun Rights Lesson #132, and the argument for a disarmed populace living under an armed government evaporates.

Finally, lets laugh at the idea that prohibition can actually prevent bad guys from getting guns. Just look at the effectiveness of drug prohibition. Literal tons of drugs are smuggled into the US every day, and drugs are consumable. Guns, on the other hand, are durable, and only a fool would think that a blanket prohibition would keep bad guys from getting guns.

Nevertheless, this silly argument still comes out of the mouths of the naive and the ignorant. As it has for some time. Proving that everything old is new again, consider this excerpt from an H. L. Mencken op ed about a proposed gun ban written 90 years ago:

The new law that it advocated, indeed, is one of the most absurd specimens of jackass legislation ever heard of, even in this paradise of legislative donkeyism. Its single and sole effect would be to exaggerate enormously all of the evils it proposes to put down. It would not take pistols out of the hands of rogues and fools; it would simply take them out of the hands of honest men. The gunman today has great advantages everywhere. He has artillery in his pocket, and he may assume that, in the large cities, at least two-thirds of his prospective victims are unarmed. But if the Nation’s proposed law (or amendment) were passed and enforced, he could assume safely that all of them were unarmed.

Here I do not indulge in theory. The hard facts are publicly on display in New York State, where a law of exactly the same tenor is already on the books—the so-called Sullivan Law. In order to get it there, of course, the Second Amendment had to be severely strained, but the uplifters advocated the straining unanimously, and to the tune of loud hosannas, and the courts, as usual, were willing to sign on the dotted line. It is now a dreadful felony in New York to “have or possess” a pistol. Even if one keeps it locked in a bureau drawer at home, one may be sent to the hoosegow for ten years.

Find me a man so vast an imbecile that he seriously believes that this prohibition would work.

Gun rights lesson #513: The police cannot be everywhere at all times. The police are not perfect. The police are not obligated to protect you. Your safety is as much your responsibility as it is theirs.

• About the Author

About Peter Venetoklis

I am twice-retired, a former rocket engineer and a former small business owner. At the very least, it makes for interesting party conversation. I'm also a life-long libertarian, I engage in an expanse of entertainments, and I squabble for sport.

Nowadays, I spend a good bit of my time arguing politics and editing this website.

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