Representative John Sarbanes Replies About Gun Controls

Sadly, people who do not believe in the 2nd Amendment are far too common in American society.  Most of them believe in the ubiquitous use of government force to dictate value choices and to micromanage the lives of individuals unknown to them and about whom they do not care even a smidgeon.

The way of life of a criminal depends upon the ability to initiate the use of force.  Having dangerous weapons is at the center of his profession.  Most Americans are very busy with their careers in the peaceful private sector in which force is not initiated.  We have two major dangers we face.  One is the individual or small gang initiator of force.  The other is the huge gang initiator of force which is Big Government grown well-beyond the scope of its legitimate powers by the constant refusal to recognize its constitutional limits and the guiding philosophy of government expressed in the Declaration of Independence.

The way the state government of Maryland enacts the sentiments of John Sarbanes is to put up many barriers to "dangerous weapons" acquisition and ownership.  The barriers are huge for busy people living peaceful lives, but in need of protection from those who initiate the use of force.  Those barriers are manifestly ineffective in keeping "dangerous weapons" out of the hands of criminals and busybody authoritarian politicians and their government employees. 

In 2013, the murder rate in Maryland was 6.5/ 100,000 people.  In the USA as a whole, it was 4.49/ 100,000 people.  So Maryland's already onerous barriers to "dangerous weapons" are not working, at least not to protect its citizens from murder.  To be sure, this conclusion does rest on the assumption that Marylanders are not just bad people compared to other Americans.  That may be bad people can be argued because they vote pretty consistently for Democrat authoritarians!  In fact, the very time-consuming and onerous barriers to gun ownership is very likely a major contributing cause to the high murder rate in Maryland.

Maryland Gun Control Infringement of the Right to Self-Defense

Oh, the many pleasures of corresponding with one's representatives in the state legislature and the federal government as an exercise in the right to petition one's grievances ends only in frustration.  One can always count on a Progressive Elitist standard viewpoint from these representatives, at least in the most un-free state of Maryland, known most erroneously as the Free State.  This state, long ago, provided perhaps the best unit to fight in the American Revolutionary War.  At that time, there sure was no prohibition against owning a military-style weapon.

The Progressive Elitists of Maryland are most united in the belief that while one may have a right not have one's hunting rifle prohibited, a weapon designed for self-defense is to be absolutely prohibited.  In this Progressive Elitist viewpoint, no infringement means only that any barrier an individual should have to overcome to exercise a right must not amount to an absolute prohibition, except in some cases.

This is the response I received to my letter in opposition to the latest effort of the state of Maryland to infringe the right to bear arms from my delegate Anne Kaiser in the Maryland House of Delegates:

Thank you for writing to my office and voicing your opposition to SB281:  Firearm Safety Act of 2013, introduced by Senate President Mike Miller on behalf of Governor Martin O’Malley.  This legislation provides a comprehensive plan of reforms to make people safer and reduce preventable gun violence.  It includes provisions regarding gun licensing and fingerprinting; gun safety; and mental health safeguards and services.

Specifically, the provisions of SB 281 bans the sale of military-style assault weapons; limits magazine capacity to 10 rounds (the previous limit was 20) and requires licensing, fingerprinting, and safety training to purchase a handgun.  These provisions should reduce “straw purchases” (where someone with a record gets a friend to buy a gun on their behalf) of both assault style weapons and handguns which over time should reduce the number of illegal guns on our streets while also promoting sensible, responsible gun ownership.

Further, this initiative creates safeguards to keep guns away from people who may be a danger to themselves or others due to mental illness, while also facilitating unprecedented levels of information sharing among federal and state partners for background checks.  This bill improves mental health services in Maryland by establishing a Center for Excellence on Early Intervention for serious mental illness and expands Maryland’s Crisis Intervention Teams, Crisis Response Services, and Mental Health First Aid.  Also, this bill establishes a Department of Health and Mental Hygiene led Task Force to Improve Continuity of Care for Individuals in the Community Mental Health System.

Despite characterizations of this bill and those of us who voted for it, I fully support our 2^nd amendment rights.  I place our right to bear arms right alongside our freedom of speech, of a free press and our freedom of religion.  With each of these guaranteed freedoms comes rights and with each right comes responsibility.  And with each responsibility, comes reasonable regulations.

I believe that this bill crystallizes that responsibility in important, meaningful and manageable ways.  Crucially, the new law does not do the following:  it does not prohibit lawful citizens from obtaining or owning a handgun and it does not require additional licensing procedures for hunting rifles and shotguns.  The new law does not force citizens who lawfully possessed an assault weapon prior to the bill’s passage to surrender their weapon or to register it.  Furthermore, it does not require current lawful gun owners to retroactively obtain a license.

Your views are important to me and I appreciate that you have taken the time to write to me.  Please do not hesitate to contact me during the session should any other concerns arise.

 Very truly yours,

 Anne R. Kaiser

The exercise of a right comes with only the responsibility not to violate the equal sovereign rights of other individuals.  It does not come with a responsibility to expend time and effort to prove that one has such character as may be in popular approval by the government.  I should not have to prove that I will not somehow and at some future date violate the rights of others.  As for gun safety, if I already know that (as a veteran), why should I have to take a course from some state-licensed safety instructor at great expense and at the cost of valuable time?  This is an example of the state very much infringing my right to self-defense.

The 2nd Amendment clearly says the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.  Note that no infringement means that there shall be no barriers.  It does not mean that the barriers are such that they can be overcome and are not absolute prohibitions.

Furthermore, the prohibition on military style weapons makes no sense whatever.  The most essential reason one has a right to arm oneself for is self-defense.  Both the prohibition against so-called military style weapons and the limit to 10-round magazines are fundamental infringements on the right to self-defense.  The military uses the weapons it uses for defense.  I would use any weapon I might have for defense.  The reason we have a military is simply as an extension of our individual right to self-defense and the fact we have a military does not deprive us of any part of our right to self-defense.  Note also that this is an explicit prohibition and not a barrier which can be overcome with sufficient effort.

It is noteworthy that Anne Kaiser claims that she holds the right to bear arms as dearly as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion.  Logically this means that the exercise of these critical freedoms can also be infringed by the requirement to be fingerprinted, forced to take lessons in their safe use, and that many statements and beliefs can be prohibited so long as some are allowed with due licensing of the individual.  In fact, Kaiser explicitly claims that the state can regulate freedom of speech, press, and religion.  Perhaps initially only the mentally ill and felons will be denied the license to exercise freedom of speech, the press, and religion, but I am sure we can count on the Progressive Elitists to expand the class of people denied these rights with time.

Of course, in the eyes of the Progressive Elitist, a person of the Tea Party persuasion is mentally ill.  Many of them have said this explicitly.  Since most psychiatrists seem to be Progressive Elitists, the state will have no problem finding one who will attest that someone who challenges the power of unlimited government is suffering a mental problem.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 26.2% of the U.S. population has a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year.  Does this mean that the state of Maryland will deny licenses to 26.2% of the applicants because they are claimed to have a mental illness?  Probably not, since most such cases have not been diagnosed, but given the infringements of this bill, will one have to have extensive testing for mental illness before being licensed in the near future.  After all, a precedent will have been established.  How extreme and of what type must the mental illness be before one is denied a license?  Yes, she talks of being a threat to oneself or others, but this is pretty speculative stuff and does not the Precautionary Principle so beloved by the Progressive Elitists require a very low bound on the possibility of danger?  If one were ever diagnosed as having a mental illness, would one be forever denied a license to bear arms?  Given how dear the right to bear arms is for Anne Kaiser, how long before the same problems arise to get that license for the exercise of freedom of speech?  You must have much more faith in the goodwill of government than I do to feel at all comfortable with these issues.  Ignorance of history or total irrationality would be a precondition for such faith.

As for the new mental health bureaucracy this law will set up in the state of Maryland, I can only imagine the horrors to come.

It is comforting to know that more than half the number of votes needed to pass this bill in the Maryland House of Delegates may have been cast by the 26.2% of the delegate population with diagnosable mental illnesses.  The remainder of those for this bill may have been voted into office with most of the votes from the 26.2% of Maryland voters who are estimated by the very Progressive Elitist National Institute of Mental Health to have diagnosable mental illnesses.  To be sure, such mental illnesses may be far more common among the Maryland Delegates than among the population at large.

The violation of individual rights by the state of Maryland and by the federal government has become a habit.  There is nothing one can trade one's basic individual rights for that is worth the trade.  You should note that the Declaration of Independence informs us that the only legitimate function of government is the protection of individual rights.  Governments that violate those rights become morally illegitimate no matter how many popular votes the politicians may collect.   Evil thrives in the state of Maryland because collectivist politicians here collect hordes of votes.

The Maryland House of Delegates is coming to help us exercise our responsibilities.  Be afraid ...  no, be terrified!

Tough Massachusetts Gun Controls Ignored by Tsarnaev Brothers and Criminals Generally

Massachusetts passed a very tough gun control law in 1998.  The results have thoroughly pleased the supporters of tough gun control laws and those who wish to infringe upon the right of self-defense protected by the 2nd Amendment.  In 1998, there were nearly 1.5 million gun owners in Massachusetts.  The draconian gun control law of 1998 reduced the number of registered gun owners to only 200,000 by June of 2002.

Of course, the 65 murders with firearms in 1998 in Massachusetts became 122 murders with firearms in 2011.  The number of armed robberies increased by 20.7% and aggravated assaults increased by 26.7%.  And, surprise, surprise, the Boston Marathon bombing Tsarnaev brothers' revolvers and rifle were not registered.  The adjacent states with less strict gun control laws have seen their crime rates go down.

Of course the strict gun control advocates claim that the reason for the high crime rates in Massachusetts is the failure of the lower crime rate states to enact stricter gun controls!  Some people are really, really unable to draw logical conclusions from their observations.  Have not those who are better armed often preyed upon those who are less well armed throughout human history?  Sometimes it was roving bands of marauders, sometimes it was the local warlord, sometimes it was the criminals who defied the law and armed themselves to the teeth, and sometimes it was the government itself that preyed upon those who would not or could not defend themselves.

Obama and Bill Clinton Not Allowed to Own Guns

It is a popular belief that current gun laws should be better enforced.  Federal law already makes it illegal for any felon or anyone who has illegally used any controlled substance from owning a gun.  The penalty is five years of imprisonment, the same draconian punishment leveled at those who refuse to consent to having the ownership of their own bodies taken over by the government under the collectivist ObamaCare law.

Felons are a very broad category which more and more includes people who committed no crime of violence or even no crime against any known individual at all.  Federal and state laws have more and more made people felons for violating vague, unknown, and irrational laws and regulations aimed at anyone trying to make a living.  Business owners and business managers are particularly likely to be victims of such wrongheaded laws.  Those who have have been convicted under such specious laws are not allowed to own guns.

The prohibition of gun ownership to anyone who has illegally used a controlled substance is another draconian act that has the consequence that at least 40 million Americans are likely prohibited from owning guns if it were enforced.  Among those who are prohibited by federal law from owning guns are:

Obama
George W. Bush
Bill Clinton

Of course in our lawless land in which many people are deemed too important for the law to be enforced upon them, these people would not actually be denied a gun permit should they request one.  Law enforcement would definitely turn its head for them.  But, in a nation in which the use of a prohibited substance lands many others in jail, prevents them from holding many jobs, or is the excuse of law enforcement agencies to take their homes, cars, boats, and land from them without the need to get a conviction, this is a giant hypocrisy.  It is an act of great injustice.

Far from needing still more gun ownership prohibition and registration laws, we need to repeal some of the wrongheaded laws we already have that unreasonably infringe upon our sovereign and equal right to protect ourselves from harm by others, including tyrannical governments.  More of us than are presently allowed should be able to acquire the best in personal protection weapons so that we can protect ourselves, our families, and our friends and neighbors from the violence that the state proves unable and unwilling to prevent.  Proposed restrictions against large capacity, actually just reasonable capacity, magazines and semi-automatic fire weapons are clear infringements of our right to protect ourselves.

Before you know it, Obama will dictatorially rule that the Founding Fathers only intended the citizenry to own muzzle-loaded muskets and that will be all we will be allowed to own.  Provided of course that we have not become felons for violating some line buried in hundreds of thousands of pages of federal laws and regulations or that we have not ever used a controlled substance illegally.

Homicide Rates by Guns and Other Factors

There are often claims that there is an explosion of homicide by guns in the USA.  But the actual data are shown here for homicides and non-negligent manslaughter:

This data is from a report by the Congressional Research Service for Congress entitled Gun Control Legislation by William J. Krouse, dated 14 November 2012.  The murder rates and those committed with the use of guns are higher than one would like of course, but they are not exactly exploding.  In fact, they have been coming down.

If we just look at the murder rate by gun and exclude non-negligent manslaughter, the U.S. rate was 2.75 per hundred thousand in 2011.  But this rate varied greatly from state to state and region to region.  The list of states and DC with rates above 3.00 is given below from higher to lower rates:

District of Columbia, 12.46
Louisiana, 10.16
Mississippi, 7.46
South Carolina, 5.41
Michigan, 5.06
Maryland, 4.70
Missouri, 4.64
Arkansas, 4.39
New York, 4.12
Pennsylvania, 3.97
Georgia, 3.93
Tennessee, 3.92
North Carolina, 3.87
Oklahoma, 3.64
Ohio, 3.54
Indiana, 3.29
California, 3.25
Delaware, 3.09
Nevada, 3.07
New Jersey, 3.07

The cause of these major murder rate by gun differences by state and other local variations has not been much discussed.  There does not appear to be a simple and strong rule of thumb based on gun controls that explains this.  DC and Chicago both have severe gun control laws, yet both have very high murder rates by gun.  Maryland and New York have relatively strong gun control laws.  Many of the states in this list also have relatively weak gun controls.  Other factors are apparently at work and they ought to be identified and come under discussion.

One of the most important factors is also silenced by those who police the debate in terms of political correctness.  This chart makes it very clear that a critical factor relates to race and the use of guns in murders.

One of the popular exercises is to compare U.S. murder rates by gun with those of certain Western European countries and Japan and note that we compare badly.  The chart above localizes much of the reason for the bad comparison in the U.S. black population.  Gun control legislation that does not take this racial discrepancy into account is unlikely to achieve much.  One certainly cannot find a legal reason to infringe the 2nd Amendment Right to owning guns of black Americans, while allowing white Americans their individual right to gun ownership.  This is a problem that has to be addressed in a much broader context.

There is actually very little that can be done by legislation about the murder rate by guns.  The primary issues are deeply seated in various American sub-cultures.  Even such an issue as the effort to identify mentally ill people who should not have guns is a secondary issue.  It is one worth pursuing and trying to improve, but we should have no illusions that it will have a major effect in reducing the amount of gun murders in America.