Societal Problem Not a Gun Problem
We need to look no further than across the bay in Oakland to find anecdotal evidence highlighting the need for citizens to have lifesaving options when facing violent encounters. Patrick McCullough has spent a decade reporting drug dealers to police. He is the face of the law-abiding citizen who lives with urban terror. When McCullough shot and wounded someone he believed was posing a threat to him, the Alameda County D.A.’s office found that McCullough acted in self-defense.[10] McCullough may not live in a gated community or be able to afford armed bodyguards, but he has an inalienable right to defend himself and his family.
Jeff Weise, 16, killed his grandfather, who happened to be a retired police officer, before stealing his guns and going on a killing spree on the Red Lake Indian reservation in Minnesota. “Everything that kid did that day, practically from the moment he walked out of his bedroom, was a felony,” said Joe Olson, a Hamline University law professor and president of the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance.
Olson concluded, “I don’t think any gun-control laws would have made a difference.”[11]
To believe that the proposed handgun ban would have an impact on handgun violence, one would have to assume that criminals would actually abide by the new law. After all, criminals are undoubtedly responsible for the high crime rates and firearm violence. Considering the very definition of a criminal, it would be hard to imagine that such enlightenment would occur. In fact, both reason and empirical research suggest that most criminals are attracted to places where they meet less resistance.
