The Lies Keep Coming...

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to end Washington, D.C.'s self-imposed 28-year ban on handgun ownership. The move was an astounding violation of the principle of home rule, a crude and cynical demonstration of political bullying, and a grossly irresponsible decision that if put into action would likely harm the very people Congress ought to be protecting.

Actually, the District is a unique area governed as a federal territory according to Congress, as defined in the Constitution. There's nothing crude or cynical about allowing people to defend themselves in a city which has been called the "Murder Capital of the United States".

In the District of Colombia, 16 children have been shot to death this year, according to the Washington Post. Just how is enabling the possession of a handgun in a home supposed to help such children? The local police chief opposed the House measure, and district officials credit their self-imposed restrictions with helping what they say is a declining homicide rate.

Just at a guess, maybe having a gun in the home would allow that child's parents the opportunity to shoot the criminal before he shoots their child? That's assuming we are actually talking about a child, of course, and not a teenaged gang member shot in a turf battle over a particularly lucrative drug corner. But since we're talking about gun control, we can't trust that "children" really means "children", so I went looking for some statistics.

Although I didn't find the stats for 2003, I did find something else that's even more useful. That "something else" is a fact sheet from a gun control group that spells out gun deaths of "children" by cause within the District of Columbia and the 50 states. What I found is fairly interesting.

(I am leaving off the Undetermined column, which in all cases was negligible).

Now, the first interesting point to make here is about how the breakdown in deaths of "children" works. For your information, the source of these numbers defines "children" as people up to 19 years of age. That's a bullshit definition that mischaracterizes the problem, of course, which is exactly what the breakdowns demonstrate..

Look at how many gun deaths there were in the District of Columbia total, and then look at the numbers for homicide. About 90% of the gun deaths were homicides, and in one year there were no gun deaths that were NOT homicides! Deaths by accident and suicide are negligible.

Does anyone think that a criminal intent on murder will pay attention to the ban on guns in the city? The evidence shows that they do not. It's not guns that are killing "children" (some of whom are eligible for the draft!) in the nation's capital... murderers are the ones doing the killing.

And criminals do not obey laws, especially laws banning guns. The people who obey those laws are the victims. The real tragedy here is that many of these "children", the ones who are not criminals at least, were old enough to purchase a gun for self defense and obtain a concealed carry permit for it if they lived anywhere else.

If you must have a legislative answer to these murders, there it is right there: DC's gun ban rendered these children helpless to resist their murderers.

In addition to rolling back the district's existing gun rules, Personal Protection Act advocates would keep their foot firmly planted on the neck of local officials by prohibiting them from installing any gun restrictions that exceed federal law. The act also somewhat vaguely would ban rules that would "discourage" the use or ownership of guns. The members of the House would never dare such a slap at officials in their home states, but apparently felt bold in Washington because no one there can vote against them -- the district has only a nonvoting delegate in the House.

The prohibition on local officials installing gun restrictions is clearly necessary, because the local officials have demonstrated that they will do so if given that power.

Why would the bill's sponsors create this kind of legislation? Well, they gave a lot of pretty speeches about freedom, personal protection, failed bureaucracy and so on. But advocates of the bill know that a number of congressional seats are being contested this year in the South, where voters can be jumpy about perceived attempts to take away their guns. Democrats hold some of those seats, and a vote to keep the district's strong gun measures would make perfect ammunition for opponents, who doubtless would seize the chance to insinuate that incumbent Democrats wanted to take away every shotgun and hunting rifle.

Many of them do. Senator Kerry, who is currently deluded into thinking that he might be President, is an excellent example of a Democrat who wants to ban guns. Including, it seems, guns that he himself owns. How's that for elitist?

Fortunately, the next stop for the bill is the Senate, which is likely to be this bad idea's last stop as well. Senate leaders have said they do not expect to bring it up before the end of the legislative session in about a week, so the act is likely to go out with a whimper before it can take life with a bang.

This is true. But there are lawsuits pending that just might manage to strike down DC's gun laws. And if those lawsuits fail, we will come back, and back, and back until we get those laws removed.