What is the motivation behind gun control?  It’s not about the guns.

Gun control was the proximate cause in the first battles of the American Revolution.  Would our revolution have happened in the way it did without the example of the minutemen at Concord and Lexington?  These fights started when British authorities decided that it was a good idea to take away weapons and ammunition that American patriots had cached in Concord.   Did they do this for the ‘safety’ of the Americans?  No, they did it because access to weapons constituted a challenge to their control of the colonies.

The first American gun control laws had their roots in slavery, racism, and opposition to the freeing of African slaves and their integration into our society.    Did they try to restrict gun ownership by those of African descent because they were worried that the former slaves would harm themselves with firearms?  No, they did it because those who want to oppress do not want the object of their oppression to be able to fight back.

Data from California, the state represented by anti-gun Senator Dianne Feinstein, indicates that the vast majority of crime guns are pistols.  Out of 147 guns examined in the report, only 8 were classified as ‘assault weapons’ by California’s draconian definition of such a gun.  As many .30-30 caliber rifles were reported as .223, the caliber fired by the AR-15 that Senator Feinstein wants to get rid of nationally.  In contrast, over seven times as many weapons in .22 Long Rifle were used in crimes in California in 2009.  Will taking my AR-15 or CZ-82 away from me change those statistics?  Do the gun control laws in states like California, New York, and Illinois do anything at all to reduce gun crime or crime overall?  Or do they just enhance the illusion of control that the states have over their populace?

Gun control is about control, not guns.  Modern gun control has been sold to promote “safety”, but hasn’t done much about the guns that criminals use.   A law-abiding population that has turned in its guns or submitted to oppressive regulation has no choice but to either depend solely on the state for security or to become criminals themselves when they violate the law to provide their own.  They also have no choice when the state forgets its duty to them and starts restricting other rights.

So what is the motivation behind the gun rights movement?

I enjoy shooting for a lot of reasons.  Target shooting and plinking are fun.  I carry a pistol and keep a shotgun in the house because there is a chance, however slight, that someone might decide that what is ours ought to be theirs.  I own hunting rifles because I like the taste of venison.  But these aren’t the reasons that I, and a lot of people like me, own guns.

The right to keep and bear arms is important to us because it is our method of last resort to protect all of our other rights.  Thankfully, it’s something our country has had to resort to on only a few occasions, but it is there.  So long as our government knows that there is a point at which bad conduct will gain them an armed rebellion, they will not cross the bright, clear boundaries that we have made around our other freedoms.  Protection and lawful exercise of that right makes it harder to take away.

I believe in gun rights.  I also believe in rights to speech, and religion, and fair courts, and being treated as equal to any other man, woman, or child in the eyes of the law.  In short, I believe in rights.  Gun rights are an important part of that mix for me,  but it is just an element in a rich tradition of respect for both my rights and the rights of others.  Our right to keep and bear arms is our way of making sure that our government never dares to decide that all of the other rights can be ignored.

Gun control is about control.  Gun rights are about rights.  Neither one is really about the guns, and we have to keep that in mind.