International police agency “Interpol” took a stand for gun rights last month, when Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble said in an interview that allowing civilians to have easier access to weapons would prevent terror attacks.
His comments came in the aftermath of the recent high profile terrorist attacks in France.
“Societies have to think about how they’re going to approach the problem. One is to say we want an armed citizenry; you can see the reason for that. Another is to say the enclaves are so secure that in order to get into the soft target you’re going to have to pass through extraordinary security,” Noble said in an interview with ABC News.
The problem with heightening security in “soft target areas” is that it opens the government to set up guards and checkpoints pretty much anywhere, from shopping malls, to movie theaters or even grocery stores. Surprisingly, this is a fact that Noble seemed to understand.
Noble continued …
“Ask yourself: If that was Denver, Col., if that was Texas, would those guys have been able to spend hours, days, shooting people randomly? What I’m saying is it makes police around the world question their views on gun control. It makes citizens question their views on gun control. You have to ask yourself, ‘Is an armed citizenry more necessary now than it was in the past with an evolving threat of terrorism?’ This is something that has to be discussed.”
For me it’s a profound question. People are quick to say ‘gun control, people shouldn’t be armed,’ etc., etc. I think they have to ask themselves: ‘Where would you have wanted to be? In a city where there was gun control and no citizens armed if you’re in a Westgate mall, or in a place like Denver or Texas?'” he continued.
The Great Gun Vortex
Gun control is a contentious issue, especially among law enforcement.
While some law enforcement officers show public support for gun rights as individuals, it’s still very rare for a police organization to take the type of public stance on the issue that Interpol has.
When gun control legislation is put into place, every gun in the civilization does not disappear, they are not thrown into some magical vortex where they will never be seen again. Those guns aren’t destroyed, and they are certainly not “controlled”, they are simply moved. They are taken from millions of individuals and placed in the hands of one group.
There are numerous problems with this situation, so let’s just get the obvious ones out of the way first …
History has shown us in many different cases that as the disparity in arms between a government and society grows, the more authoritarian that regime becomes. Take your pick of any dictatorship throughout history and you will find that disarming a population is one of the steps that’s essential when establishing a tyrannical control system.
From Nazi Germany to the Communist empires of China and Russia, and even on the fiefdoms of the Middle Ages, authoritarian rulers made it a priority to ensure that citizens were unarmed.
An Armed Guard on Every Corner
Gun control legislation is sold as a measure to protect the innocent from violent criminals, but like most government actions the outcome is actually the complete opposite of the stated goal.
These kinds of measures actually give violent criminals the upper hand by removing the average citizen’s first line of defense. It seems obvious that violent criminals will be more inclined to attack others when they are less likely to encounter any kind of resistance. This being the case we can determine quite easily that gun control policies encourage violence and chaos within any society.
Even if you believe that the police are put here to help and protect us, which they are not, you must at least admit that they rarely prevent violent crime from happening; their job is only to hunt down and punish the accused party after the fact. Therefore, they cannot be depended upon in a random encounter you have with an attacker.
Even more importantly, the fact that anyone walking down the street could be armed, makes any mugger think twice before attacking someone.
On the other hand, when very few people in a society are armed, the reward far outweighs the risk for those who seek to violate the rights and property of others.
Putting that into context with these recent terror attacks, allowing people to freely carry arms as they choose, would effectively place armed guards at every location that a terrorist could possibly think of, and would do so without the need for police state tactics.