Dear Editor,
Arizona Republic cartonist, Steve Benson summons the tired gunphobic retread of equating owning a gun with the licensing of drivers and registering cars. The problem, as usual with Mr Benson, is that he uses more black ink than gray matter. One does not need a license to buy a car, motorcycle, sand rail or dirt bike. I can walk into any dealer or answer any newspaper ad, no questions asked. I can drive those motor vehicles on a private 1,000 acre ranch or on the open desert and there is nothing the state or federal government can do about it. Nor do I need to register those vehicles. I can keep them on my property all I want. In an emergency I can use those unlicensed vehicles to drive an injured person to the hospital. Nobody will bat an eye. So it is clear that the analogy does not fit as well as the gun grabbers would like.
Let's try to make it fit a bit closer. You want to treat guns like cars? Drivers Ed? Try firearms education in school. Uh-oh, didn't consider that. State-supported gun training to fifteen year-olds leading to knowledge and respect for guns...and 150 million concealed carry permits, none of which can be revoked but for due process of law. Representative Debra Brimhall has a bill which would start the wheels turning, if Mr. Benson really wants to take his analogy to its logical conclusion.
Benson seems to think gun registration would be beneficial, but he can't cite any criminological study to support his claim that having us write our names on a government list would reduce crime. Liberal sociologists such as Wright and Rossi of Tulane University found no gun control laws which had reduced crime. However, history does tell us one thing about gun registration. It is soon followed by confiscation and increased crime rates. According to the National Institute of Justice, after the registration and subsequent gun confiscation in England, Canada, and Australia, their crime rates rose to the point where one is more likely to be mugged, assaulted or burgled in England than we are here in America. The same holds for America. The recent gun registration schemes of New York City, Washington D.C., and California were quickly followed by banning and confiscation. Increased crime rates always follow the disarmament of peaceful citizens.
Rick DeStephens
Glendale, Arizona