Pure Common Sense

At the end of last month, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia noticed the size and scope of the black market for firearms in their country that was created by their overly-restrictive gun laws.  The Interior Ministry will be in charge of licensing the legal sale and distribution of handguns, which Saudi Arabia has finally legalized.  This is a brave step forward for the Middle Eastern country, whose citizenry will now enjoy a little more freedom than they had before.  This is Saudi Arabia, remember.  Where women can walk only covered and in the company of men and where things which are mere trivial offenses in America can earn you the death penalty.  However, at least they’ll be able to defend themselves with their own private handguns.

On the downside, a lot of people in Saudi Arabia are not enthusiastic about the loosening up of the law.  Growing up in the land of the first democratic republican revolution in modern times, I know that I can never take the principle of freedom for granted and when I see people elsewhere not sharing my sentiment, it troubles me.  They see people as ticking time-bombs rather than responsible adults who keep their best interests at heart.  If a law-abiding, tax-paying citizen wishes to use and own a gun in their spare time, who should be so presumptuous as to stop them?  People really do have an irrational fear of freedom sometime.  Even in the United States.  Until a recent Supreme Court case, the District of Columbia also had a ban on handguns.  Fortunately, I have high hopes that as soon as the Saudis get their taste of gun freedom and continue to go about their lives they will find that there really is nothing for them to be scared of.

Not enough people notice that the War on Guns is really just another War on Drugs or War on Alcohol.  With the whole hippy-ish “world peace” image in mind, the War on Guns is more appealing to liberals.  However, guns are a temptation like any other.  Outlawing a victimless temptation is a dark path to go down.  As Albert Einstein said, the government should never make a law it cannot enforce.  There will always be people who own guns.  As I said before, the Saudi government used the black market as their rationale for creating a more lenient policy.  The crooks will always have guns.  The only people you can control fully on this issue are the law-abiding citizens.  If they are allowed to have their own gun, they can defend themselves against the crooks.  If not, they will be defenseless and at the mercy of those who break the law.  The ideal scenario is therefore to ARM everyone, not disarm everyone.  As far as human civilization has come, we have not fully ensnared this Common Sense fact.  Instead of confiscating guns in third world countries, maybe we should be DISTRIBUTING guns to them.  Then the people’s right to bear arms and self-defense will be a check against militia violence.

At the end of the day, owning a gun is a victimless crime.  Therefore, as long as there is no real harm in the prospect, anyone should b e able to own any kind of gun they want.  There should only be a law restricting the ownership if:  there is minimal erosion of liberty and there is a pretty dang darn good reason to believe it will work.  So far, I am not convinced that any law on the books meets these criteria.  I think we should phase out all federal firearms regulations and let the state and municipal levels sort things out.

Happy Veteran’s Day!