Sean Gonsalves began his syndicated column this week with the question, “Is there a straight-shootin' argument for gun rights?"
  While leaning in favor of gun control, he sets up and shoots down arguments in favor of guns.
  Gonsalves says armed citizens can’t prevent government tyranny because government is more powerful and better armed.
  Government would have to kill a lot of its own people to defeat them, though, and civilized governments are at least a little reluctant to slaughter their own. If citizens are unarmed, government can be tyrannical without having to shed blood. To that extent, the "protection against government" argument is valid.
  "Reasonable" gun control inevitably progresses toward confiscation and abolition of privately held arms because the reasonable controls don't have the desired effect. The “reasonable” push has no result, so we push harder.
  Gonsalves says the self-defense argument is not valid because it is the job of the police to protect us from criminals. That is not true. It's the job of the police to apprehend criminals after crimes are committed.
  John Lott's studies and book, More Guns, Less Crime, indicate violent crime decreases in states as they make concealed weapon permits more readily available compared to states that do not allow the average citizen to carry a gun. Gary Kleck's studies indicate privately owned firearms are used perhaps twice as often to thwart crime as to commit it.
  Our suicide-by-gun rate is extremely high, as Gonsalves points out, but our suicide rate isn't nearly as high as Japan's, and Japan has almost no privately held guns. Our murder rate is far lower than Mexico's, another country with severe restrictions on gun ownership.
  Enforcing the law works. Project Exile in Richmond, Virginia, publicizes the fact that anyone caught carrying a gun illegally under any circumstances is going to spend five years in a federal penitentiary. Bad guys in Richmond now leave their guns at home or get rid of them. Violent crime involving guns has dropped significantly in Richmond, and other cities and states are adopting similar programs.
  Gonsalves admits ambivalence toward guns. He would not hesitate to shoot someone threatening his or his family’s lives. Neither would I, but first we have to have something to shoot with.
  I was once asked to speak to a church group on gun control. They said my writing was so rational and reasonable, they couldn't understand my opposition to gun control.
  I had never made that sort of presentation, and I tried hard to include too many reasons and arguments supporting my position. What I should have done, given the liberal tradition of my audience, was discuss the right to keep and bear arms as a civil right and let the rest go.
  There is a “straight-shootin' argument for gun rights.” As a strong supporter of all civil rights, I’d be inconsistent to oppose this one.
  The right to self-defense is the basic civil right, and the right requires the means. Without life and liberty, no other civil rights are of any use.
  All animals have some form of defense ranging from natural weapons at one end of the spectrum to the ability to breed faster than they can be killed at the other. We neither breed nor run fast enough, and we weren't born with much in the way of weaponry.
  But man-made weapons have existed for hundreds of thousands of years. They will continue to exist in many forms, including firearms, in spite of anything even the most powerful and intrusive government could possibly do.
  Regardless of intent, what gun control does is shift the balance of personal power from good citizens to criminals.
  Weakening the right to the means to defend ourselves ultimately reduces our ability to enjoy all other civil rights.