Having failed in their efforts to depict the recent terrorist acts as indicative of the need for yet more gun control, the civilian disarmament crowd is still desperate to capitalize on the tragedies with a renewed push next month to close “the gun show loophole”. Except the loophole they’re raging about is nothing of the sort. The control lobbyists dreamed up that catchy moniker to give a vaguely nefarious air to what is simply private commerce between individuals. It’s the exact same commerce by which average people buy and sell houses, cars, dishwashers, ironing boards, chainsaws and kitchen knives.
Okay. Okay. It’s not EXACTLY the same. Gun show sales from dealers still involve more paperwork and record keeping than most mortgages. And yeah, they still have to clear you with the National Instant Check System, which only takes fifteen minutes except when it takes four or five days. And if you’re from out of state the weapon must be shipped to a dealer in your state where you have to comply with the local laws and permit processes before you can pick it up. In fact, purchases from a dealer at a show are the same as purchases from dealer at a store, and purchases from an individual at a show are the same as purchases from an individual anywhere. All local laws must still be followed.
The various gun control groups harp about the fictitious “loophole” in an attempt to muddy the waters on the whole debate. These are the same groups that recently claimed Al-Qaida training manuals describe how to use lax US gun laws to buy guns and that Barrett Firearms sold Osama Bin Laden .50 caliber sniping rifles. I can’t say where they got the supposed training manual from; maybe they are on Al-Qaida’s mailing list. As for the sniping rifles, it turns out they were actually sold to the U.S. government. A show of hands, please, from everyone who read the embarrassed retraction. Anyone? No? I’m not surprised. The Brady Campaign, Handgun Control Inc, the Center for Violent Criminal Empowerment or whatever the civilian disarmament gang is calling themselves this week is infamous for loudly braying twisted statistics, massive misinformation and bald faced lies. When the truth manages to sneak out, they respond with the defense so typical of a miscreant caught red handed: stubborn silence.
Closing the much-hyped “loophole” will not reduce crime. It’s not meant too. The real purpose is to make it so difficult to hold or attend a gun show that people simply give up. By driving gun shows out of business, they hope to transform innocent open social events into furtive backroom deals and pervert a proud tradition into an unacceptable affliction. The ultimate goal, of course, is to attain the United Nations ideal of the Norm of Non-ownership. That’s civilian non-ownership. Governments and police forces can have all they want.
In the final analysis, the forces in favor of gun control are fundamentally anti-liberty. Colonel Pagano, a former Superintendent of the New Jersey State Police summed up the issue quite succinctly; “Gun control is not crime control. Gun control is people control”. Just as owning a weapon is a de facto statement of profound personal independence, trying to remove that same weapon is a de facto expression of social engineering at its worst.
