At Least They Didn’t Have Guns

Consider this scenarior:

Robbers armed with axes and bats rode motorbikes into an indoor shopping centre in north London and raided a jewellery store.

Where there’s a will there’s a way. Even though England suffers some of the most draconian gun control laws out there people continue to commit violent crimes. In this case thugs armed with axes rode motorcycles to a mall jewelry store and robbed it. Fortunately nobody was injured by that could have been far different if the axe armed thugs had decided to attack any of the mall goers. Gun control advocates would say, “At least they wouldn’t have guns,” but I’d prefer to be shot than hacked up with an axe. Furthermore the motorcycles these thugs were riding gave them greater speed than anybody else in the mall, meaning running away wouldn’t have been an effective strategy. What could one do in such a situation? Little, unless they had an effective means of self-defense such as a firearm.

Gun control suffers many fallacies, one is the idea that violent crime can somehow be reduced if guns are strictly controlled. Robbery, wielding axes as weapons, and riding motorcycles inside of malls are likely all illegal in England, yet six individuals armed themselves with axes, rode motorcycles into the mall, and robbed a jewelry story. Making something illegal only prevents the lawful from partaking, it does nothing to deter those unconcerned with the law. Disarming those with no criminal intentions in the hope of preventing violent crime is hopeless. It does lower the cost of committing violent acts.