There’s something I’ve often wondered about advocates of gun control. Most gun control advocates urge businesses to put up signs announcing that their property is a gun-free zone. On the other hand I don’t see many gun control advocates putting those signs on their homes. A professor at George Washington University is asking his fellow gun control advocates to correct that problem:
We should not wait for our elected officials, in President Obama’s good words, “to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.” We should do our share. One way to proceed is to mark our homes, apartments and condos, with a “gun free” sign. Parents should notify their friends that they would be reluctant to send their child over for a play date unless the home was safe from guns. Residential communities should pass rules that ban bringing guns onto their premises, clearly marking them as gun free.
Anyone who puts up such signs will become an ambassador for gun control, because they are sure to be challenged by gun advocates to explain their anti-gun positions. Here are some pointers they may wish to use against the typical pro-gun talking points.
I think there’s a reason why most advocates of gun control don’t advertise their dwellings as gun-free zones, it acts as a notice to criminals that the cost of burglarizing the house or committing acts of violence against the residents is very low. Most advocates of gun control ask others to declare their property gun-free zones while they fail to do the same. It’s a double standard.
I actually agree with this professor’s call for gun control advocates to post their homes as gun-free zones. Such an action would demonstrate the gun control advocate’s sincerity. Furthermore I believe they should take it a step further by stating that police will not be called in the event of somebody breaking in or that the police will be commanded to respond unarmed. We all know that the police perform violence by proxy. When somebody calls the police they are implicitly asking the responding officers to use violence against an aggressor. Shouldn’t a gun control advocate demand the police respond unarmed? After all advocates of gun control continue to claim that being unarmed is safer than being armed even. They claim that anybody carrying a gun will just have it taken from them by an attacker. In the name of officer safety shouldn’t gun control advocates call 911 and say “Quick, there’s somebody in my house! Please send the police but for God’s sake tell them to leave their guns at the station!”