This country has a vested interest in violence. Crime equals tens of thousands of jobs for police officers, corrections and parole officers, lawyers, judges etc. In a sense, crime is big business in America.

It cannot be denied that gun control is not violence control and that’s a good thing. I say that because we need violence in this country...not only does crime require force/violence to back it up, but so does government. Governments have always been more violent than individuals. Our government was an aberration until the advent of this past century, but along with the growth of government, in the 20th century, has come a corollary explosion in violence.

Considering how much of our economy revolves around violence (police, court officers, judges, attorneys, ER physicians & nurses, corrections personnel etc) America can't really afford a decrease in violence. The current crime rates (600 murders in NYC per year as opposed to 2,000 under the Dems) cannot sustain the existing criminal justice system and any significant cut-backs will cost tens of thousands of people their livelihoods. No one in our government is about to let that happen. Big government has a vested interest in crime and violence.


All Violence Isn’t Equal:

There is a big difference between random violence and righteous self-defense. The first is and always has been one of the most divisive and alienating actions a member of any society could engage in and the second has, always and everywhere, been sacred. The right to defend one’s person and one’s property with force is a right that no government can rightfully abridge (see Thomas Paine’s Common Sense).

In that spirit, a Libertarian friend of mine, posted instructions on how to make a zip gun on his web page. He claimed his purpose for doing so was his belief that "if you care about your safety, then take responsibility for it, by taking measures to defend yourself." A thirty plus year old tome The Anarchist’s Cookbook has the same kind of instructions and it’s still in circulation.

As for me, Julio Gonzalez proved the lunacy of linking gun control to violence control when he used a gallon of gasoline to kill 87 people inside the Happyland Social Club in the Bronx in 1990 - thank God, even without guns, the human spirit will persevere and violence will flourish. Is that a good thing? No! It’s a human thing.

Is a man who protects his home with a gun as bad as Julio Gonzalez, or worse, because he’s a “gun criminal?”
Increasingly, our media seems to feel he is and our government is making the distinction between murder and self-defense much less frequently than it once did.

Why?

Because criminalizing self-defense makes for much larger crime stats!

And what is the culprit of all this “new violence?”

At least according to the anti-self defense crowd, THE GUN.

We have to come to terms with the fact that controlling guns is a far different issue than controlling violence, just as controlling cars is a different issue than controlling automobile accidents and controlling alcohol, a different issue than controlling alcoholism.

Violence can be perpetrated with a knife, a hammer, or a container filled with gasoline and someone who is intent on either mayhem or expropriating other people's property is going to find a way to accomplish those goals. Even in the absence of store bought guns, zip guns are easy to make and more sophisticated criminals could and very probably would resort to making their own custom guns.

Many people point to “children having children,” and “too many of the poor and drug addicted having babies,” as the root causes of our epidemic of violence. In that light, perhaps "child control" is a more appropriate remedy than is gun control.

What I mean is, that to me, at least, bringing a child into this world which one cannot support either financially or emotionally is tantamount to child abuse. Perhaps requiring Norplant or some other form of birth control for people who are on public assistance might be a step in the right direction.

The people receiving aid should be focused on getting their own lives together. The fact that they are currently unable to support themselves is proof enough that they are, at least at this time, unfit parents. Once that person gets off public assistance they should be free to have all the kids they want. If this little contract with public assistance recipients were enacted, we'd drastically reduce the number of kids born to drug addicts and to other children, vastly reducing the size of the underclass in the process.


Government and the Violence Industry:

Crime is big business to government and that is too bad, because it means that we’ll always have more of it. Government invents new crimes all the time and in many ways encourages violence because it, in turn, creates jobs for an army of “criminal justice” bureaucrats. From the cops on the street, to the judges on the bench and everyone in between, all of these government workers rely on crime and violence for their livelihoods just as much as any thug does.

One of the worst things that could happen to any government, would be a one-year moratorium on crime & violence by the people. How would government justify it’s army of cops, court officers and corrections officers? Why would we need so many judges?...So many courts, prisons, etc?

If only such an experiment could be done. I could virtually guarantee that government would react by criminalizing more and more everyday activities, widening “the net,” perhaps even inciting violence, so that it could continue justifying its existence and that would ultimately be a good, or at least an enlightening thing.

Why?

Because it would force every citizen to see government as the adversary that it is, rather than the friend it pretends to be.


by: J Michael Kearney (Mon Jul 17 '00)