Last Friday, we looked at Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) executive director Josh Horwitz's . . . interesting assertion that since the number of National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) checks doesn't directly correlate to the number of new gun sales, we can safely assume that the sustained, dramatic increase in NICS traffic doesn't really indicate that Americans are buying guns in record numbers--so there, gun industry.
Friday's column looked at a few of the bigger problems with Horwitz's thesis, and also asked why the demand for detailed (and, contrary to CSGV's claims, already publicly available) information from the gun industry, while giving the Obama administration a pass on its stonewalling about guns illegally trafficked by the U.S. government to Mexican drug cartels. Today, we'll take another look at Horwitz's claims--not to debunk them this time, but to point out that even if they were true, they're irrelevant.
First, though, remember that when groups like the Violence Policy Center claim that gun ownership rates in the U.S. have been steadily declining for decades (to be quickly echoed by the Brady Campaign and CSGV), they rely on data obtained in the General Social Survery (GSS), performed by the National Opinion Research Council (NORC). Blogger Thirdpower recently noticed what kinds of questions are asked in that survey, and how they're answered:
990. Suppose research proves that more legal restrictions on handguns would increase violent crime. Which of these two reactions would be closer to your position:
1. WOULD CHANGE MIND AND OPPOSE MORE RESTRICTIONS
2. WOULD STILL SUPPORT MORE RESTRICTIONS
62.9% answered that even if they knew that restrictive handgun laws increase violent crime, they would support them anyway. As Thirdpower asks, "So is NORC sending their people to interview mental patients, is the public honestly that stupid or does the GSS not represent reality?"
The reason that it's so important to anti-gun groups to paint a picture of steadily declining gun ownership in the U.S. is that they believe that if they can convince politicians that our numbers--and thus the number of votes we command--are small enough, they have no reason to fear the consequences of implementing more oppressive gun laws. To the "gun control" groups, it's all about our numbers. Josef Stalin once famously said, "Quantity has a quality all its own." As good collectivists, the gun prohibitionists naturally took that notion to heart.
They ignore a couple key points, though. The first is that Constitutionally guaranteed, fundamental human rights are not subject to being voted away based on their popularity. 51% of the population may not vote away the rights of the other 49%, and indeed, 99% may not vote away the rights of the other 1% (take that how you wish).
The other, more important, point is that losing an election is far from the worst thing that can happen to a politician who tries to illegitimately usurp the power of the people--especially an armed people. We are the 3%, and the other 97% cannot hope to outvote us as long as our ammo supply lasts--and we've been stocking up.
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