Gang bangers don't care if guns are banned in parks

June 15, 6:40 AMCleveland Gun Rights ExaminerDaniel White

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A Columbus city park was the scene of what is being reported as a shootout last night, leaving two injured, one of them critical with a gunshot wound to the head. Details are sketchy, but from what is available it would seem that it was either drug or gang related.

Anti-gun officials who would like to be able to ban handguns in their parks will undoubtedly point to this incident as an example of why they should be allowed to do so. Of course, they're already allowed to ban street drugs, crack down on gangs, and to frown upon turf wars, yet I suspect that at least one of those came to play in this incident.

Banning guns in parks, whether a local city park or a National Park, will not to anything to stop a gang banger, a drug dealer, a rapist, or a mugger from continuing to carry the tools of their trade. All such bans accomplish is to make sure that any innocents they encounter will be unable to fight back with equal force.

Lawfully armed citizens aren't the problem. They never have been. It is true that on rare occasions someone will commit a crime and it later turns out they had a concealed carry license. Anti-gunners are quick to seize upon them as shining examples of why they were right to want to ban such practices, but it is the very rarely of such acts that make them newsworthy in the first place. There are far more stories of police officers assaulting their wives and doctors killing their patients than there are of ccw licensees misusing their firearm.

The truth is that the sort of person who supports "park bans" or any other firearm ban isn't really interested in reducing crime. They know such policies will not work (how can a law prohibiting guns stop a murder when a law prohibiting killing someone in the first place fails to do so?). What they're really looking to do is further their gun ban agenda in a wild fantasy that gun bans will make them less accessible to criminals. Because, of course, that worked so well with drugs.

The next time you see an example of criminal on criminal violence used as an example of why the law abiding need to be disarmed, remember the real agenda behind that desire and ignore the hype. Don't allow victims to be disarmed to further a political agenda.