Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

As the pressure to “do something” to prevent mass killings such as the one that occurred on the First of October 2017 in Las Vegas I bring the following points up for consideration.

A. It was a freak event. Non state mass murders are relatively rare events. Quotidian homicide rates declined until 2015 at a time when gun sales were, you should pardon the expression, booming. This established that there is no connection between gun sales/ ownership and violent crime. This raises the question, should a right be weakened over a freak event?

Especially because:

B. Guns in private hands prevent crimes from happening up to 2.5 million times a year. I mistrust these stats, but I will accept a figure between this and a half million times a year. 2016 murders in the US number 17,250 about 70 percent with guns or about 12075. Guns prevent about forty times more crimes than murders committed with guns. How many people who successfully defend themselves are you willing to sacrifice?

C. There are about 10 million of Americans who own or want to own “assault rifles (and pistols and shotguns),” How many of them are you willing to kill to confiscate just assault weapons or prevent people from acquiring such weapons? Forget all other types of rifles, shot guns, and pistols. Even with Las Vegas’s horror fewer than 200 people will probably be murdered with assault weapons this year. How many people are you willing to kill to enforce gun control Is it worth it to kill 10,000 to save 12000, How about sacrifice 100,000?

D. In spite of hysterical and false claims that the NRA and other pro gun groups are racist as a matter of fact they are not. As another matter of fact gun control laws are rooted in efforts to disarm African Americans, Na�ve Americans, immigrants, and other targets of oppression (i.e., indentured servants). Non whites would be fools to trust white politicians, and even, perhaps especially, nonwhite politicians who’ve probably sold out, who try to disarm them. Whites would be just as big damnfools to trust said politicians.

E. There’s never any restriction on gun rights that is enough. There are jurisdictions that do not consider protecting your own life a good enough reason to publicly carry or even own a gun. Combine these and admitting that any restriction, even one that, miracle of miracles, is reasonable, won’t really work. It will create the situation where one restriction leads to the next, where only a few items are banned, only a few resisters killed. Eventually even having the guts to fight in self defense will be treated like a crime.

The only thing a rational person should do about gun control is resist it tooth and nail.