Collegiate Times

Yet gun control fails here.  A person with malicious intent may be diverted by laws at first, but evil is persistent and finds other ways.  The Brady Bill, for example, has turned away many would-be gun buyers for a plethora of reasons; however, it has never been shown to have any positive effects on reducing crime.  The so-called "gun-show loophole" has been fought in Virginia for many years, but a recent study revealed that gun shows do not affect crime rates either.  Gun buybacks look like an effective way to get guns away from offenders, but most criminals turn a profit by trading in worthless weapons.  Leading economists have shown that gun control is ineffective in reducing crime; on the other hand, strong arguments have been made for both improving our judicial system, to ensure violent criminals are aptly punished, and for making societal changes, both on individual levels and on a national scale.  As such, we really should shift our focus to these topics, if our desire is to reduce violent crime.

Philip J.  Cook, while an accomplished individual, really misses this point.  His views on gun violence are interesting, but what he deems to be facts were established via methods that would not pass today's tests of validity.  His alignment with anti-gun rhetoric further discredits his arguments, supporting ineffective laws like the Assault Weapons Ban which just uses scary words to get people to support banning certain guns.  Fear and scary words, as you may know, are the weapons used against the people to advance unworthy causes.

So perhaps Dr. Cook's speech influenced you to think of gun control as equivalent to criminal control.  However, as an educated citizen, when you do your own research you can quickly disprove this.  And critical thinkers like yourself will find that we should look not to write more ineffective laws to make us safer, but to ways to improve justice and positively impact society for increasing peace and preventing violence.

In closing, I provide fair disclosure.  I vote neither Democrat nor Republican, but am an independent like so many other Americans.  I am a supporter of concealed carry rights at colleges, as I believe self-defense does not end at the borders of campus, and have been a national leader on the issue for some time.  I am a gun owner, and educate others on the realities, good and bad, of owning a firearm.  Despite all that, I hope you see that in the above, I never profess guns to be the perfect answer to any question, but do believe strongly in the rights that we have been afforded and may choose to exercise.

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