“I know this, too: if I had stayed in that neighborhood any longer, I would have bought a gun and learned how to use it. It’s getting worse and worse. But I’d never be as good at using a weapon as the people I’d likely encounter.”
You are pretty sure of that. The fact is that most violent criminals are intoxicated when committing their crimes–that’s why the Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog has a category just for situations where the victim used the criminal’s own gun on him. It is actually quite rare for a criminal to disarm a civilian victim.
“The only real answer is to put some energy behind efforts to put people away when they commit crimes with guns, and put them away for good. And that requires gun laws that the gun ownership lobby often opposes.”
Name one. NRA has aggressively supported (and even assisted with some funding) of prosecution under the federal statute that guarantees five years in prison for felons being in possession of a gun or even one round of ammunition.
“There needs to be more strategic cooperation between the gun ownership lobby and pro-prosecution advocates.”
Like what? We strongly support sending people to prison for committing violent felonies, with or without guns.
