What are Guns for?

The leaders of a town in Georgia are demonstrating a remarkable degree of obliviousness, not to mention an astounding failure to understand what the proper purpose of government is. They are poised to make gun ownership a legal requirement.

Leaders told Channel 2's John Bachman the reason they need the law is because the city straddles Cherokee county to the south and Pickens County to the north.

That, they said, can lead to slower response times.

One police officer patrols Nelson, Georgia for eight hours during the day. That leaves 16 hours overnight when the city is basically unguarded.

I hardly know where to begin. Our law enforcement apparatus is inadequate to stop real crime, so we're going to invent even more crimes? We're basically useless, so we're going to force everyone to do what they would have to do if there were no government at all? We're going to address the potential problem of someone becoming a crime victim because they didn't have the foresight to arm themselves -- by guaranteeing that their rights are violated en masse?

What's wrong with crime is that the victim is harmed or forced to act against his judgment. How is this different than someone who deems (reasonably or not) owning a handgun to be unnecessary, troublesome, or expensive, being made to spend his time and money on a gun purchase he otherwise wouldn't have made? (The law also paves the way for the government to tell citizens what to do in other ways, even if, in this case, they would buy guns or already own them.) A wrong decision about gun ownership in this situation does not harm or directly threaten anyone else.

The article quotes one citizen who hopes to see all Americans forced to own guns, but a voice of reason, that of Lamar Kellett, gets the last word: "This is big government at its worst. Government mandating what a free individual can and will have in his home."  (I'd say improper government, rather than big government, but his objection remains on the money.)

-- CAV