The other day I had a nice chat with an ADA in Baltimore (who should probably remain nameless…we’ll call him Bob to protect his identity). About a year and a half ago, I was mugged at gunpoint on the steps of my residence. I haven’t talked about it too much on PGP because I don’t want this site to become “guy gets mugged and becomes a vigilante a la Frank ‘The Punisher’ Castle.” There are far too many anti’s who insist the gun-carrying thing is simply about shooting criminals and “taking the law into your own hands,” so I actively avoid even hinting at that as being one of my motives. Clearly it’s not.
That said, getting mugged is something that changes your worldview irreparably, and I was discussing just that, and the prosecution of the guy who mugged me (and two other people), with Bob. After learning a little about my life post mugging, and my pro-2A activities on the web and in Annapolis, Bob let me know he’s been assigned to work on violent crimes and gun prosecution in particular. Bob said that overwhelmingly the people he was prosecuting were people that society didn’t want handling anything more dangerous than a spoon, let alone firearms; however, Bob also freely admitted that watching the steady flow of felons through his office in the last few years had made it clear as a bell to him that gun control was completely and utterly futile. Bob was hardly a pro-RKBA convert, and said frankly he didn’t really care either way enough to be active on the issue; but he did completely agree that gun control was spitting into a very violent wind, and ultimately counterproductive for his office in the sense that it disarms the wrong folks. I thought this was interesting, and it rather starkly reminded me of my conversation with the BATF agent who also thought gun control did little to deter felons.
After reflecting on this for a bit, I wondered to myself how it is that Maryland’s worthless, draconian, and discriminatory gun policies had survived this long; if ADA’s and BATF agents could admit that gun control was pointless, why couldn’t legislators? Sure enough, legislators like Neil Quinter prefer to look like they’re doing something about crime even when the statistics demonstrate–beyond a shadow of a doubt–that they’re not. But that’s not explanation enough for the persistence of gun control and it’s destructive effects on the fabric of Baltimore’s abortive efforts at urban redevelopment.
I think the answer lies a little deeper and between the lines: people just don’t care enough to act on what their own two eyes tell them. Even though the BATF agent knew trying to keep felons from arming themselves was useless, that person persisted at their job and waived flyers about the evils of straw purchases at gun show patrons. Even though Bob would readily admit that gun control did little to keep muggers and violent criminals from plying their trade on Baltimore streets, he continues to work on prosecuting people for gun possession every day, and would surely prosecute me if I got caught packing between my car and my doorstep. While that meets the clinical definition of insanity from what I can tell, it’s the lay of the land here in Maryland. People can know something is a bad, deleterious policy and yet continue to act upon it because of simple inertia. Getting people to admit you’re right is only half the battle at best; getting them to act on that knowledge is something entirely more difficult…and important.
Too many people, even when confronted with the obvious truths about Second Amendment issues, just don’t seem to care.
That’s something we need to actively work at changing.
