In this day and age, with technology being where it is, it’s not surprising that criminals are starting to use homemade guns. Then again, they’ve been using them to some degree for decades. Only now, as we step deeper into “the future,” it’s just a lot easier to do.
However, tons more law-abiding citizens use that exact same technology to build guns for their own personal use.
It seems one California county has decided to look at just banning such firearms, though, regardless of who else makes them.
Elected officials are taking steps to outlaw homemade guns in Santa Clara County.
On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors will consider creating an ordinance to prohibit the possession, manufacturing and assembly of ghost guns.
Elected officials are taking steps to outlaw homemade guns in Santa Clara County.
On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously for the District Attorney’s Office to come up with options for creating an ordinance to prohibit the possession, manufacturing and assembly of ghost guns. The county will report back to the board on April 19.
Ghost guns are homemade firearms without serial numbers, sometimes built from kits or 3D printers. Easy to order online and assemble, and virtually untraceable, these guns have become increasingly popular in violent crimes, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
“There’s national research that demonstrates that for many hate crimes, ghost guns are the tools that are being used to frighten, alarm, alert, harm and kill people,” said Supervisor Cindy Chavez.
I’m not familiar with that particular research, but I have a question for Chavez. If homemade firearms went the way of the dodo, what would those committing “hate crimes” use instead?
I mean, banning homemade guns isn’t going to suddenly end racism or homophobia or any other form of bigotry, so that hatred would still be there. It’s also unlikely that those hateful people would suddenly just sit on their hatred, so what would they use instead?
They’d likely use a traditionally manufactured gun instead, either purchased lawfully because they have no felonies or on the black market because they do.
You’re not going to end violent crime or hate crimes by banning a kind of firearm used in a minority of criminal acts. Honestly, the suggestion that you’ll make an appreciable dent by doing so is, quite frankly, insane.
Then again, this is a county in California. They’ve never seen a gun they didn’t want to ban.
But let’s say they do. Then what?
I hate to be the one to break it to them, but homemade gun bans don’t actually stop people from making guns themselves. What it does, however, is stop law-abiding people from making them.
Well, since law-abiding people aren’t the issue in the first place, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see just how little such a ban will actually accomplish.
Criminals–the very people meant to be impacted by these kinds of restrictions–won’t actually care, nor will they have to.
The truth of the matter is that in the era of the 3D printer, gun control is a dinosaur. Any hope it had of keeping people disarmed is over and done with. It wasn’t good before people could build guns at home, but now it’s even less likely to do what proponents claim.
So now we get to watch as Santa Clara County passes a meaningless measure that the local criminals will simply laugh at while still building homemade guns to sell to their buddies.
Absolutely amazing job there, guys. Maybe Santa Clara can ban drugs next? Maybe they can also ban shooting people. Maybe ban bribery while they’re at it.
After all, if bans work so well, why not?
I think we all know the answer to that one.
