We hear an awful lot about how gun control is needed here in the United States and how we need to embrace it as European nations have. France, for example, has extensive gun control laws.
However, gun control doesn’t really do what many people claim. It doesn’t necessarily prevent anyone from getting guns.
I mean, take the so-called assault weapon. The AR-15 or AK-pattern rifle is banned pretty much everywhere in Europe.
A man in the southern French city of Marseille is just the latest victim of fatal gun violence as the city continues to see gang violence carried out by those wielding illegally owned Kalashnikov-type rifles.
The fatal shooting took place on Sunday afternoon in front of a bakery in the 14th district of the city, as the victim, a 40-year man, was heading to the bakery where he worked.
The shooting was carried out by a group of two to three people armed with a Kalashnikov rifle according to witnesses, who fled the scene in a Peugeot 308 car, which was later found set on fire just a few hundred metres from where the shooting took place, newspaper Le Provence reports.
The victim appears to have been known to police via a string of criminal incidents. In other words, this doesn’t sound like an innocent, law-abiding baker. Officials believe this was a case of settling scores in the criminal underworld there.
That said, it appears that France’s ban on AK-style rifles hasn’t done a lot of good. This is apparently just the latest murder using the notorious weapon type as criminals smuggle them into the country.
Don’t worry, though. I’m sure anti-gunners will find a way to blame the United States for it soon enough.
Look, if France can’t keep AKs out of their country, why does anyone think the United States could keep them out?
“They don’t come from other places!” someone will respond, and that is most definitely true.
Yet the fact that our criminals get domestically-made firearms is held up as proof that we need gun control. It’s not. What we see here is that those same criminals would get guns no matter what laws you put in place. If they can’t get them domestically, they’ll get them from international sources, much like bad guns in France have.
But guess what the gun laws in France have been successful in doing?
That’s right, disarming the law-abiding citizens there.
Sure, in this incident, we’re talking about a career criminal who was gunned down with an AK, but the bad guys aren’t known for their high levels of training nor their discretion in targeting. Law-abiding citizens can easily be caught up in this and thanks to the laws there, have no way to defend themselves.
Maybe the French people are fine with that, but many Americans sure as hell aren’t.
Those laws clearly haven’t stopped criminals, yet American activists want similar such laws here. They’ve managed to delude themselves into believing that such regulations would actually have a different effect here than they’re clearly having in Europe.
“But Europe has less gun crime,” someone will likely respond, and that is true. However, as we’ve seen previously, we have more non-gun crime than Europe has in total violent crime. It’s unlikely their lower crime rate is because of gun control.
Especially since it seems criminals can get guns just fine.
Look, at some point, there’s got to be enough data that even the emotionally-driven anti-gunners will see the light. At some point, there will be so much that even they can’t bury their heads in the sand.
I don’t think this is that final data point that breaks the proverbial camel’s back, but it’s going to play a factor.
