Just as drug control does not keep drugs out of this country, gun control will not keep guns out of this country. It will only make it illegal for law abiding men and women to own a gun to protect themselves and their families when the police and courts cannot and will not protect them. Criminals are already breaking the law and believe that they will not get caught, so they will continue to use guns even more boldly on their disarmed prey than before. Gun control is to guns what prohibition was to alcohol: those who want it will get it and use it anyway.

      All guns, including handguns, are vital tools (used for hunting and self defense from wild animals as well as from potential murderers), as are explosives (used for safely demolishing buildings), automobiles (used for safe, quick, and convenient transportation), and knives (a tool as old as man himself). One report estimates that over half of all reported firearm discharges in this country were in self defense from wild animals or potential murderers. The handgun is primarily a self defense weapon, being ideal for close range where one's life is most endangered, although many handguns are popular for hunting, both with and without scope attachments. Another vital tool, the automobile, causes many more deaths in America than handguns and rifles combined, yet the speed limit is not further lowered to a perfectly safe speed of one mile per hour. With proper instruction, both handguns and rifles are easier and safer to use than automobiles, and less practice and instruction is required.

      I must question both the intelligence and motives of anyone advocating gun control as a solution to any of society's problems. Gun control is a poor attempt at people control. Guns do not kill people--people kill people, as they have done since the beginning of man, using everything from clubs, fire, knives, and water, to screw drivers, saws, gasoline, ropes, chains, guns, bombs, automobiles, and whatever else technology has to offer. Where one avenue for violence is closed, a deranged person merely finds another. Because people are endangered by other people as well as by wild animals, the right to defend oneself from all aggressors has been established as a right of free people--as basic as the right to choose between right and wrong.

      The prospect of gun control via special "gun clubs" is especially frightening, for that is precisely the means of gun control used in the Soviet Union. Coincidentally, members of these clubs are also members of the communist party. This selective gun control is even more dangerous than ordinary gun control, because it selectively arms and disarms different elements of society. Likewise, banning inexpensive firearms selectively disarms the poor of our society while arming the rich.

      The best gun control laws and enforcement may be found in the Soviet Union and Cuba. In such countries, the people cannot possibly free themselves from their communist captors unless revolution erupts from the military itself, which is married to the political system. Revolution is virtually impossible. The American Constitution was written with just this danger in mind, specifically giving citizens the right to keep and bear arms against all enemies, be they domestic or foreign. Recent legislation and court decisions, however, have beaten the Constitution to death, taking away basic rights that our forefathers fought long and hard for. Crime is used as an excuse to twist the Constitution any way one sees fit. Telephone conversations are monitored to catch possible "drug dealers"; spies in the skies watch for "potential criminals"; and attempts are continually being made to place video cameras on city streets to monitor "criminal activity", although these cameras can also see into people's homes.

      Big Brother is nearly upon us. If this dangerous trend continues, America will surely fall from within, yet not a single American will be able to prevent it. Any form of gun control and confiscation would be a terrible precedent and would signal the beginning of the end for America.