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The Daily Tar Heel

Letter: Negative side effects 
of gun control laws

TO THE EDITOR:

After the tragic shooting in Oregon, progressive gun control advocates took the opportunity to push their agenda — this time, condescendingly phrasing their methods as “common sense” solutions. Yet they seem not to want to face the consequences that will result from their “solutions.”

Progressives have laid out a good argument about voter ID laws disenfranchising poor and minority voters — so by the same logic, stricter licensing laws and more thorough background checks requiring identification would naturally make it harder for the poor and for minorities to purchase firearms for self-defense or sport. There’s little evidence that these laws would stop the average mass shooter, and we know that the Oregon shooter passed several background checks. Why then should we make it harder for minorities and the impoverished to defend their lives and property?

Other “common sense” solutions point towards a more complete gun control — either by mandatory buyback, or, if that doesn’t work, forced confiscation. Yet again, this “common sense” solution is not so common sense. There are roughly 300 million firearms in the United States, and it would be an impossible task to track down and unconstitutionally confiscate these weapons. Buybacks have been tried in several U.S. states, with no evidence that they have reduced homicide rates. Even if buybacks were effective, what about the inevitable hold outs who would not turn in their weapons? Are progressives comfortable with paramilitary police forces scouring the country looking for these firearms?

The same progressives who decry (rightfully) police brutality in our cities? Who decry (rightfully) the disproportionate effects drug prohibition, and the civil rights violations it has encouraged, have on minorities? It must be quite the intellectual leap for them to believe this would be a peaceful endeavor that would not result in similar targeting of underprivileged areas, or would not result in gross civil rights violations, such as no-knock raids being carried out in the dead of night in search of weapons held by innocent citizens. If we want to reduce the amount of police violence in the United States, it makes little sense to create yet another victimless crime that would have to be enforced with similar rights-violating tactics.

A debate must and will be had on what we as a society can do about mass shootings. But, progressives, let’s stop pretending that these “common sense” gun regulations don’t also come with devastating, “common sense” consequences.

Tuck Kennedy

President

UNC Young Americans for Liberty

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