All Alone in the Night

There are some articles one reads that force you to ask if the author is not making it clear enough that he's joking, or if he's just seriously deranged. At the top of that list is Dan Simpson's piece examining how to rid America of guns in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings last week. In this piece Simpson explains his plan for ridding America of all its guns and making the world a better place. Let's take a look.

First of all, federal or state laws would need to make it a crime punishable by a $1,000 fine and one year in prison per weapon to possess a firearm. The population would then be given three months to turn in their guns, without penalty.

A logical first step, although Simpson must be intelligent enough to realize that many people would not, in fact, be willing to turn in their weapons. Simpson explains how hunters would be permitted to keep their weapons in a centrally located armory and could withdraw them with a hunting license and that weapons with historic significance would be placed in museums. Then he gets down to the nitty gritty: how he would root out those guns not turned in willingly.

The disarmament process would begin after the initial three-month amnesty. Special squads of police would be formed and trained to carry out the work. Then, on a random basis to permit no advance warning, city blocks and stretches of suburban and rural areas would be cordoned off and searches carried out in every business, dwelling, and empty building. All firearms would be seized. The owners of weapons found in the searches would be prosecuted: $1,000 and one year in prison for each firearm.

Clearly, since such sweeps could not take place all across the country at the same time. But fairly quickly there would begin to be gun-swept, gun-free areas where there should be no firearms. If there were, those carrying them would be subject to quick confiscation and prosecution. On the streets it would be a question of stop-and-search of anyone, even grandma with her walker, with the same penalties for "carrying."

This is where the reader has to wonder: is Simpson serious, in which case he is a dangerous man whose right to vote should be arguably taken away from him, or is he attempting to illustrate just how ridiculous the idea of eliminating guns from society is? I hope it is the latter, but I fear for the former.

What Simpson is proposing is nothing less than a police state. He wants to empower the government to search you and your property at any time for no particular reason. That is precisely the type of tyranny the United States was founded to protect citizens against, yet Simpson apparently would welcome being subjected to that kind of treatment. If he is serious, and I continue to hope the article was intended as some kind of poorly-executed parody, I hope Simpson will do us all a favor and move to some place like North Korea or Cuba, where gun crime is low and the citizens are subject to just the kinds of treatment Simpson advocates.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans have fought and died over the years to preserve certain fundamental liberties from tyranny. People like Simpson illustrate why it is so important to continue that fight even today, because there is no one more dangerous than a man who wants to do things for your own good.

Hat tip: QandO.