I have several friends who believe the government should have a say in what guns we own. As is often the case, a law doesn’t make it so. But we can at least try, right?

I can’t imagine what it would be like to suddenly be exposed to random gunfire. If the gun wasn’t there, no problem. The same as if the drugs weren’t there, there would be no drug addicts. We’ve had 80 years to legislate drug addiction into oblivion. Wishing doesn’t guarantee results.

There’s a place we like to go to eat gyros. It’s adjoining a laundromat. A porch across the street has an overstuffed couch and a dog chained-up on bare dirt by the broken steps. The window of the gyro place has a sign, “No firearms allowed.”

If I had a choice going there for one of their excellent gyros who would I choose as a fellow customer? Jonathan Sapirman or Elisjsha Dicken?

In Greenwood Park Mall south of Indianapolis our choice would have been clear. Sapirman came to kill. Dicken came to shop with his girlfriend. Against the rules of the mall each carried a gun.

Starting from 40 yards away, Dicken swiftly approached the murderer while motioning shoppers toward safety. He fired ten shots, hitting Sapirman eight times. Sapirman killed three and wounded two before Dicken put an end to him.

The media that is raising our kids and influencing voters today would have us believe accuracy like that with a pistol is common. It is not. Elisjsha Dicken was simply a good person with an interest in guns and trained by his grandfather. He didn’t call 911 or get training in any official capacity. There are lots of people like that who would have left their gun at home because the mall was a gun-free zone. Mayor Mark Meyers said Dicken “saved countless lives.”

It is easy to find statistics supporting gun control that understate legal gun ownership as a deterrent. There are no statistics for the number of times a criminal passed up a crime because of the possibility of an unseen lethal threat. The threat of the eventual presence of police officers filling out paperwork probably hasn’t stopped many crimes.

Countries all over the world are liberalizing gun ownership laws in response to rising crime. The same media that misrepresents the accurracy of handguns expressed shock when Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro liberalized gun laws.

When Bolsonaro took office the murder rate was 27.8 per 100,000 people, compared to 5 per 100,000 people in the U.S. There were about 330,000 gun owners in Brazil (strictly defined as law enforcement). Each of them paid $260 for a license with a $25 renewal fee every three years. Anyone else caught with a gun served four years in prison. Now the license fee is $18.50 every ten years.

After Bolsonsaro’s reforms, 400,000 legal gun owners were added. In three years after more than doubling the number of legal gun owners, Brazil’s murder rate has fallen 34%.

As we look around the U.S., murder rates are highest in cities with the strictest gun control. This may be a result of an attempt to rein in horrendous crime. But these laws have had time to work and things are still not improving.

Maybe it’s time to grow up and do what works instead of putting on a show. People like Elisjsha Dicken are not as rare as they are portrayed to be.

If you have the stomach, for it there is an excellent representation of crime in Brazil in the movie City of God (2002). Dawn had to quit watching but I think it might be a glimpse into our future if criminals are considered victims.

I Choose Elisjsha

I have several friends who believe the government should have a say in what guns we own. As is often the case, a law doesn’t make it so. But we can at least try, right?

I can’t imagine what it would be like to suddenly be exposed to random gunfire. If the gun wasn’t there, no problem. The same as if the drugs weren’t there, there would be no drug addicts. We’ve had 80 years to legislate drug addiction into oblivion. Wishing doesn’t guarantee results.

There’s a place we like to go to eat gyros. It’s adjoining a laundromat. A porch across the street has an overstuffed couch and a dog chained-up on bare dirt by the broken steps. The window of the gyro place has a sign, “No firearms allowed.”

If I had a choice going there for one of their excellent gyros who would I choose as a fellow customer? Jonathan Sapirman or Elisjsha Dicken?

In Greenwood Park Mall south of Indianapolis our choice would have been clear. Sapirman came to kill. Dicken came to shop with his girlfriend. Against the rules of the mall each carried a gun.

Starting from 40 yards away, Dicken swiftly approached the murderer while motioning shoppers toward safety. He fired ten shots, hitting Sapirman eight times. Sapirman killed three and wounded two before Dicken put an end to him.

The media that is raising our kids and influencing voters today would have us believe accuracy like that with a pistol is common. It is not. Elisjsha Dicken was simply a good person with an interest in guns and trained by his grandfather. He didn’t call 911 or get training in any official capacity. There are lots of people like that who would have left their gun at home because the mall was a gun-free zone. Mayor Mark Meyers said Dicken “saved countless lives.”

It is easy to find statistics supporting gun control that understate legal gun ownership as a deterrent. There are no statistics for the number of times a criminal passed up a crime because of the possibility of an unseen lethal threat. The threat of the eventual presence of police officers filling out paperwork probably hasn’t stopped many crimes.

Countries all over the world are liberalizing gun ownership laws in response to rising crime. The same media that misrepresents the accurracy of handguns expressed shock when Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro liberalized gun laws.

When Bolsonaro took office the murder rate was 27.8 per 100,000 people, compared to 5 per 100,000 people in the U.S. There were about 330,000 gun owners in Brazil (strictly defined as law enforcement). Each of them paid $260 for a license with a $25 renewal fee every three years. Anyone else caught with a gun served four years in prison. Now the license fee is $18.50 every ten years.

After Bolsonsaro’s reforms, 400,000 legal gun owners were added. In three years after more than doubling the number of legal gun owners, Brazil’s murder rate has fallen 34%.

As we look around the U.S., murder rates are highest in cities with the strictest gun control. This may be a result of an attempt to rein in horrendous crime. But these laws have had time to work and things are still not improving.

Maybe it’s time to grow up and do what works instead of putting on a show. People like Elisjsha Dicken are not as rare as they are portrayed to be.

If you have the stomach, for it there is an excellent representation of crime in Brazil in the movie City of God (2002). Dawn had to quit watching but I think it might be a glimpse into our future if criminals are considered victims.