Chariho Times, RI
July 14 2005

Gun law doesn’t help victims, hurts second amendment
07/14/2005

Rhode Island’s newest gun control measure creates a dan-gerous
precedent.
Surely, those who created and supported the law had, and have only
the best of intentions.
Any attempt to curb and pre-vent domestic violence is to be
commended. It’s a problem that needs to be addressed. The state’s
newest gun control leg-islation, which requires gun owners with
permanent re-straining orders against them to relinquish their guns,
brings the issue of domestic violence closer to the forefront.
To truly end domestic vio-lence, we need to change hearts and minds,
not gun laws. Re-gardless of how cliché it is, the old saying ‘guns
don’t kill peo-ple, people kill people’ rings true.
In wake of a gun-related mur-der, law officials and lawmakers
immediately place the blame on guns, overlooking the fact that the
trigger had to be pulled by someone.
Advocates of domestic vio-lence prevention are hailing the new gun
control law as trium-phant, but the law’s exceptions mock the efforts
made by the group.
For instance, the measure re-quires people with permanent restraining
orders to either sur-render their firearms to police, sell them to a
local arms dealer, or leave them with a non-blood relative or a
friend.
Leaving a firearm with a friend is completely against the spirit of
the law, because it would be far too easy for the person deemed a
danger to re-gain the weapon.
Also, the law makes exemp-tions. If people named with permanent
restraining orders are so dangerous, why allow people who work as
police officers, se-curity guards, or private investi-gators to carry
the weapons? Surely, that person could do just as much damage with
firearms during their work hours as any other time. Thus, the spirit
of the law is broken
The law does more to curb the second amendment, the right to bear
arms, than protect victims of domestic violence.
As Chariho residents have pointed out, the law prosecutes a thought
crime. A person who has a restraining order against them isn’t a
criminal. Many Rhode Islanders who have never broken the law will be
stripped of their second amendment rights.
Usually, when a gun-control law is passed, there is a trade off:
liberty for safety.
What’s remarkable about this law is that the normal trade off doesn’t
even take place. With this law, Rhode Island residents lose liberty,
but gain no safety.
Lastly, and most scary, is the fact that this law could be just
another step in disarming the law abiding American public. We ought
to remember history’s lessons before we let the dema-gogues in the
state house pull that one off.
In 1915 the Turkish Govern-ment committed a genocide against an
unarmed Armenian populace. Vladimir Lenin dis-armed the Russians, and
a gen-eration later Stalin committed genocide against the Kulaks.
Adolph Hitler disarmed the German populace before com-mitting a
genocide against the Jewish people.
These atrocities never happen to an armed citizenry.
The second amendment was written into the Constitution for a reason.
Let’s not forget it.