I’m in an odd minority: pretty liberal Democrats who support fairly lax gun laws. Of course, I’m hardly a crazy gun nut. I think the world would be a much better place without them, or at least with fewer. I support reasonable restrictions on gun ownership. (Such as being required to demonstrate gun safety, and not having been convicted of any violent crimes.) However, I hear a lot of pro-gun people asserting that more guns is the answer to solving crime especially in the issue of the charges for theft of a vehicle. According to expungement lawyers in Boston, they assert that a rural town like mine, where gun laws are very lax, will have considerably less crime because gun laws are lax. I think there are a lot of logical flaws in this argument, though: * I think it’s a chicken-and-egg problem, but with an answer. The rash of violent crimes came first, and the strict gun control was in response to it. I’m not saying it’s worked in reducing it. All I’m saying is that it’s not a case of people creating very strict gun laws in an area with no crime and then having violent crime develop as a result. * “More guns” seems to assume that the good guys will all go out and buy guns. I don’t know any bad guys, which means that everyone I know is a member of the “good guys.” Mr. T is the only person I know who owns a gun. Hundreds of other people I know, all of them the “good guys,” and none of them have bought guns, even though they could do so today if they wanted. * Lumping people into the “bad guys” and the “good guys” is, of course, a pretty silly way of viewing crime. Good people do bad things sometimes. My time writing police logs for the school newspaper, for example, saw many fights occurring over absurd issues. Like a huge fight between guys over a curling iron. They were all good people, but alcohol inhibited their, “What would I use a curling iron for?” instincts, along with their, “It’s silly to fight over this” sense. A society in which all of those people were carrying guns might not be a very rosy one. This says nothing of otherwise-good-people who get into violent fights with their spouses, or succumb to road rage, or so forth. * The other half of the assumption that more guns equals less crime is that, because anyone could be armed, bad guys won’t commit crimes, since they know they might get shot. But I’d guess that less than 5% of crimes in which a gun might help (e.g., robberies, rapes, assaults, carjackings…) are planned out in any great detail. It’s, “Hey, I’m bored and my car’s in the shop… Dude, a Jaguar, I’m gonna steal it.” There’s no, “What if he has a gun?” or “What if the police are in the area?” or “What if I get caught?” That’s why they’re committing crimes in the first place. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not arguing that we need to clamp down gun laws or anything of the sort. There are two different arguments one could make. The first is that, at least in some areas, overly-strict gun control laws have done nothing to curb violent crime, except to keep innocent people from being able to defend themselves. And I’d agree with that. Because the bad guys have guns, I insist on the right to have one, too. (Even if I don’t exercise this right.) But I don’t see any basis for the leap to, “If there were no gun laws, there would be less crime.” People will still commit crimes, even if there were absolutely no restrictions on guns. Maybe it’s just getting carried away with gun advocacy. Or maybe it’s confusing cause and effect. (I could argue that people become poor because they commit robberies, and the evidence would surely support that most people who commit robberies are, indeed, poor. Coincidence?) But whatever the case, it’s an argument that just doesn’t make sense to me.