Jeff Hague of Ellendale is the president and legislative liaison of the Delaware State Sportsmen’s Association.
I’m writing in response to Peter Graffagnino’s Opinion titled, “Gun violence response better in other nations.” My first point: There is no such thing as gun violence. It is human violence. The gun is an object. It has no emotional qualities. Again, as I have stated many times, it is the person behind the object who is responsible for violent acts. Using a term such as “gun violence” is nothing more than an effort by those who would ban firearms to evoke an emotional response from those who are susceptible by attempting to attach a human quality to the object.
Mr. Graffagnino cites a mailing from “BRADY United Against Gun Violence” that he received. The Brady group is nothing more than an organization that would disarm law-abiding citizens. It has been around in various forms since Mr. James Brady was wounded in the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan. In fact, the “Brady Bill” was passed back in 1993 and created the first background check system on a federal level.
The primary problem with using statistics from other countries is that you end up making an apple-to-orange comparison. Why? Because here, in the United States, we have the constitutional guarantee of the right to keep and bear arms by virtue of the Second Amendment, something no other country has. Similarly, we have the right to free speech enshrined in the First Amendment, as well as the remaining eight. Those are rights that are not provided by the government but are preordained as our rights as people. They cannot be taken away by government.
He speaks of Australia and New Zealand as examples of countries that have banned semiautomatic firearms and “high-capacity” magazines, as well as created gun registries. He doesn’t mention that noncompliance rates are extremely high in those countries. He mentions gun buybacks. How can a government buy back something it never owned? What he does point out by mentioning those countries is how fast people’s rights can be taken away by a tyrannical government.
There are only about nine states that regulate semiautomatic firearms, and Delaware is one. Conservatively speaking, there are over 22 million AR-style firearms in the United States and almost 1 billion so-called high-capacity magazines, which are actually standard capacity. That fact was even acknowledged by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan in the recent case of Smith & Wesson Brands Inc. v. Mexico.
As I mentioned earlier, it is not the object that is the problem. It is a fact that liberals do not want to deal with the individual and hold him or her accountable. My position: Use a firearm in the commission of a crime and go to jail. No probation, no early release. Criminals in jail cannot commit crimes in the community.
The General Assembly and the attorney general here in Delaware do not believe in holding criminals accountable. Why else would they institute no cash bail, probation rather than incarceration and concerted efforts to reduce the prison population? These policies have resulted in a 77% rearrest rate of criminals within three years of their release from prison.
Finally, Mr. Graffagnino mentions 40,000 lives lost each year. Actually, it is more like 33,000, with over 25,000 by suicide. That leaves about 12,000 homicides, a vast majority of which are committed in urban areas and are the result of gangs and drugs. Here, in Delaware, an average of 75% of both victims and suspects in shootings each year have multiple prior felony arrests for firearm violations, according to the Delaware Statistical Analysis Center. That means that bad people are shooting bad people. Also, a large number of shootings are committed by those between the ages of 14 and 25, the prime age for gang membership.
In closing, in many regards, one cannot compare the United States to other countries because of our constitutional protections. It is extremely misleading to even try.
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