Fact: Even Gandhi Opposed Gun Bans
In a major reality blast to those who tote gun bans in the name of Mahatma Gandhi and other famous leaders, it is actually a little-known fact that Gandhi himself was openly opposed to gun bans. In fact, he proclaimed a nationwide gun disarmament to be the ‘blackest’ deed of the entire British ruling period in India.
If you haven’t heard about this information, I am not surprised. In the past, merely posting Gandhi’s exact quote on this subject without any additional information has led to major Facebook accounts with hundreds of thousands of fans to be swiftly banned. The first of which was the Facebook page of Mike Adam’s NaturalNews, who shared an image of Gandhi’s quote verbatim only to receive the ban hammer from Facebook administrators. So watch out, this information might get you clubbed from the largest social media network in the world for even sharing it.
But
what is this quote exactly and did Gandhi really write it? Well, the
quote comes from an autobiography by Gandhi, entitled “Mohandas Gandhi,
an Autobiography.”
On page 446, you will find this very serious quote regarding the way in
which British rulers disarmed the entire population that Gandhi had
crusaded for. Ultimately, this action led to the governmental ability to
control this populace due to their inability to defend themselves. Gandhi writes:“Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.”Yes, this is really Gandhi saying this. He actually studied the history on this issue and knew that disarming the people is not the right way to deal with crime, or military enemies — both foreign and domestic.
And it’s important to understand why Gandhi is saying this. It’s not because he is some warmonger who felt the need to incite unnecessary violence. In fact Gandhi is most well known for being an activist for peaceful and intellectual revolution. So why would an individual who many would consider a prominent symbol of peace say that the absolute blackest, most nefarious deed of the very British rule that he fought against was to disarm the public? Or how about how he talks about the bravery of self-defense?
It’s a matter of examining history and even modern day statistics.
Gandhi Knew Guns in the Hands of Citizens Made the Nation Safer
Gandhi knew something that has been lost in modern day society due to what’s known as normalcy bias, which is prevalent in most first world nations. Normalcy bias is, essentially, the assumption that nothing drastically bad will ever happen — a mindset brought upon thanks to a cushy lifestyle. Commonly seen in places like the United States, living circumstances condition an individual into assuming that everything will continue to be just fine. Gandhi knew about the effects of widespread normalcy bias.Gandhi also knew that when law-abiding citizens are stripped of their right to carry a weapon that they become defenseless, and ruthless tyrants can take over. Sound familiar? That’s right, Gandhi’s principals here echo the very principals in which the Constitution was constructed on. Gandhi had highlighted the British ban on firearms an absolute tragedy and warned against its implications just as the founding fathers of the United States escaped such regulation and formulated a plan to prevent it here in the distant future.
Not the same Gandhi you know? Gandhi has actually advocated the use of firearms in defense time and time again. Here we see it once more:
“Hence also do I advocate training in arms for those who believe in the method of violence. I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honor than that she should in a cowardly manner become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonor,” Gandhi wrote in his work The Doctrine of the Sword.He continues to break down how self-defense is actually rooted in bravery:
“When violence] is offered in self-defence or for the defence of the defenceless, it is an act of bravery far better than cowardly submission.”But is history really all we have to go on? A major argument that, despite ignoring the history and pretending that we live in a perfect world thanks once again to overarching normalcy bias, is that our modern society is no longer applicable to these rules once held as the supreme law of the land by the creators of the Constitution.
As it turns out, Gandhi was way ahead of his time on the subject as well, even when it pertains to self defense and the relationship between guns and crime levels.
It’s all detailed heavily in an article I believe to be one of the most information on the issue entitled A Brief and Bloody History of Gun Control, but as it turns full-scale gun bans actually do not seem to prevent crime but enhance it. We’ve even seen many mass shootings occur specifically inside ‘gun free’ zones, with Batman shooter James Holmes even travelling to the one movie theater in the area that did not allow for law abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons while viewing the film.
In cities like Chicago, where extreme gun bans went into effect with the written goal of ‘stopping crime’, we actually see a dramatic spike in crimes committed with the very banned guns themselves. We can actually examine data from law enforcement and utilize a visual example to analyze the statistics. Written into law back in 1982, Chicago’s murder rate via handgun absolutely went haywire following the ban. Meanwhile, the United States as a whole actually saw a considerable and steady decline in murder rates as the sale of guns increased.
Two separate figures that do not equal causation? Sure, but let’s look at this visual to look at how many murders were taking place with banned weapons before and after the gun ban went into effect:
But as it turns out, criminals were getting a hold of the handguns illegally and firing on citizens who could not defend themselves. Sure, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says to defend yourself with scissors from an armed gunmen, but in the real world when criminals know you don’t have a firearm then you don’t stand a chance. On the flip side, however, we know that studies reveal around 40% of criminals reported not committing a crime due to the fear that the victim had a firearm.
No comments:
Post a Comment