Laws don’t stop criminals…

…they make criminals

Whenever tragedy strikes, a call rises from the masses for Congress to “do something.” We see it all the time, when there are accidents, terrorism occurs, someone feels slighted, or every time there is a shooting of any sort, especially a school shooting. Without fail, public servants politicize the precipitated paroxysm proposing proscription of people’s privileges. In plain English, that call to “do something,” whether it comes from the politicians or the people, always entails the authoring of bills and acts that invariably further infringe the rights of law-abiding citizens. 

In the wake of the recent attack at Apalachee High School in Georgia, right on cue, politicians (at least on the left) began calling for a ban on “assault weapons” (a term they can’t even define with terms more technical or specific than “scary,” “black,” or “AR”), as well as implementation of other restrictions. All of these violate the restriction placed on government by the Second Amendment in its intent to protect and preserve the right of the people to keep and bear arms. This isn’t about the Second Amendment though; it’s about the result of putting laws like these in place, and the call for “common sense gun control” just happens to serve as an apt example.

The problem is two-fold. First, is that such laws often contravene the Constitution, overstep governmental authority, and just add to an already bloated library of legislation. Second is that all these laws do little more than make criminals of otherwise upstanding citizens.

James Madison wrote, in the Federalist 62, “It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.” Perhaps you’ve heard this quote before. There are estimates of the existence of anywhere from 3,000 to 300,000 federal laws (no one actually knows how many there are). That does not even include any regulatory “rules” that are, for all intents and purposes, treated as law (even though only Congress has constitutional authority to author legislation).

Thus, Madison’s concern is a state to which we have attained, not a feat of which we should be proud. I say this because, though you may be familiar with Madison’s writing, many are not familiar with the writings of Harvey Silverglate.

Haven’t heard of him? Mr. Silverglate wrote the book Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent. Amazon’s description of the book begins with the following:

The average professional in this country wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes that day. Why? The answer lies in the very nature of modern federal criminal laws, which have exploded in number but also become impossibly broad and vague.

Yes, you yourself may very well be committing three felonies daily. Intentionally or unintentionally, our governmental glut creates criminals from commoners. Back to our example, enacting a legal ban against any particular type of weapon would simply make lawbreakers of currently-legal owners of those weapons. We (almost) saw this when the ATF attempted to write a rule delegitimizing pistol braces. Millions are owned across the country, and had that rule not been countered by the courts, it would have resulted likewise in millions of felons.

None of this, however, would have prevented the happenings of September 4th in Georgia. The shooter is 14 years old. Section 16-7-84 of Georgia State Law makes it “unlawful for any person to distribute or to offer to distribute a destructive device [firearm]…to any person who is under 21 years of age.” The shooter had the firearm in a school building. Section 16-11-127.1 of Georgia State Law makes it “unlawful for any person to carry to or to possess or have under such person's control while within a school safety zone [in a school building]…any weapon…” The shooter discharged his weapon with an intent to harm and/or kill. We all know this is against the law.

The question then is, what additional laws would have stopped the shooter shooting up the school? The answer is: none. The laws already in place that make such actions illegal did not stop the shooter - they merely confirm that the shooter had no intention of obeying the law, which, by definition, makes him a criminal.

It seems difficult for people to grasp this concept, especially in the aftermath of lost lives, but it is both a sound principle and one that extends far beyond arms and harms. In the long run, these laws rob us of our liberty, that liberty which is a foundational right that government is instituted to protect (see the Declaration of Independence), and serve to supplant citizenship with subjection. When you realize this, you’ll understand the politician’s true purpose in proposing addition proscriptions.

To quote Dr. Floyd Ferris from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged:

Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?…We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against—then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted—and you create a nation of law-breakers—and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with.