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Statistics
Aug
13
unicef and more Jamaican Gun Control. I’m shocked! Shocked! Yet another gun law failure.
August 13, 2008 | Tagged Darfur, gun courts, Gun Law Failures, Jamaica, U.N., unicef |
A few weeks ago, we received a letter from unicef soliciting money to help out in violence-ridden Darfur. If you’re as old as I am, you may remember that as children, many of us used to take our little milk cartons and go door to door doing the “Trick or treat for unicef!” number, instead of collecting candy for our greedy selves.
(Don’t blame me for the capitalization anomalies re: unicef/UNICEF. It’s unicef on their letterhead and UNICEF in the texts of their letters and web pages. I think it’s probably reflective of the confusion and indecision that seem to be the hallmarks of the UN, but then, I could be mistaken.)
Since those days of innocent youth, I have become more and more suspicious of the United Nations’ motivations and tactics. On June 5th of this year, the unicef Press centre issued a News note to the effect that Gun control is an “urgent priority for Jamaica.”
Since I am one of those people to whom gun control is a good eye and a steady hand, I was “interested” in their press release. It seems that the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and UNICEF issued an appeal to all “stakeholders to stem the illegal flow and use of small arms in Jamaica, saying gun control-combined with long-term social interventions-are critical to curb the armed violence that has enveloped the country.”
“UNDP and UNICEF expressed deep concern for the effect of the spiraling murder rate on children and their communities… The agencies said small arms, which include machine guns, shotguns, assault rifles and other deadly firearms are the dominant weapons used in the violence sweeping the island.”
Why am I shocked (and somewhat bitter) over the apparent need for more gun control in Jamaica? Because Jamaica has had draconian anti-gun ownership laws since the 1970’s! And, like virtually everywhere else where local civic education, moral values and religion have broken down under nanny state meddling, gun control has been an abject, catastrophic failure.
David Kopel, a preeminent scholar in the field of Second Amendment issues detailed Jamaica’s gun laws in his landmark book, The Samurai, The Mountie, and the Cowboy, Should America Adopt the Gun Controls of other Democracies?, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY, 1992. Pages 257-277.
In 1974, the Jamaican Government licensed gun owners and allowed no new guns to be introduced onto the island. The government conducted warrant-less searches for guns and essentially outlawed private ownership. They set up a “Gun Court” to try firearms’ offenses. Violators could, in theory, be sentenced to life in prison for possession of one illegal bullet. (Pages 260, 261)
Violence went down in 1974. In 1975, violence went up. In 1978, one in three adults in Kingston, Jamaica reported having been robbed. (Pages 263, 265) By 1998, the situation had not much improved.
Apparently, despite 34 years of strict gun control, there is still violence in Jamaica that is “sweeping the island.” I am shocked! Jamaica isan island! It is not a big island. Don’t they have enough patrol boats to guard every small beach and inlet? Don’t they have enough police to conduct warrantless searches of every house on every street? Don’t they have enough prisons to house the offenders?
The answer, of course, to all those questions is, “No.” No country that turns itself into a prison by disarming its people has enough police, coast guard, air force, army, secret police, gestapo, or other security forces to establish and maintain a relatively civil order. Once a government loses the confidence and respect of the people it supposedly serves, the society descends into warfare against itself. It happened in this country during Prohibition. “Ordinary” citizens (to use a Liberal term) decided that the government was off the rails in banning liquor. Bootlegging, moonshining, corruption, and a cosmic rise in organized crime followed the ban in natural succession.
There is an old story about a European who visited Colonial America. He was strolling with an American friend, when they saw George Washington walking alone on the street. “But where is his guard?” The European asked. “Who protects him?” The American slapped his chest and replied. “I do!”
It is not armored vests, armored cars, and more and bigger guns that ultimately protect law enforcement officers and public officials in a free society. If they are to be relatively safe, they are protected by the trust and the positive moral values of the people that they serve.
Jamaica is a member state of the United Nations, which we should remember is made up of precious few countries with remotely representative governments. Oh yeah! And the Sudan, where Darfur is located, was on the UN Human Rights Commission. Things were so bad on this commission that the name was changed to protect the guilty. The new name of the group is the Human Rights Council.
Somehow, I don’t think I’ll be sending money to either the Democrat Party or unicef this year. The Dems want the UN to have greater influence here. I have serious doubts about the desirability of UN influence anywhere. The UN experiences in Darfur and Jamaica inspire confidence in neither their competence nor their motives.
Def Mech
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