The rationale that gun-rights advocates use to further loosen the already exceedingly modest restrictions on the sale and possession of firearms in Mississippi is seriously flawed.
They claim that the only way to combat the threat of gun violence from criminals and the insane is to make it easier for potential victims to be armed almost anywhere they want to go.
This had led in recent years to laws that allow the open carrying of a firearm without a permit, the carrying of concealed weapons with a permit on college campuses and unposted places of business, the cloaking in secrecy of the names of those who have acquired concealed-carry permits, and the creation of a right to shoot to kill to protect property.
The Legislature is not done either. With gun-toting lawyer and preacher Rep. Andy Gipson of Simpson County leading the charge, lawmakers are considering proposals this year to allow churches to designate members to be armed inside their houses of worship and to allow people with enhanced concealed-carry permits to bring guns into courthouses, overriding the discretion of judges.
Will these changes, if enacted, make Mississippi safer? Not a chance. If anything, they will make this state even more likely to be a place where you can be wounded or killed by a firearm.
David Clark is a Jackson attorney who chairs the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Gun Violence.
He recently wrote an op-ed piece for The Clarion-Ledger that produced a lot of statistics showing there is zero correlation between loose gun laws and public safety. If anything, the opposite conclusion could be drawn.
According to Clark, Mississippi has some of the highest rates in the nation for firearm homicides in general, firearm homicides of women, firearm deaths of children, firearm homicides of police officers, and firearm death rates of all causes. The state, because of its gun culture and the ease in which firearms can be purchased, is the No. 1 state in the nation for gun traffickers to buy guns and take them to other states, where they are used for crimes, Clark said. In other words, our loose regulations not only put our own citizens at greater risk but also endanger those who live in other states.
We know what the gun-rights crowd will counter. They will point to the high rate of firearm violence in cities such as Chicago and Washington, which had highly restrictive gun laws before some of them were struck down by the courts, and claim that as proof that gun control doesn’t work. What they fail to acknowledge, though, is that congested urban areas are by their nature more prone to violent crime than rural states such as Mississippi should be, and that a lot of the guns used in crimes in these urban areas are imported from places where gun laws are less strict, such as Mississippi.
Mississippi has put itself on a counterproductive and dangerous cycle. It passes less restrictions on guns to supposedly combat gun violence. The fewer restrictions produce more gun violence, which then leads to even more legislation to remove other restrictions.
It is a death spiral, pure and simple, and sadly the political leadership in this state is too blind to see it.
