Wake up, students. The true and only aim of those who lead the gun control movement is confiscation of guns. They care not for “the children.” They care not for freedom. They care not for facts or crime prevention. They care not for reality, but only for their misguided ivory-tower ideas they want to force on America.

Witness the state of California. It has recently passed new gun control laws. The first I heard of required parents to lock their guns up tight when they left children home alone. A result of this law was the deaths of two children and the maiming of a third. This occurred when a man wielding a pitchfork broke into a house, after cutting the phone lines, and hacked up a 7-year-old and 9-year-old in their beds. He wounded a 13-year-old. A 14-year-old girl, who knew how to shoot, could have ended it with a few bullets, but daddy’s gun was locked up tight. Presumably to save some kids’ lives.

She had to leave the house and go to the neighbors - who refused to shoot the perpetrator - to dial 911.

When the police arrived, they promptly shot the perpetrator. Wonderful, isn’t it? But let’s consider the number of children accidentally shot each year. In 1997, there were five - yes five - children under 10 years of age accidentally killed with a firearm in the United States according to “More Guns, Less Crime,” by John Lott Jr. You see the need for the law now, right?

Now, if you want, go to www.nralive.com and click on California gun confiscation. People who legally bought a rifle, pistol or even shotgun years ago are now “criminals.” Why? Because the definition of “assault weapon” has just been changed in California, making hundreds of previously legal guns illegal. The owners of these guns are now given the choice of giving up their firearms or being terrorized by the state and being imprisoned. This should stop the rampant crime by those shifty people who hang out down at the Veterans of Foreign Wars hall and police officers who own these instruments of destruction, right? Are the Bloods and the Crips giving up their semiautomatic weapons? I wouldn’t bet my life on it.

Crime rates, statistics and causes do not matter. Crime prevention is not the aim of the gun control groups. Erosion of your freedom is. If you think you’ve got freedom of speech, but have no way to enforce it, do you really?

Wake up before it’s too late.

Gregory Brown
chemistry and computer
science senior