Gun Control Called "Absurd" on Anti-Gun Website

To say the very least, articles questioning the advisability of gun control are few and far between on HuffingtonPost.com. Recently, however, a blogger on the normally anti-gun website expressed views that are liable to work gun control supporters into a tizzy.

In a piece titled In Gun Control Controversy, Can Americans Handle the Truth?, self-described public relations consultant Mario Almonte says that in countries plagued by corrupt governments, violent religious fanatics, and civil war, people would "welcome guns to protect themselves and their families” and would consider gun control "absurd" and its advocates "extraordinarily naïve."

Essentially endorsing gun ownership in the dangerous places that Almonte mentions – the Middle East, Mexico, South America, and some countries in Africa – is one thing. But Almonte goes further, questioning whether Americans can trust "lawmakers of this particular government [to] never choose sides and turn their armies against each other, as they did during the Civil War, to resolve their disagreement over a bitterly disputed topic."

On the other hand, Almonte concludes that "there is no easy answer to the question of gun control," because he thinks data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that "the number of gun deaths in the U.S. continues to rise every year and may soon surpass those from vehicle traffic deaths."

He's mistaken about firearm-related death trends, however. According to the CDC, the annual number of firearm-related deaths has declined one percent, and the per capita rate of such deaths has declined 28 percent, since 1981, the first year for which data are available. As part of those trends, the annual number and per capita rate of firearm homicides have decreased 26 percent and 46 percent, respectively, and the annual number and rate of firearm accident deaths have decreased 73 percent and 81 percent, respectively, since 1981.

It's not what gun control supporters want to hear. But, then again, neither was Almonte's unexpected recognition of the use of firearms for protection of life and liberty.

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