Lima News: Good theology, but RIGHT hand does not know what Left is doing

The Lima News has published an excellent editorial examining the expansive growth of violent crime in countries where guns are banned. It starts like this:

A Gun Lesson From Britain

All too often, government officials believe the cure for a failing policy is more of the same. That’s the case with a near-total ban in firearms in Great Britain. Gun control activists and politicians in the United States often point to Britain and Australia as models of “reasonable” gun control. We’ll follow their lead and use England as an example.

Since a ban on all handguns, most rifles and many shotguns went into effect in 1997, violent crime has risen 69 percent, with murders going up 54 percent. That bucks the trend of previous years, when the rate of violent crime was falling, according to economist John Lott of the American Enterprise Institute.

Is it a coincidence that the sudden increase in violent crime followed the ban? Perhaps; there’s no hard data yet to be able to make a causal connection. But is it also a coincidence that the same phenomenon has been noticed in Australia and New Zealand after those countries enacted strict gun control laws that left law-abiding citizens unarmed and at the mercy of armed criminals? That’s a major drawback to gun-control laws — only law-abiding citizens follow them. Criminals aren’t going to turn in their firearms just because the government says to.

Nor, or course, will criminals refrain from bringing guns into the Lima News' offices just because the company posts signs banning concealed carry.

FLASHBACK: Say it Ain't So! Lima News, longtime proponent of CCW, posts No-Guns signs

Does the phrase "what's good for the goose" mean anything to this newspaper? Or perhaps "practice what you preach"?

The person responsible for posting these signs is publisher Stephen C. Johnson. Mr. Johnson can be reached at 419-993-2073 or [email protected].