The only

time I ever had any success in math subjects in school

was when I had a teacher who used what he called

"the arithmetic method" to teach algebra.

Instead of

having us memorize the formula, he taught us to reason

out the problem. I was just getting the hang of that and

doing pretty well at it when the year was over and I

moved on to another teacher who used a different method,

and that's why I'm a news hack instead of a computer

programmer today, I suppose.

I wonder...

if more teachers taught critical thinking skills instead

of rote memorization, would we have a more well-ordered

society than we do?

What's got

me thinking in this vein is the current mindless, robotic

acceptance by many of the idea that we can get guns out

of the hands of criminals by buying them, or by writing

more gun control laws.

President

Clinton plans to use $15 million to buy back guns as a

way to reduce "gun violence." I'm not sure why

gun violence is worse than knife violence or baseball bat

violence, but so far the president hasn't offered me

anything for my Ted Williams Special.

Anyway,

let's try and walk through the concept of either buying

or restricting guns as a way of making a dent in

"gun violence."

I'll try to

sum up the thinking behind the buy-back programs and

restrictions, and you folks who are on the other side of

this issue please set me straight if I don't state it

correctly.

Given: Many

people are killed and wounded by guns on a regular basis,

including many highly publicized rampages by insane

people who find a crowded place and start blazing away.

Given: Many

people are killed or wounded by guns accidentally.

Given: Guns

are easily available in our society.

Premise: If

guns are easily available and people are being killed and

wounded by guns, then making guns less available would

reduce the number of people killed and wounded by guns.

Premise:

Purchasing and melting down large numbers of guns will

reduce the number of guns available to violent people who

want to shoot other people and to those who might be hurt

accidentally. Restricting the sale of guns will reduce

that number even further, and the result will be that

fewer people will be killed or wounded by guns.

Conclusion:

We must buy guns and melt them down, and we must pass

laws restricting the sale of guns.

It sounds

logical enough until you start bringing in additional

information, variables that affect the equation.

For

instance, one must ask oneself: When governments and

charitable groups offer people money to turn in their

guns to be melted down, how many of those people bring in

all of their

guns, and how many of them bring their old broken guns

that they've been meaning to throw away anyhow? Also, how

many people go out and steal guns so they will be able to

get the $50 being offered? It's a better price than they

would get from a fence, and it's safer.

In

announcing his buy-back program using $15 million that he

took from you and me, the president declared that the

program was going to get guns out of the hands of

criminals. Again, one must ask, how many of those who are

truly selling their guns because they believe in what the

president is trying to do are criminals? How many are law

abiding citizens who had been keeping guns for

protection, and now are giving up that protection?

Still, it

may be logical to conclude that a few people do fit into

the last category, and that a few of them would have had

accidents with those guns if they had kept them, or would

have shot someone in the heat of an argument. Perhaps a

few lives are being saved, maybe four or five at a cost

of a few million each.

But then

you have to ask: Of this group, how many will be

assaulted, raped, killed who would have been able to

prevent this from happening if they had kept their guns?

How many

crimes would have been prevented and now won't be?

The

argument for more government restrictions still may sound

logical until you look at the facts, which are that

everywhere that guns have been restricted, violent crime

has gone up. Everywhere that gun laws have been loosened,

violent crime has gone down.

How could

this be? There's only one possible explanation, and it is

the one that takes into account the human equation:

criminals would rather prey on innocent, law-abiding

citizens in areas where they have reason to believe those

citizens will be unarmed.

Check the

crime stats in Kennesaw, Ga., since that city passed a

law requiring

every citizen to own a gun. It's not enforced, of course.

I don't know of anyone who has ever been fined or

imprisoned for not owning a gun. But it certainly gives

criminals something to think about.

And what

people think and how they behave are the main variables

that the anti-gun contingent forget about when they start

trying to reason this thing out.

Here are a

few more "givens" to go with the ones above.

Given:

People who obey laws are law-abiding people. Those who do

not obey laws are criminals.

Given:

Criminals do not obey laws.

Premise: If

criminals do not obey laws, they will not obey gun

control laws.

Premise: If

criminals don't obey gun laws, and law-abiding citizens

do, then criminals will have guns and law-abiding

citizens will not.

Conclusion:

The more gun control laws are passed, the more

law-abiding citizens will be at the mercy of violent

criminals.

Point to

ponder: Guns can be used to protect or to harm. Maybe we

should concentrate our laws and restrictions on those who

are doing the harm, rather than on the law-abiding

citizens who use guns for protection.