Victim Disarmament (gun control)
“Gun control” is a term used by people who advocate regulating guns; others prefer the term “victim disarmament.” The term “victim disarmament” has been cited in print since at least March 1993, when it was used by James Jay Baker, a chief lobbyist for the National Rifle Association. Baker’s argument is that law-abiding citizens turn in their guns, but criminals keep their guns. “Gun control” laws tell the criminals that the general populace will not be armed to defend themselves. A “gun-free zone” is a “victim disarmament zone.”
14 March 1993, Indiana (PA) Gazette, “Research shows gun control only breeds crime” by James Jay Baker, pg. A3, col. 1:
EDITOR’S NOTE: James Jay Baker, a former prosecutor in Missouri, is chief lobbyist for the National Rifle Association of America. Baker wrote this essay for the Sunday opinion page of the Los Angeles Daily News.
“As opponents of gun control correctly contend, gun-control measures in the United States, if anything, contribute to increased criminal violence, because they deny guns to honest citizens but not to criminals. They might accurately be called victim-disarmament laws. Armed citizens pose a risk of punishment to criminals—perhaps more so than does the criminal-justice system.”
16 August 1996, Rockford (IL) Register Star, “Your Views,” pg. 11A, col. 5:
Don’t think of it as gun control. Think of it as victim disarmament.
—Michael Simon, Rockford
Google Books
Stopping Power:
Why 70 million Americans own guns
By J. Neil Schulman
Santa Monica, CA: Pulpless.com, Inc.
1999
Pg. 83:
Civilians carrying firearms are more safe and effective at deterring crime than are professional police.
My bottom line is my tagline:
Gun Control = Victim Disarmament & Increases Violent Crime!
Google Books
Nightkill
By F. Paul Wilson and Steven Spruill
New York, NY: Tor
1999, ©1997
Pg. 224:
“You call it gun control if you want, but I call it victim disarmament — because if it goes much further it will be only you law-abiding citizens who can’t get guns.”
OCLC WorldCat record
Death by “gun control” : the human cost of victim disarmament
Author: Aaron S Zelman; Richard W Stevens
Publisher: Hartford, WI : Mazel Freedom Press, 2001.
Edition/Format: Book : English
Google Books
When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?
By George Carlin
New York, NY: Hyperion
2004
Pg. ?:
That’s about what you’d expect, but it’s hard to find words to describe the following distortion: some of the pro-gun people are referring to gun control as victim disarmament. Isn’t that stunning? Victim disarmament! It takes your breath away. Like a gun.
Agoraphilia
Sunday, August 20, 2006
“Victim Disarmament” Instead of “Gun Control”
Posted by Tom W. Bell at 2:08 AM
I recently encountered an alternative to “gun control” that I immediately embraced as a better term: “victim disarmament.” Most political attempts to restrict access to firearms do not “control” criminals very well, leaving the rest of us at the mercy of armed aggressors. “Victim disarmament” thus describes such policies more accurately than “gun control” does. And, not incidentally, “victim disarmament” focuses attention on the policy failure that should worry us most: Harming innocent citizens who want only to uphold the law and exercise their rights to self-defense.
I thank Professor Michael Huemer, of the University of Colorado’s Philosophy Department, for introducing me to “victim disarmament.” The term has been around a while, apparently. I don’t think, however, that it has won the wide use that it deserves. Please help me change that!
Google Books
Understanding Tropes:
At the crossroads between pragmatics and cognition
By Javier Herrero Ruiz
Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang
2009
Pg. 257:
In our corpus, more examples of dysphemism can be found in:
(...)
Gun control referring to “victim disarmament.”
Brian T. Schwartz
Posted on August 2, 2012
Aurora theater shooting: Gun control (victim disarmament) an unwise response
This originally appeared in the Boulder on Saturday, July 28, 2012.
Want safer theaters? Blogger Ari Armstrong suggests that theaters offer free tickets and popcorn to armed off-duty police officers, and publicize the policy.