Societal Costs of Gun Confiscation

by Tim Howell

As one of the active supporters of the Bill of Rights and American Liberty, I have noticed one area of the pro self-defense verses predator enablers struggle that I haven�t seen spelled out clearly. That issue is what will be the cost of complete gun confiscation to our American society? If you think for one minute that the predator enablers don�t have complete gun confiscation and prohibition as their primary goal, you are either very na�ve or deluding yourself.

Professor Gary Kleck has performed the most comprehensive studies on the use of firearms in self-defense and his most recent estimate is 2.5 Million defensive firearm uses per year.

If the Schumers, Bradys, Clintons, and Gores have their way and gun prohibition comes to pass in the United States, we will add 2.5 million additional victims to the crime statistics every year.

The following breakdown of these additional 2.5 million crime victims uses hypothetical but not unreasonable estimates for injuries, deaths, and dollar costs to families and our society at large.

If we use an average property loss of only $400 per incident, this will add $1 Billion in property loss to the costs of crime. To some victims this may only be a TV set, but to others this loss may be their paycheck or Social Security check and represent the loss of the food from their table.

What if, hypothetically, 10% of these victims are killed or are mentally or physically maimed to the point that they can no longer work to support themselves or their families? This would result in an additional 250,000 families per year totally devastated both emotionally and financially. 

Let�s break this number down even further. If we estimate that 10% of this group, 1% of the total 2.5 million additional victims, are killed during the crimes, that amounts to 25,000 additional murder victims each and every year. Funeral expenses alone at $8,000 per victim adds up to $200 million per year.

Now back to the remaining 90% that were permanently maimed. This is 225,000 people per year who are no longer productive citizens. They will now be a long term emotional and financial burden on their families, their insurance companies until the benefits run out, then on the taxpayers for decades. With inflation, I have no way to estimate the long term costs of medical care and financial support for the rest of these peoples lives, but I�m sure that it will be in the tens of Billions of dollars or more.

Now let�s look at the lost incomes of these victims to their families and society. If we use an average estimate of a $30,000 per year income, successful people have nicer stuff to steal or be killed for, the loss of these 250,000 productive citizens results in a financial loss to their families of $7.5 Billion per year. This is also a major loss of tax revenue for Big Brother. How many of these families will become dependents of the taxpayers due to the loss of the family bread winner?

In this hypothetical scenario, we have estimated a yearly cost to our society of:

 2.5 million additional crimes
 25,000 additional murder victims
 225,000 additional permanently injured crime victims
 $200 Million in Funeral Expenses
 $1 Billion in additional property loses
 $7.5 Billion in lost wages and family financial support
 Hundreds of Millions of dollars in lost tax revenue
 And countless Billions of dollars in medical expenses, and taxpayer funded financial support for victims and their families.

Now all of these hypothetically estimates are based on the current number of citizens who defend themselves with firearms each year. Does anyone really believe that once the entire population of honest citizens has been rendered defenseless by their government, that the predators will not increase their criminal actions and actually increase the numbers of additional victims beyond these numbers?

How long will it take before every citizen in America has been raped, robbed, beaten or murdered by the predators in our midst? How long can our society survive when we add millions of additional crime victims each and every year? How long can we survive when crime costs increase by the tens or hundreds of Billions of dollars every year? 

Think about this the next time that you think that registration leading to confiscation leading to prohibition can�t happen in America. Ask the subjects of New York City, Washington, D.C. or the Socialist Republic of Kalifornia who formerly owned handguns or "militia type� firearms if it can happen in America.