QUESTION #1: With almost 30 years of law enforcement experience, do you think tougher gun control laws will solve the increased rate of homicides and violent attacks?

Answer:

Huascar Rivera:

“…My short answer is no. I don’t believe that tougher gun control laws will help. The reason I say this is because you have to look at some of our larger cities in our nation which possess some of the strictest gun control laws and we really ask ourselves and look at empirical data that indicates that no, those laws have not helped.

The problem that I find when there’s discussion about stricter gun control is that it almost always centers upon infringement of our Second Amendment rights, our Constitutional right. In other words, they’re always trying to find a way to restrict the public’s ability to obtain a firearm. Rarely does the conversation begin with addressing the behavior of the individual. In my mind, I like to draw a simple parallel. Why is it that when people are killed or seriously injured by a motor vehicle, either intentionally or by accident, the conversation is never an effort to enact laws that make it tougher for the masses to obtain a vehicle? Rather, the laws are used, the laws that exist to prosecute and alter the behavior of the individual responsible.

Now, it would be fair for someone to say that I’m not comparing apples to oranges and that’s true, but it should be noted that annually, and these are statistics that I’ve looked at, not for a while but just that I’m familiar with because of what I’ve done in my life, on average there are annually about 35,000 deaths involving vehicles and an average of about 32,000 deaths involving firearms each year. This includes accidents, suicides, and acts of violence. If we are truly concerned about the results of firearms ownership, why aren’t we equally concerned about vehicle ownership? I know that’s an overly simplistic view, but when you look at it that way there are actually more motor vehicle deaths annually than there are gun deaths.”

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