The arguments for gun control are many, but, in essence, they come down to one thing: arrogance.

Allow me to explain.

The first argument for gun control is that loose gun laws, or no gun laws, allow criminals to get hold of firearms. Of course, this is a blatantly fraudulent argument. The District of Columbia has had extremely stringent gun control for years, yet criminals still have no problem getting guns. Some will say that criminals can circumvent the DC ban by getting guns in neighboring states, but this does not hold water either, as many criminals commit crimes using, not "real" guns, but "zip guns" manufactured from household items such as metal pipes, nails, screws, even cigarette lighters.* If criminals can manage to make guns when none are available, it is obvious that the laws intended to restrict criminal access to firearms will do nothing to prevent criminal gun violence.

Since it will not prevent criminals, those devoted to gun control usually fall back on their main argument, the one which shows the arrogance** of the gun grabbers.

When someone points out to a gun control advocate that criminals ignore the gun laws, and so gun control only disarms the law abiding, making life easier for criminals, what is the immediate response?

"So you expect to turn the cities into the old west? With people shooting one another on a whim?"

And that is where the arrogance of gun control becomes evident. The gun control advocates know very well that criminals ignore gun control laws. They also know that disarmed citizens are at the mercy of criminals. Yet more than crime, they fear their fellow citizens.

The average gun control advocate, if pressed, will admit he would not shoot anyone if in possession of a gun. If asked he will admit that he would use a gun sensibly, and could use it effectively to defend himself.

However, his confidence in mankind ends there. He may think HE could defend himself, but his fellow citizens could not. In his mind the rest of the population is so stupid and violence prone, that, given free access to guns, they would immediately start shooting at anything that moved. (Some liberal thinkers also worry that white racists would also immediately start slaughtering minorities on the slightest pretext.) In the mind of the gun control advocate, he is the last sane man on earth (perhaps along with a few left-leaning politicians), and the rest of the populace needs to be protected form guns for their own good. Better that a few people get raped or killed due to a lack of guns for self defense, as the alternative is the utter chaos of a general free-for-all should guns be generally available.

That is the essence of gun control, and what makes it such a perfect example of liberal thought. In the mind of the liberal, the state is not a tool to protect us from outside aggression. To a liberal that state is actually an insane asylum, there to protect him from the ignorance of his fellow citizens, and to keep them from hurting themselves.

And that is why I continue to speak of the arrogance of liberals. In their minds there are but a handful of competent adults (obviously including themselves and their friends), but the vast majority of citizens are just not capable of managing their own affairs, leading liberals to conclude that the state must step in and make sure they don't hurt themselves or others.

To conservatives, the state is a night watchman, keeping out invaders and punishing those who would harm or steal, it is minimal and reactive. To the liberal the state is huge and proactive, it is a warden and a nanny, trying to prevent us from hurting others in advance while telling us what to do for our own good.

But whatever the many specific differences, at the base is one simple fact: The conservative grants that others know what would benefit them as much as he does, while liberals think they alone know what everyone should do. To reduce the conflict to two words, the difference between conservative and liberal thought is the difference between humility and arrogance.

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* As I have said before, my father was in law enforcement before he retired. I recall a book he had in his office that contained many pictures of homemade "zip guns". The ingenuity was impressive. Guns had been made using not just the obvious (metal pipes fitted with bullets or shotgun shells), but from such bizarre items as a cigarette lighter (fitted with a single .22 round) and a cane (capable of firing a single shotgun shell). One individual had even used old cans and tin snips to fashion something that looked like a ray gun from an old Flash Gordon serial capable of firing a single .38 round.

** In an earlier essay I explained how liberalism as a whole is based upon the idea that "we know better than you". This particular case is just a specific application of that liberal arrogance.