Guns & Immigration: What’s good for the Glock and the Greenlander?

What if the arguments used to refute gun control were applied to immigration restrictions?

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, never one to shy away from controversy, drafted legislation that would, if passed (not bloody likely), codify a four-year moratorium on all immigration and ramp up deportations. There’s no mention of commandeering Rothchild-financed space lasers to shoot anybody crossing the border, but — knowing Greene’s pragmatism — all options likely remain on the table.

In response, Alex Nowrasteh, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, tweeted, “Replace the word ‘immigration’ with ‘guns’ and she’d see immediately why her proposal is counterproductive.” Nowrasteh’s proposal is a bit of an apples-to-ARs comparison; keeping immigrants cleaned, oiled, and locked in my attic safe is — thankfully — frowned upon.

But he does offer a fun mental exercise: What if the arguments used to refute gun control were applied to immigration restrictions? Because what’s good for the Glock might be good for the Greenlander. (Or the Guatemalan, the Ghananian, or many other non-alliteration-based nationalities.)

No New Laws

We don’t need new laws, just enforcement of the existing ones, right? Well, there is no shortage of immigration laws. If you read enough of them, you won’t know whether you are coming or going — or whether you are doing either legally.

Any lawyer worth their salt will tell you that immigration law is pretty dang confusing. Chief Judge Irving Kaufman once wrote that immigration law bears “a striking resemblance” to “King Minos’s labyrinth in ancient Crete,” in which Minos sent children to be devoured by the Minotaur. But unlike our current immigration system, Minos at least had the decency to offer a pathway with a logical conclusion.

In lieu of mythical beasts, an unyielding bureaucracy makes legal naturalization unnecessarily burdensome for those trying to do “the right thing.” Becoming a citizen can take anywhere between six years to whenever we fully colonize Mars. And, unless you are lucky enough to marry a citizen or possess a professional skill that employers will pay big bucks for, you might as well hitch a ride to the red planet at this rate.

And what’s with the inquisition when somebody wants to naturalize? I thought that the pro-gun crowd was opposed to waiting periods, background checks, and federal databases.

Only Outlaws

An armed society is a polite one, right? Well, so is a cosmopolitan one. A robust body of research continues to debunk the myth that immigration fosters crime; in fact, it indicates the contrary.

After aggregating four decades worth of Census Bureau and Federal Bureau of Investigation data from 200 metropolitan areas, researchers discovered a quantifiable reduction in violent crimes for every one percent increase in the foreign-born population. Who needs a good guy with a gun when you’ve got a good guy with a green card?

Texas is the only state that gathers crime data that also includes the citizenship of the assailants. A 2018 study found that citizens were twice as likely to be convicted of a crime than undocumented immigrants and nearly thrice for legal immigrants. Apparently, the natives are restless.

This may explain why the violent crime rate was nearly cut in half while the undocumented population almost quadrupled at the same time. Perhaps Mexico and those other “s-hole countries’’ are sending their best after all.

Also, what happened to “if guns are outlawed, then only outlaws will have guns”? By the same logic, every new immigration restriction is just a one-way ticket for an MS-13 gangbanger looking to catch the 3:10 Coyote Express to El Paso.

The Constitution

Defenders of the Second Amendment come from far and wide to yell-type “UNCONSTITUTIONAL” in the comments sections of every gun debate. But what do these constitutional scholars have to say about immigration?

The Fourteenth Amendment, which grants birthright citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” guarantees the right to drunkenly belt out the chorus to “Born in the U.S.A.” while mumbling the rest of the song.

The only authority to restrict immigration is found in Article 1, Section 8, which grants Congress the power to “establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.” But to call our current naturalization process a “uniform rule” stretches both the imagination and the English language: It is 1) not a singular rule but rather a spider web of entangling red tape and 2) about as “uniform” as Cardi B’s wardrobe.

The next time any politician proposes to abolish birthright citizenship or further restrict immigration, I hope to see a groundswell of protests, led by flag-waving patriots shouting “Molon Labe!” in defiance of an overreaching federal government.

But until that imaginary day that will never occur, can we at least practice a little ideological consistency? This is important to us in western Colorado, because guns don’t kill people, but they sure as hell don’t pick sweet corn, either.