Cesare Beccaria on gun control: Arm or disarm?

In 1764 Cesare Beccaria wrote:
The laws which forbid men to bear arms… only disarm those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes,
The Italian jurist saw that laws were meaningless if not enforced. He also saw that criminals don't care about laws. 

His conclusion was that gun control laws affected only the people already controlled by their moral character or fear.
Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.
Weapons are tools. Violence starts in the mind. Guns don't kill people; people kill people.

Anyway, a polemic and emotional topic.

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