Gun control laws are not instituted in a vacuum, but in a sphere initially occupied by freedom. And with each gun control passed and instituted, more and more freedom is displaced and done away with.
In other words, we trade one thing (freedom) for another thing (gun control).
Consider this: We used to be free to have guns in our cars and trucks at high schools and other places of learning. In turn, we were free to defend our greatest possession, namely, our very lives. Now, thanks to hysterical gun controllers, we are largely barred from even having guns in our vehicles at many middle schools, high schools, and other places of learning. Instead we have “gun-free” zones.
What did we give up by adopting this control? We gave up the freedom inherent in a full-bodied exercise of the right to self-defense. In other words, we became sitting ducks who live day-to-day hoping that criminals do not act like criminals, terrorists do not act like terrorists, and assaulters do not act like assaulters.
Our “leaders” embraced gun control(s) and now large groups of unarmed, defenseless people pack into rooms from which they cannot escape and trust that the “gun-free” sign will keep them safe. But criminals and terrorists–none of whom abide by the rules–view “gun-free” zones as opportunity zones, knowing the innocent cannot shoot back because law-abiding citizens follow the rules, even though said rules are literally life-threatening.
Consider the March 12, 2026, shooting at Old Dominion University. Law-abiding citizens were barred from being armed for self-defense on the “gun-free” campus. Therefore, when 36-year-old Mohamed Bailor Jalloh disobeyed the “gun-free” status and entered a classroom filled with ROTC students and opened fire, no one was able to shoot back.
Thank God ROTC students managed to subdue him (and ultimately kill him), but not before Jalloh took the life of their instructor. In a “gun-free” zone, Jalloh used a gun to rob the instructor of his greatest possession: his very life.
If we trace the chain of causality we have to admit the instructor was at a marked disadvantage because he was denied his Second Amendment freedoms by the “gun-free” rules instituted on campus. Not only did the “gun-free” status mean the instructor would be unarmed; it also meant the attacker, who could not have cared less about “gun-free” signage, had the upper hand. And this is what happens when we trade freedom for gun control: we give wicked men the advantage and, inevitably, many of those wicked men take innocent lives.
This point could be made with the heinous Sandy Hook Elementary School attack (December 14, 2012), where the attacker had more than nine minutes to carry out a killing spree with no armed response. The point could also be made with the attack at “gun-free” Brown University (December 13, 2025), the “gun-free” movie theater in Aurora, Colorado (July 20, 2012), and the “gun-free” bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine (October 25, 2023), just to name a few.
In every instance, the innocent were at a disadvantage because their freedom was replaced or at least limited by gun control.
Conclusion: Gun control is not a suitable substitute for freedom.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He holds a PhD in Military History with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. He enjoys reading Philosophy and novels by Jack Carr and Nelson DeMille. Follow him on X: @awrhawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.