If A=B and B=C, does A=C?

I've always loved logic problems. They are fun to do, and they really do enhance one's critical thinking ability. I don't know who Eugene Robinson is, but he needs to do some logic problems.

He had a column in a recent edition of The Dallas Morning News. The subject of his column was the recent Supreme Court decision which upheld the 2nd amendment right to bear arms. Generally, he was in agreement with the decision, but there was a paragraph in his column that made me question his intelligence.

"I realize that the now-defunct D.C. law was unusually comprehensive and restrictive," he says, "and thus, in the legal sense, offered a bull's-eye for the pro-gun lobby. I also know that the law was easy to attack on grounds of efficacy: Given all the handgun killings in the city, was the ban really having any beneficial impact at all? (And it's not as if striking down the law, and perhaps adding hundreds or thousands of weapons to the city, will make things any better.)"

Here's where logic comes in. If having a weapon in Washington was illegal, then no law abiding citizen had one. On the other side, only criminals did have guns. Now that weapons have been legalized, doesn't it make sense that if "hundreds or thousands" of weapons are added to the city, it will be those who didn't have guns before (law-abiding citizens) who will be getting them? If a criminal wanted a gun, he already had one -- he's a criminal, and he doesn't care what the law says.

Washington has one of the highest, if not the highest, murder rates in America. It's pretty much a given that those "added" guns won't be used to rob banks, hijack cars, or shoot innocent people. Now that law-abiding citizens can effectively protect themselves, I predict it WILL make things better.