Armed citizens are safer ones
The nation has witnessed two very high-profile shootings in recent weeks — one at a Colorado theater and another at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin.
While gun-control fanatics have jumped on these events to promote their cause, the truth is that each of these tragic incidents demonstrates the failure of gun control.
In Colorado, the Century 16 theaters in Aurora are “gun free” zones where people are prohibited from carrying weapons for self-defense.
If this sad scenario sounds familiar, it should — as almost every large-scale massacre in this country has occurred in an area where guns are outlawed: Columbine High School, Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, etc.
In all of these shootings, the victims were disarmed by law or regulation — yes, even at Fort Hood. They were made mandatory victims by restrictions that never stop the bad guys from getting or using guns.
In Wisconsin, Wade Michael Page bought his guns legally at a gun store before killing six people at a Sikh temple. This underscores the obvious: No background check in the world can stop a hate-filled person like Page, who had a clean record, from acquiring firearms. Nor can the checks stop determined criminals, who only have to acquire fake IDs to conceal their identities.
In fact, many countries that have much stricter gun controls than the United States have failed to prevent gun-related massacres from occurring. In Norway last year, 69 people were gunned down by one person. In England, a taxi driver used an illegal gun to murder 12 people in 2010.
Those shootings are just the tip of the iceberg, as massacres have occurred all over the world in gun-control havens.
Nevertheless, some think curtailing our “easy access to firearms” will make us safer. If that were true, how does one explain El Paso, Texas, which was ranked by CQ Press as America’s safest big city in 2010 — even though residents there can carry concealed firearms (and live quite peacefully)?
Right across the border, Juarez City, Mexico, has very stringent gun-control laws and one of the highest murder rates in the world. Any sensible person would choose El Paso over the “gun free” zone in Juarez.
Despite these obvious lessons, there have been calls on Capitol Hill to punish the millions of American citizens who have not — and will not — ever commit crimes. Among other things, gun-control advocates want to limit the size of magazines, arguing, “No one needs that many rounds of ammunition.”
This is a dangerous argument. If we turn the Bill of Rights into a “Bill of Needs,” our liberties will be short-lived for sure. After all, who needs the dozens of newspapers and magazines that line the shelves of supermarkets? Or who needs a car that drives more than 100 mph?
Here’s one who refused to be a victim:
http://www.aikenstandard.com/story/080912-Shooting-Death
The week before the Colorado theater shootings went down, a 71-year old customer (with a concealed-carry permit and a handgun) stopped two armed and threatening gunmen who had invaded an Internet cafe in Florida with apparent intent to rob the patrons.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrz3-C23-T0
He shot them first.
No INNOCENT people were hurt.
“An armed society is a polite society.” – I don’t remember who said this first, but it is still true.
Science fiction writer, Robert A. Heinlein.
In a typical year in the US, there are ~12K gunshot homicides – ~32/day – 97% of which are murders. Any murder is horrific, and multi-victim incidents especially so. Nonetheless, it would be harmful to allow the very few sensational events of multi-victim incidents (which comprise < 1% of all annual victims) to drive decision-making on gun control, irrespective of the 2nd Amendment. That it appears that only multi-victim events are driving the high-intensity drum-beating and gnashing of teeth about gun control is indication that such incidents are being used strictly to drive a political agenda of control, not safety nor respect for personal liberty (which includes freedom from attacks on one’s person and property).
To this last point, an apparently thorough and statistically proper study concluded that ~2.45M crimes are thwarted in a typical year (in the US) by the use or threat-of-use of firearms (Kleck). That is, for every murder, there are 200 instances of firearms being used to thwart a crime. Even if over-stated by a factor of 10, the ratio would still be conclusive that firearm ownership reduces crime and saves lives. There is also other ample evidence that disarming law-abiding citizens (which implies a presumption of guilt before the fact) results in an increase of all crimes (including murder) most notably in the UK and Australia.
Slimy people exploiting the Aurora tragedy like Lautenberg claim that no one needs more than 10 round magazines. I cited a case where a gun store owner, faced with 3 assailants, needed more than 30.
I missed the part of the second amendment where it says that the government should develop a needs test. Maybe Mr. Lautenberg could point that out to me. Maybe he can also point out the study showing that bullets from a 10-round mag hurt less than ones from a 17-round mag.
The ’94 assault weapons ban prohibited the sale of new high capacity magazines, but allowed existing high capacity magazines. The result was manufacturer’s gearing up production of preban mags which were sold at a premium. Glock offered to replace the “illegal” mags with “legal” ones for free then sold the high capacity mags at quite a premium. It seems like the demand for high capacity magazines and assault rifles really picked up when the government said we couldn’t have them.
To gain total control of a country, and it’s citizens, all rights including gun ownership are abolished. This is the goal, and the lefty useful idiots carry the water for the ‘controllers’ of the NWO/Globalists like speeding lemmings to implement Agenda 21 for the UN.
One small, but very lucrative thing, would work wonders to alleviate gun violence in the US. It’s an effing no-brainer, but would take some guts.
Advertising. Pure and simple. TV image: armed $|-||thead busts in the front door and gets blown away. Voice-over: “[Insert brand]. The ultimate home appliance.” Use your imaginations — there’s all sorts of effective ads that would make crims wonder: “What if they shoot back?”
Sure people would complain about advertising guns alongside ads for butter and appeals for donations to Greenpeace. But give it a moment of thought: In one evening, how many people do you see get shot, on television, just for audience enjoyment? Counter-arguments are Leftist piffle, drivel, and posturing.
Last night, Bill O’Reilly, said (I kid you not!):
“AR/AK firearms can be easily be converted to machine guns”
What a maroon.