Here you go. Boy that was tough.
The Concept of gun control is an outrageous and unconstitutional agenda being pushed by short sighted individuals, unfortunately ignorant of the facts, and swayed by the biased media. Fortunately, an examination of the actual facts of the matter will show this to be true. Gun control is a hot topic in the news and indeed in our very lives today. Many politicians base a portion of their platforms on their own or at least their own parties’ political position on the issue. There is no shortage of proponents on either side of the fence. There are those who grew up around firearms and have been exposed to their use all of their lives, and those who have never held a gun and who have only seen them in the movies or on their favorite television programs.
These are the individuals that are especially susceptible to any nonsense that an equally uneducated reporter might broadcast. The person who was found with 500 rounds of ammunition may be some average Joe who just spent ten bucks at the local Wall Mart on low power twenty-two bullets, as the economy boxes come in bricks of five hundred, the intention being to stock up for use through an entire season of afternoon shooting session with his sons. Now this guy had the misfortune to be stopped for a ticket, and the officer being familiar with only their rudimentary firearms “training” course see’s “all this ammunition”, and blows the situation all out of proportion. Of course it is a perfectly innocent scenario, but the only portion that we hear about is the “found with 500 rounds” part repeated about that many times in the news broadcast with no other intention whatsoever than to attempt to discredit the shooting sports by frightening, and promoting bias in a largely uneducated audience.
In America today, there are an estimated three hundred million firearms in the hands of the general populace. John Q. Public may not be aware of it, but statistics show that there are handguns in approximately twenty one out of every one hundred cars in the average “Super Center” parking lot. The number of applicants for concealed handgun carry permits is skyrocketing. All around the country the number of all types of gun sales are going up. Americans from all walks of life are choosing to arm themselves, and for good reason. From the founding of our country and into the foreseeable future of it, like it or not, legal or not, firearms in America are here to stay. It bears mentioning that even if an individual does not personally have an affinity for firearms, it is always better to have one and not need it, than to need one and not have it. Every surveyed victim of violent crime that I researched had one thing in common with regards to their statements. They may not have been a fan of guns, but when the other person attempted to rob, assault, or rape the person in question, every one said outright that they were thankful that they had the means to ward off disaster. Don’t believe it? Ok, the next time you are accosted and unable to defend yourself, try asking your tormentor to kindly hold on a second while you dig out your cell phone to call for help, and then request that they hang out while you wait for the help that may or may not be coming. See how that works out for you!
Realistically, there are simply too many firearms already here in America to believe that any agency, or any group of agencies for that matter has the capacity, manpower, intuition, or the ability in general to re-collect all of the guns in this country any more than these same agencies have been able to stop any other form of contraband from alcohol during prohibition, to the flood of drugs, to the influx of illegal aliens, to anything else that you or I or anyone else can think of. Essentially, there are just too many people with too many guns already here. It sounds cliché today, but criminals are called that for a reason. They don’t obey the law. Sounds simple, right? Where is the sense in thinking that if we pass more laws placing even further undue restrictions on the law abiding gun owner that the criminal element will obey them any more than the laws already standing? What incentive is there for them to change? As it turns out criminals target individuals that are known to be defenseless! It isn’t politically correct to mention, but the record shows that the states and districts that have the highest levels of gun control also have the highest levels of violent crime.
Because of the fact that the guns are already here and no amount of wishing them away will make it so, what law can be passed that restricts guns and at the same time convinces criminals to stop preying on their neighbors? What piece of legislature will make them say, “Well I never looked at it that way before,” I guess I can be nice from now on….”? That sort of thinking rapidly takes us down the road of frivolous lawsuits that take place in order to divert our attention away from the blatant lack of personal responsibility for human action. The great “Class Action” lawsuits are the best. They go something like this. A mass murder!?! Let’s sue Smith and Wesson! Absolutely, great idea! Next let’s sue the Ford Motor Company when the next drunk driver kills a family of six with his Thunderbird! Right! And after that we can sue Budweiser because they manufactured the beer that the man drank! Fantastic! Now that is typical bureaucratic thinking. Now we have made the lawyer crowd a gazillion dollars, we still have the tragedy to deal with, families are torn apart, people are dead, we have solved absolutely nothing, and the odds are high that it is all going to happen again! Way to go!! Great job!!.....Now what?
The importance of this cannot be overstated. In American cities the ones with the most gun restriction are the most dangerous ones to live in. The reason is very basic. Criminals know ahead of time that they will have their victims at their mercy
. Our nation’s capitol is one of the most dangerous cities in the whole of America, and that place has more gun restrictions than virtually any other place in America. One must face the obvious fact that a criminal, legally or otherwise, will acquire a gun if they want one, regardless of whether or not there is a lot of new ink on some law book.
Additionally, our very own Supreme Court on June 27, 2005 ruled that the police are under no obligation to protect citizens from harm! That even includes those individuals who have legal restraining orders against violent offenders! It sounds like something from “Ripley’s Believe it or Not”, but sadly, it is an actual fact. Now, the legal implications of doing no more than absolutely necessary to defend us and ours from blatant premeditated criminal attack shouldn’t be a legitimate concern for fear of consequence, but unfortunately it is.
Violent crime has been around for many thousands of years before guns came onto the scene. While no one can really argue the fact that a gun is easier to make use of than say a hammer, or knife, the lack of a gun will not stop any determined person intent on doing harm. Those poor, misguided teens in Columbine could have just as easily used simple chlorine, or ammonia tanks in the air conditioning vents, or taken their mothers cleaning supplies and mixed up some fairly simple but very volatile explosive compounds. The results would have been much more horrific, and the death toll would have very likely been much higher.
They have the technology! There are too many options that are just as lethal and many much more subtle, and quiet. How many products can we really outlaw? Drain cleaner, or hairspray, or glass cleaner or gasoline, or Clorox bleach, or aluminum foil? The concept gets really silly really fast. As a society we must keep the presence of mind to punish the offending individual instead of concentrating on some inanimate object that was used by a
person in the commission of their crime. Persons on both sides of the issue can agree on the fact that guns in America impact all of our lives directly or indirectly in some way, shape, or form. We must all take responsibility for ourselves. Doing something with no chance of changing anything will not bring back lost loved ones or save existing lives. Gun control will work in the same way that killing flies will eliminate garbage and that outlawing spoons will solve the obesity problem here in America!
The use of misinformation by the media is an old but effective tactic. Every year, the government publishes these astronomical numbers of shooting deaths. What they want you to believe is that all of these were crimes, and will not say anything else about it. However, if we do a little research of our own we find that number includes not only the criminal acts, but also the number of shootings combined from every law enforcement agency in the country, by and against, the number from every single legal shooting by armed citizens fending off criminal attack, and all of the shootings committed by and against our military. Once we filter out all of the legitimate incidents, we are left with a number that is a paltry percentage of the published “facts”. Humans are by nature rather naïve as long as things are going smoothly. The average person is comfortable listening to an “official honest to goodness reporter”, and will generally accept as truth anything that they hear from what they consider as a reputable source. The problem is that by the large reporters are from the cities to begin with and most have not been raised in an atmosphere or environment where the practical use of guns ever came into play. Football, rugby, soccer fields, and golf courses rarely double as firing ranges, and nobody likes it when you use the racquetball court to practice with your pistol.
I should point out that a given reporter may well be as naïve and innocent in their reporting as old Joe was to begin with, but that does not stop the misinformation from spreading and doing more damage to the industry. They will spout any number of inconsistencies, and outright lies with the flair of Samuel L. Jackson in “Jackie Brown”, but it is still just a spill they heard from some other poor sap that was just exited to get the opportunity to tell their story on television. Not one word could even make sense or refer to something that really exists anywhere but in the movie that they saw the previous evening, but if you throw in a few of the media’s latest “buzz words” like “tactical”, or “assault”, or “I.E.D.”, well it must be the “Gods honest truth”, and ninety-five percent of the viewing audience will be ready to make water in their pants. Now that’s when they hit everyone up for the next big anti-gun piece. It is a crying shame, but that’s a sad but true tale and it happens every day in this country. First, they tell us that were in danger. Then through an avenue like the news or some other forum they misconstrue the ones that we are supposed to be afraid of. After that they try to discredit the ones that are not quite gullible enough buy their line. And finally they will tell you that theirs is the only way to be sure of a positive outcome. It is always thickly sugarcoated, but basically the pitch is “Give me your freedoms and your liberties, and I will keep you safe.” It NEVER works. It makes all of us LESS free and UN- safe.
Another example of media misinformation is the practice of reporting that the military types of weapons currently in use by the criminal elements commonly come from local gun shops or the non- existent but somehow much publicized “gun show loophole”. The media will have us believe every gun being carried by law abiding citizens to or around that show was purchased at that show. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yes there are gun vendors at the show and yes people obviously do purchase guns there, but a high nineties percentage rate is a safe estimate of the guns that are brought from home by individuals because it is a GUN SHOW. Does anyone think that every classic car being displayed was purchased at whatever establishment was holding the classic car show? Of course they don’t. Strict attention to both detail and the letter over even the spirit of all pertinent firearms transfer laws are always observed. Officers of local, state, and federal levels frequent all such events in large numbers, many of which are undercover. A person cannot even trade a pistol that they already have in their possession for another without proper documentation and permits. A person must be at least eighteen years of age in order to purchase a long arm. An in depth registration form is mandatory, and proper, current identification go without saying before an online police screen and background check are done on the spot, and if any discrepancies from their registration form are found, that person is very handily turned over to one of those aforementioned law enforcement officers.
Anyone remember Ollie North and the Iran-Contra scandal? It turns out that was not even close to being an isolated incident. The American government has and indeed continues to currently supply innumerable third world countries and others with all of the military hardware that they can pay for. The weapons that we ourselves have distributed throughout the world are now coming home in the hands of unscrupulous businessmen and drug traffickers. Don’t hold your breath expecting politicians to come clean and admit their less than wise business deals. Why should they, when not only can they continue to make vast sums of money, but also have a public address system as easy to manipulate as our media to use in order to shift the blame on someone or thing that can be made a scapegoat of? Believe whatever helps you sleep at night, but that’s an accurate picture of what goes on every day in the halls of Washington.
Did you know that people driving cars have killed more people than have been killed in all of Americas wars put together? In the United states alone between forty and fifty thousand people are killed on America’s highways and another two million are seriously injured on an annual basis. In addition, contrary to popular belief, cars kill many times the amount of wildlife that sportsmen and women do every single year. Look at it like this
; People using guns a
ccidentally kill about nine hundred each year. People driving cars kill nine hundred each week! Why do we not hear the public outcry about this? This is another simple answer. The almighty dollar is that reason ladies and gentlemen.
There is too much money to be lost from insurance companies and special interest groups in our capitol, and then of course is the oil issue. Too many of our fearless leaders have their pockets lined by oil money, so it is not in their own best interest to do anything to slow down that particular artery that the lifeblood of the good citizens of our great country are constantly pumping out onto the blacktop. Guns on the other hand? Well these same politicians as we already know are pulling money in hand over fist through their foreign arms deals. What difference do you think it makes to them in their “ivory towers” if you or I have the ability to defend ourselves?
They even have a “death tax”! Besides, leaders all throughout history have always liked their populations docile and obedient. And what better way to ensure that than to remove the only thing that separates a citizen from a subject? That’s right. Read the second amendment to our constitution and apply the ideas discussed herein.
If we want to change things like this, we are not going to do it by continuing to be the gullible puppets that they want us to be. The only way to solve this problem is to take responsibility on a personal level and pay closer attention to who we put into office. These are the ones who need to be held accountable when they tell us what we want to hear at the top of their lungs while standing at the election podium, and then proceed to forget about John Q. Public as soon as they are sworn in. At this point they then proceed to use their office to further themselves, their own families financial future as in the case with our previous “oil baron” president, Mr. George W. Bush, and this “conflict” that will be the longest standing engagement in the history of our nation, and also their parties special interest like Halliburton and that ilk.
It is a little known fact that it costs the government more money in shipping charges to bring our military surplus and weapon turn in inventory home than to re-stock our fighting forces with new gear. In case it really needs to be said, yes, we restock. How many times in your life have you ever heard about the billions of dollars of military equipment, and not necessarily only small arms that we see in the hands of the local thugs, but heavy armor, artillery, machine guns, rockets, and all other assorted munitions, that are left over
and left behind after any one of our countless global “conflicts”? Now, ever wonder where all of these extremists get their hands on the materials needed for the construction of an I.E.D., or the state of the art small arms that they kill our sons and daughters on a daily basis with? They don’t have a “bomb supply isle” in the local markets over there any more than we do over here. What they do have are well connected opportunists who will eagerly sell the means to kill, and maim to absolutely anyone who has the cash. And with the American dollar being the world’s most valuable hard currency, it goes a long way. Ask yourself how a group of poorly or at best un-professionally trained people in some of the most remote areas of our globe, in some of the harshest environmental conditions anywhere, often without vehicles, or even the fuel to run them with can manage to scrounge tons of heavy steel materials deep into the desert and into their area of operations with which to wage war against our homelands, friends, and children. Ask yourself how these individuals manage the feat of transporting all of these materials past the ever present United States military security net that encompasses the most state of the art, advanced, and up to date surveillance equipment, satellites, and individual troop technology on the face of the planet. You cannot after all drag a 105 m.m. Howitzer behind a team of camels.
Are all of the pieces starting to come together? Are light bulbs beginning to glow? I certainly hope so for all of our sakes. Let us all remind each other to be smarter than what we are working on! We all need to come together as one people to hold those actually responsible accountable, and not allow their high office or prestige to circumvent the justice that they so richly deserve. Doing a thing knowing ahead of time that we are not really fixing anything is costing much more than just our precious bank accounts. It is costing us our freedoms and indeed our lives. It is a fact that we cannot just get rid of the guns no matter what politician tells us otherwise, and that can be seen any time we turn on the news , or open our papers. A message must be sent to not only the criminals that commit these heinous deeds themselves, but also to the high placed individuals that are the real venues of global arms proliferation that we are not as dumb as they want us to be! Those who slap violent criminals on the wrist and then turn them back out into our streets need to be removed from that place of power that allows them to do so, and replaced with conscientious, honorable men and women who will uphold the law and protect us. Those who use their office to further their own selves need to be prosecuted, and likewise replaced. We as citizens of this great land still have the power to do this, but our rights and liberties are slowly but surely being intentionally eroded away by these corrupt persons. Just because the liberty that is being taken away may not be one that you personally care about is no reason to ignore the issue. Once that one is gone, the next targeted freedom they want to do away with may be one that is near and dear to your heart. When that happens and you look around and cry “Where was everyone?” the rest of us will have to ask “Where were you?” It is a slippery slope that we have already started down. Will you wait until us as citizens have lost the little power that we have left?
We still have a chance to put things right, but once we cross that bridge from citizen to subject, and we are closer to that side than many want to believe, that chance may well be gone forever.
GuzziJohn
