Life, Liberty and Guns
Without security there is no freedom
Where do you stand on gun rights? Do you believe in the absolute right to bear arms, or do you want gun control or complete gun elimination? Do you think guns are bad and if they would just go away all gun violence would magically come to an end? Or, do you believe in the constitutional right to bear arms? Many of the founding fathers believed it was more than a right. They believed it was an obligation, that is was a responsibility to carry a firearm. Why such a profound difference in ideology and what's changed? Why is it people are so divided on gun control?
One factor is geographical and an a matter of upbringing. Some people just don't like guns and that's perfectly normal. For a person that grew up say, in Manhattan, never had a use for guns, never had any experience with guns except crime it's only logical they will have a negative view of guns. But for someone who grew up in Montana that experience and perspective would be completely different. And, the geographical divide doesn't have to be that far. A persons need for a firearm in New York City would be a whole lot different than in rural New York state just a few hours away by car. In most urbanized areas there's zero threat from vicious animals and police response times average 3-5 minutes nationwide. In rural areas vicious animals are a concern and police response times can easily fall in the twenty minute range. So there's a basic geographical difference on the issue of guns. While it might be considered normal to see someone in a small town in Wyoming carrying a side arm, it would be very uncomfortable to see that in a major city.
Besides perception on the need for guns, there's four common fabrications about firearms that creates much of the bias on gun control. These are the basic arguments gun control people push.
More guns means more murder.
More guns means less safety.
A gun is more likely to be used in a criminal assault, an accidental death or injury, a suicide attempt or a homicide than it is for self-defense.
Gun-owning households are more likely to experience a homicide and more likely to experience a suicide.
Like every great lie there's a little bit of truth in this charade. Guns are the number one weapon of choice for murders. But, more guns has not correlated into an increase in murder. In fact as the rate of gun ownership has increased the murder rate has dropped.
Accidental death by firearms is three times higher than the homicide rate. You know I'm a big advocate for gun safety. But, here too an increase in gun ownership has not resulted in an increase in accidental deaths. Considering there are over one million violent crimes in this country each year and about sixty thousand accidental fire arm deaths this argument is also invalid.
And, while the number one choice of weapon for suicide is a gun, households that have firearms actually have a lower instance of suicide than households that don't have firearms.
I don't like to make this argument because it doesn't matter but your chances of dying by other causes us much higher than you chances of dying by gun. And, all the gun violence statistics are MASSIVELY skewed by the fact that MOST gun violence occurs in a few areas such as Chicago. All the shooting and killing in Chicago is so bad it skews the numbers for the whole country.
Your also three times more likely to die from the flue than by bun violence. But, that is as irrelevant as the four fabrications I talked about. It doesn't matter. Do we have a gun problem or not and either way is the answer more gun control? And, when we talk about gun control what are we really talking about because, we already have gun control. There are national laws, state laws and even city laws.
So what are people talking about when they say they want more gun control? In most cases they're talking about gun elimination. Confiscation, making guns illegal. That's what a lot of gun control people really want.
This argument is often validated with vague comparison to violence in America compared to some other country. You go look at that data and tell me you can make a clear distinction what's going on. For example the United Kingdom has strict gun laws and gun deaths in the United Kingdom are like 1/5 our rate. Gun control people look at that say, SEE gun control works in England we should do that here. Well ok that's cute but guess what? Gun laws in Russia are stricter and their homicide rate is 4 times higher than ours. So what can you conclude from that? You can compare one country to another but if you want to come to a real conclusion you'd have to compare the data to all countries. If you do that properly how do you account for all the variables like drug use, poverty, video games, mental health issues whatever. For example about 80% of all murders in Russia are committed by people under the influence of alcohol.
Either way when you look at the number of guns in the United States there is no correlation between the number of guns and the number of killings. There are a huge number of guns in this country. More than one gun for every person. So if more guns meant more killing the actual murder rate in this country would be highest rate in the world. As it stands the United States ranks 92nd on a list of 200 countries.
So what are we really talking about when we talk about gun control? You hear all kinds of things thrown out right. You don't need an automatic weapon to hunt. And, the right to bear arms clause of the constitution was written at time when guns were practically sling shots.
Well, NOTHING in the constitution talks about hunting. Hunting wasn't the reason for the right to bear arms. And, yes weapons have advanced and all that argument completely misses the point.
The whole point of the second amendment was the preservation of FREEDOM. Plain and simple. The people are to have the right to have the same weapons as the government. Because WHEN the government gets too out of control that the people lose their freedom they have a duty to take it back. So in that context all these statistics and petty arguments are completely pointless. The WHOLE premise of the 2nd amendment is the preservation of freedom and proper limitation of government.
It's funny to me how gun control advocates look at guns differently than everything else. Automobiles kill more than twice as many people per year as guns. In the 70's and 80's they blamed it on drunk driving but now texting and driving has taken the lead on automobile deaths. If you used the logic of the control people they'd be calling for fewer cars or to take them away completely. And, really if you want to get right down to it we could take away all the alcohol, all the cars, all the guns, all the cell phones, all the fast food. Where does it end?
How is taking away a constitutional freedom going to make us safer overall? Gun control means disarming the revolutionary masses and oppressed classes. Taking away guns gives the government a monopoly on violence. Nobody wants violence but if it happens you might want to think about which side of it you want to be on.
Let me point out two things:
Gun violence has caused some massive tragedies. There was the Las Vegas concert shooting SLAUGHTER where over 500 people were injured and over 60 killed. There was also the Texas church shooting where 23 people were shot while they were sitting in church including an unborn baby. NOBODY likes that kind of stuff and EVERYBODY wants it to stop.
It's a very solvable problem without eliminating guns. Just like nobody wants to see a loved one or anybody else killed in a car accident. Here's what's interesting. Automotive death rates reached their peak in 1969 and have been steadily declining ever since. Today the chances of dying in a car accident are less than 1/3 what they were in 1969. We've been able to cut that rate by 2/3. That's huge.
How was that done? Very simple. Increased enforcement and improving vehicle safety. Why can't we take that same approach to gun violence? Why can't we work to increase enforcement of people that are already prohibited from having firearms while we improve building safety? It's an approach that worked with cars why can't it work with guns? How often do you hear of a murderer with a gun getting caught on camera? Not very often. Why not increase the use of security cameras?
Here's another example. Deaths by fire have been cut 30% since 2006. I can't find real good data to make this point but here's the main point: buildings were made safer and the number of deaths has been reduced. I suppose control people would have been arguing to outlaw matches. I seriously doubt that would have made much difference.
So, if there is no logical argument, why the hostility and push to eliminate guns in this country? Some of its ignorance. You have people that just never grew up with guns, never had a need for a gun and they'd be happy to just see them gone. But the other part is political.
To really understand the issue and what's going on requires an understanding of the 2nd Amendment, what it means and why it's so important even today. If you really look at the 2nd Amendment, it's clear the purpose wasn't to form a militia it was to protect against the militia. There was a basic principle the founding fathers realized had to be protected. A right that should never be taken away and that's the right of people to be able to protect themselves. The founding fathers believed it was a natural right of the people to protect themselves.
The 2nd Amendment wasn't for hunting and not even really for home or self-defense purposes. The founding fathers knew, first hand that governments eventually become oppressive and not only do people have a right but a duty to fix that. An abuse of power that causes oppression will eventually be called into question - people will eventually revolt against it. That was the purpose of the 2nd amendment. And the idea of over throwing a government by use of force was as radical then is it is today, but this is the premise this country was founded on. That tyranny and oppression are more evil than violence. Think about that.
Nobody likes violence and I'm not for a second advocating it. Ghandi was able to create massive change and he never fired a shot or raised a hand. But the founding fathers believed it was the peoples right and obligation to hold government accountable. If you believe that slavery is purely evil, tell me how tyranny and oppression are any different. It's slavery, maybe without the shackles or maybe a different shackle but it robs people of freedom. The constitution was guard against that.
A Constitutional conflict has been created where there is none. It's been fueled with lies, ignorance and fear. All created by people that have no idea what their talking about. Some of it perpetuated by radical socialist that desire control over the people. The taking of arms is the final step in that process.
So the real question isn't whether guns should be banned. The real question is whether or not you trust government today, tomorrow and forever to give up the right to protect yourself from an out of control government.
There're all kinds of people jumping behind the gun control movement because it’s seemingly good. Guns are bad, gun control is good. Convincing people that don’t know anything about guns and little more about the 2nd Amendment and why it's so important. Maybe it’s because people have enjoyed freedom and prosperity in this country for so long that we’ve forgotten what it’s like NOT to be free. It’s being taken for granted, freedom by some people in this country is taken for granted. Some of us have seen the effects of evil government first hand and we don’t take these things for granted.
Now here’s an interesting parallel to all this, a lot of the same people calling for gun control say the war on drugs has failed. Which I agree with by the way. But what about the war on guns? The 2nd amendment has already been desecrated. Cities and states have exercised broad power to limit the ownership of guns. In NYC you need a permit to have a gun in your home. Since when did you need a permit to exercise a constitutional right? Do you need a permit for free speech? Why the hypocritical view? Because people will gladly give away freedom from safety and in this case it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothes. Do you realize the legal problems if you shoot someone on your property? It used to be that we held private property rights in high regard – that’s been slaughtered too No if someone comes in your house and you shoot them you have a big, big problem. When I was in high school it wasn't uncommon to see guns in a gun rack in the back of pick up trucks, parked in the school parking lot. Somehow, there were no school shootings. It was unheard of back then.
And, that’s my point. Almost all these mass shootings occur in places where guns aren’t allowed. Gun free zones or places where it’s illegal to carry. Maybe these shootings are an untended consequence of the war on guns. We’ve left the 2nd amendment unprotected and look at what’s happened. They’ve always said, we’re not trying to take your guns, but they’ve systematically made it harder and harder. I believe that’s one of the reasons so many people have bought guns – there afraid to lose them. Just like the war on drugs has resulted in an increase in crime, the war on guns has put more guns in the hands of criminals, kept law abiding people from protecting themselves and resulted in increasing gun deaths. Just so like so many other things, when government and regulation fail we’re told we just need a little more of it it’s like banging your head against the wall trying to get rid of a headache.
The rights granted in the constitution aren’t negotiable. They aren’t rights that belong to the people so the government has no power to take them away. So these people saying oh don’t worry we’re not taking away your guns, are powerless to do so unless the rest of us agree to it. Why would we do that? Safety?
There's not one responsible gun owner that doesn't feel pain with every tragic gun death. It's horrible. We need to do everything possible to prevent it. Let's make gun safety and building safety the issue of debate, not eliminating this important right. If we fail to preserve this important right, and it's given away, it will be very difficult to get it back. The result could be great suffering for future generations.
