Almost five times as many people are murdered with a knife as with a rifle (and that includes all kinds of rifles, everything from routine hunting rifles to what the left calls "assault" rifles). More children are killed by 5 gallon buckets and bathtubs than by guns. And a good man could probably not use a five gallon bucket to protect his child from being killed by a five gallon bucket....whereas a good man with a gun has a real chance to protect his child from being killed by a bad man with a gun.
All of the horrific mass killings of recent decades have occurred where liberal policy has prevailed: so-called "gun free zones." From Columbine, to Va Tech, to Fort Hood, to Aurora (of all the theaters in town, only this one prohibited licensed concealed-carry on the premises...you heard that on the news, right? Right.), and now Newtown...a deranged individual has selected a no-guns-allowed area to carry out his twisted deed. The reason is as obvious as the nose on your face, isn't it? The "no guns allowed" areas are where no one will be able to shoot back!
From our friends at the Patriot
Post, I am sharing this December 21, 2012 article in full. For more sound thinking of this kind, visit
them at http://patriotpost.us/editions/16010/
*******************
Leftists
Exploit Pain for Political Gain
"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has
justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic."
--Joseph Story
The nation is still reeling over the
dreadful events in Newtown, Connecticut, one week ago. We mourn the tragic loss
of life, and we weep and pray for the families who won't have a son or a
daughter to open presents under the Christmas tree this year. We wish that we
could, as one nation, just pause and reflect. The last thing we want is a
political fight. But even so, we won't stand idly by while some use Newtown's
pain to justify taking away our Liberty.
Evil exists in the world, and yet
too many people seem shocked that an evil man would take the lives of 20 six-
and seven-year-old children, six adults at the school and even the life of his
own mother. That isn't to say that the horrific crime isn't shocking, but it is
to say a sober view of reality is needed.
Instead, the Left is almost uniform
in hiding the evil behind its implements. Evil often takes things -- sometimes
very good things -- and twists and distorts them for its own ends. Rather than
admit the existence of evil, the Left blames the thing itself. Hence the
renewed efforts at "gun control" at the federal level. Our mission --
and it should be the mission of congressional Republicans -- is to stop those
who would use evil acts as an excuse to take away our very means of defending
against that evil; to stop Barack Obama and his ilk from stacking up the
coffins of innocent little children as a platform for their vile disarmament
agenda.
The Terms
We must begin by considering the
terms of the debate, and refusing to cede the field to leftists. For example,
we must not use the Left's lexicon when referring to crimes where assailants
use guns. The sociopath who used a gun to kill kids in Newtown was not a
"shooter" or a "gunman." Such words only put the emphasis
on the tool, rather than the perpetrator. When we head to the range, we are
shooters and gunmen. That sociopath was an "assailant" and
"murderer."
Furthermore, those who don't have
the first clue what they're talking about regarding guns shouldn't be the ones
to craft legislation dealing with them. When Nancy Pelosi warns hysterically of
"assault magazines," or when Carolyn McCarthy refers to a barrel
shroud as "the shoulder thing that goes up," they have shown
themselves to be incapable of good judgment on the issue.
When the Left frets about
"high-capacity magazines" or "assault weapons," they know
not of what they speak -- or worse, they deliberately misinform. Many
guns, including handguns, have standard-capacity magazines that hold
more than 10 rounds, which, inexplicably, seems to be their lucky number to
solve "gun violence."
Rifles such as the AR-15 are not
"assault weapons." The Defense Department says, "Assault rifles
are short, compact, selective-fire weapons [i.e., machine guns] that fire a
cartridge intermediate in power between submachine-gun and rifle cartridges.
Assault rifles have mild recoil characteristics and, because of this, are
capable of delivering effective full automatic fire at ranges up to 300
meters." The AR-15 is a civilian semi-automatic weapon that fires
intermediate-powered rounds -- one for each distinct pull of the trigger. Such
rifles aren't "high-powered," either. Indeed, they aren't legal for
deer hunting in many states because their firepower isn't sufficient to
reliably take down a deer.
The Bill
The primary purpose of the Second
Amendment isn't to preserve hunting, or sport shooting, or even self-defense,
though it does protect all those things. The Founders' intent when enshrining
our natural right to "keep and bear arms" was to ensure that the
people could defend against a tyrannical government -- that's precisely why
tyrannical governments always begin by disarming the people. Anyone who doubts
this truth should ponder the awful history and the appalling body count of
20th-century communism. Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi once said, "Among the many
misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a
whole nation of arms as the blackest."
In the immediate aftermath of the
Newtown murders, Sen. Dianne Feinstein vowed to get "weapons of war off
the streets" by reintroducing her 1994 "assault weapons" ban. Of
course, that ban did little but prohibit guns with certain cosmetic features
that, to the ignorant, look particularly scary. The Bushmaster .223 that the
Newtown killer allegedly used was legally owned by his mother in Connecticut,
which has an almost identical ban to the 1994 federal one. An especially
troubling aspect of the new federal law is the proposed ban on magazines that
hold more than 10 rounds of ammo, merely because Beltway leftists and New York
chardonnay sippers can't conceive of a legitimate use for 12, 15 or 30 rounds.
(For a good summary of the other details of the bill, see here.)
The Obama White House announced that
it will "actively support" the bill, as did Senators Harry Reid
(D-NV), Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Mark Warner (D-VA), who all have good NRA
ratings. Joe Biden is now in charge of a "task force" to reduce gun
violence, in part through legislation. We are reminded that in 2008, Obama
said, "If you are a law-abiding gun owner you have nothing to fear from an
Obama administration." So much for that. Indeed, don't be surprised if
Obama tries something through executive order should Congress fail to bow to
his wishes.
Attorney General Eric Holder said,
"[W]e have to ask ourselves some hard questions" and "talk about
the freedoms that we have." Let's do. Let's start with some hard questions
about why the Department of Justice was selling Mexican drug cartels the same
types of weapons Obama now wants to ban. Another of those Fast and Furious
weapons just turned up at a Mexican murder scene in November.
Meanwhile, Obama is using Newtown as
an excuse not only for gun control, but, grotesquely, he said that it provides
"some perspective" for getting his domestic agenda through Congress,
particularly on the fiscal cliff. He's also using it for continued fundraising.
Obama asked Sunday night, "Are
we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year
after year is somehow the price of our freedom?" The president's political
party has made killing children prior to birth a pillar of their platform -- 54
million children sacrificed on the altar of "choice" since 1973,
currently a rate of 3,200 every day.
The Stats
Since Obama was elected in 2008, gun
and ammunition sales have surged to historic highs. Perhaps if Obama is really concerned
about the proliferation of firearms, he should resign.
Since the previous ban on certain
semi-automatic rifles sunset in 2004, gun ownership has increased and crime has
decreased.
According to the FBI, two-thirds of
murders that involve guns were perpetrated with handguns. In fact, it's pretty
embarrassing for Feinstein that her own summary statement says that her
ill-defined, so-called "assault weapons have been used in at least 459
incidents, resulting in 385 deaths and 455 injuries" since the ban ended,
because that's less than one-half of 1 percent of all gun deaths in that time
period. Twice as many people are killed with an assailant's hands, fists or
feet -- and almost five times as many with a knife -- than with a rifle.
Furthermore, the gun-death statistics that leftists tend to trot out are
invariably skewed by gang-on-gang violence.
Just this year in Chicago -- Obama's
hometown and a city with the toughest gun restrictions in America -- 62 young
people between the ages of six and 18 have been murdered with guns -- and
nearly 500 people total. Not a word from Obama.
It must also be noted that the
murders in Newtown, as well as those in Aurora, Virginia Tech, Columbine and
other places, occurred in so-called "gun-free zones." The Useful Idiots
of the Left are under the delusion that simply posting a sign will make people
safe, when only the murderers actually are safe. Estimates are that the
sociopathic killer in Newtown broke 20 existing gun laws, including entering a
"gun-free zone" with a gun. Murder is also against the law no matter
the weapon.
There are numerous stories every
week like this, this and this of citizens using firearms to stop threats, often
without even firing a shot. Ann Coulter recounts several
attempted mass shootings thwarted by gun owners.
The Conclusion
Benjamin Franklin once proclaimed,
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." In the case of those who
would give up Essential Liberty for nothing more than the perception of
a little temporary safety with more gun prohibitions, indeed they deserve
neither Liberty nor safety and, ultimately, will lose both.
