Posted on 04/20/2003 10:38:41 AM PDT by Valin
Edited on 04/13/2004 3:38:53 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The question came up in a casual conversation. I had mentioned that I own several guns to an acquaintance, a woman. She was slightly shocked, but did her polite best to conceal it.
She looked at me speculatively as she formulated a question. I'll try to reproduce it just the way she asked it: "Do you ever . . . I mean, do the guns . . . ever influence you? I mean, do you sometimes feel like you should use them?"
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
It must be a very strange existance to have such pervasive self doubt. Still, much can be blamed on the ill influence of the OldDominantLiberalMedia. Most of those same people don't doubt their ability to control a car, for example, even though many times as many people are killed in cars than with guns.
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My name is not 'Buford'. I am Jewish and reasonably well-educated (B.S., Mechanical Engineering, Cornell University; M.S., Aerospace Engineering, M.I.T.). My parents remembered the holocaust, and taught me what the Nazis did to unarmed and helpless Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto and the abattoirs of the camps. One of my friends has children who attend the Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills.
I am also a gun owner. I own ten handguns, two rifles, and a shotgun. In a temper of pure contrariness, I recently placed an order for an "assault weapon". Before obtaining this gun, I will undergo, for the 14th time, a background check by the Attorney General to certify that I am reasonably sane, have no criminal record, and am not a danger to myself or others. How this 14th certification will prevent crimes of passion is a mystery: should I go mad and decide to kill my neighbor, one of my existing weapons will do the job admirably. I will not go down to my local gun store to purchase a new gun just for this purpose. A little thought will show that the "background check" for people who already own guns can serve no purpose other than pure harassment.
Now, acting with self-righteous indignation, the Los Angeles County Supervisors have voted to disallow gun shows on county property. Imagine! People are actually gathering peacefully to buy and sell guns, as if that were perfectly normal and legal. Which, of course, it is. The individuals voting against gun shows have obviously never attended one. I have attended many, and here is what I found: families spending the day together. A completely safe and non-threatening environment. Parents let their kids run free--without worry that someone will grab them and spirit them away. Women are respected. Voices are rarely, if ever, raised. Everyone is polite, well-washed, and wholesome.
The gun-show ban is only the latest manipulation in a propaganda war designed to demonize gun-owners and supporters of the Second Amendment. The same campaign is being employed against us as was used against smokers and tobacco companies. The two cases are similar: both involved propaganda against law-abiding users and purveyors of a legal product. Anti-gun fanatics have become quite expert in various techniques of propaganda. One of the most effective is to construct scare phrases such as "Cop Killer Bullet", "Assault Weapon", "Spray[ed] bullets", and so on. They are working assiduously to confuse the term "Semi-Automatic" with "Automatic". (An automatic weapon is a machine gun. Virtually all handguns, and many rifles, are semi-automatic--meaning that one bullet is fired for each pull of the trigger. The sixgun that Wyatt Earp used was a "semi-automatic" weapon, as was the .45-caliber pistol used in World War II by U.S. servicemen, a pistol invented in 1911.)
This is done in order to define the terms of the debate and thus to "win" it before it begins. Indeed, reasoned debate is the last thing they want: they rely upon emotionalism and hysteria rather than logic. The anti-gun crowd is perfectly dishonest. They pretend, for example, that "13 children a day" are "killed by guns". In order to derive this number, they assume that everyone under 21 is a "child". The vast majority of "children" who die by gunfire are gang members, who are murdering each other in wars over money, drugs, and turf. But it is far more important for the anti-gun zealots to invoke a false image of innocent six-year-olds being gunned down in the street.
Logic and facts would reveal, for example, that there are 60 million gun owners in the U.S., and approximately 200 million firearms. 99.5% of all firearms are never used in any crime. For 223 years, the United States has had a large number of firearms without massacres like that at Littleton or Granada Hills. Guns, in fact, were more readily available before 1960 than now--and such rampages were rare. This suggests that it is not guns but other factors that lead to these killings. And Professor John Lott of the University of Chicago has shown that ownership of firearms actually prevents violent crime. But the debate is no longer about logic and facts.
If there are roughly 65 million adult males in the U.S., and each year 0.01% of them go insane, and one percent of them decide to murder, then there will be 65 insane killers per year, roughly 5 per month. If one-fifth of those insane killers use a gun, then the anti-gun propagandists will have one atrocity a month to use in their campaign. If the killer instead uses a car, a fertilizer bomb, poison, or a chainsaw, the crime is printed on page 32 of the paper, and all of the compassion of the gun-grabbers is withheld.
Now I know how smokers must feel. At a recent dinner party, I mentioned in conversation that I own guns and shoot them as a hobby. A shocked silence descended on the room. It was as if I had casually admitted a taste for human flesh, or a rare sexual perversion as yet unapproved by Hollywood. Guests eyed me suspiciously, as if I might at any moment produce a weapon and begin "spraying" bullets. In point of fact, having been repeatedly certified by the State A.G. as a solid citizen, sane and non-violent, I am one of the least likely to perpetrate an outrage. But all of the current gun-law frenzy is directed at me and other law-abiding gun owners. Do the Supervisors imagine that gang members purchase weapons at gun shows?
The current uproar over "straw purchases" is truly amusing in a sad way. If straw purchasers--defined as persons with no criminal record who buy guns to resell to criminals--are indeed a problem, then the State Attorney General has not been doing his job. If I were to purchase, say, 12 handguns in May, and another 12 in June, one would expect Mr. Lockyer to inquire what I am doing with so many weapons. Evidently he has not been inquiring when others make repeated straw purchases. Instead, he supported the "one-gun-a-month" law, apparently out of laziness--it is, after all, the failure of his office that "necessitated" it. Has anyone accused the Attorney General of nonfeasance? It would seem that he is more culpable than are gun owners--if straw purchases are really the problem they are said to be.
The present hysterical drumbeat against firearms is dangerous on many levels. It demonstrates the corruption of American political debate, and the debasement of education. Citizens are no longer taught the meaning or purpose of the Bill of Rights, and critical thinking skills are actively discouraged by the schools--in favor of 'feelings' and non-rational discourse. When friends ask me my definition of a "conservative", I tell them: 'Conservatives are the people who can read the Constitution--and have the temerity to believe it means exactly what it says.'
The Second Amendment says, "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." This is plain language, and before America was deconstructed by the Left, its meaning was clear. "Infringe," says my dictionary, means "to break (a law or agreement); fail to observe the terms of; violate; trespass; encroach, meddle." That seems clear enough. And anyone who has studied the Federalist Papers cannot avoid the conclusion that the Founders clearly intended for private citizens to have the right to keep and bear arms--without interference.
Yet the Second Amendment, like those other step-children of the Bill of Rights, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, is simply ignored. A curious sort of blindness--of tunnel vision--infects those who want to "control" guns. They stridently adopt an absolutist position on the First Amendment, but avert their eyes when the Second is mentioned--they wish it would just go away. (Ask the ACLU, "dedicated to upholding the Bill of Rights", how many defenses of the Second Amendment they have mounted.) But the Bill of Rights is not a Chinese Restaurant menu: you may not choose those rights you admire and reject those you deplore. The current fashion--of adopting laws which are clearly unconstitutional, and blandly ignoring criticisms based upon the constitution--is a step toward totalitarianism. It is the substitution of brute force for the rule of law. If one can violate the constitution and its clear meaning simply because one can, then the rule of law is dead…and might makes right.
If the gun-control crowd had an ounce of honesty and integrity, they would forthrightly admit that their goal is to outlaw all firearms and confiscate them. Then they would straightforwardly propose--and work to get ratified--an Amendment which repeals the Second Amendment. But they know the American people would never vote to abrogate a part of the Bill of Rights. So they prefer the incremental, "boiled frog" approach--achieving by stealth and gradualism what they cannot obtain openly. To call this strategy "dishonest" is an understatement.
And so was your contribution in Post #7, Boris!
Sorry.
--Boris
Stay Safe !
I believe that many of the people who fear guns in the hands of others do so because they do not trust themselves.
Having never shot a gun the probably think pulling the trigger is like using a remote to change channels. I tend to think that if somebody took them out shooting and had them blast away a couple of full soda cans or milk cartons -- preferable over paper targets -- that they'd respect the power of a gun and assessment of themselves. (I grew up way out in the country and that's how I learned.) There's a tremendous amount of power in one person's hands and once they experience the impact it has on them they'd learn a new degree of respect for themselves.
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