You're sound asleep when you hear a thump outside your bedroom door. Half-awake, and nearly paralyzed with fear, you hear muffled whispers. Two people have broken into your house and are moving your way. With your heart pumping, you reach down beside your bed and pick up your shotgun. You rack a shell into the chamber, then inch toward the door and open it. In the darkness, you make out two shadows.One holds what looks like a crowbar. When the intruder raises it as if to strike, you raise the shotgun and fire. The blast knocks both thugs to the floor. One writhes and screams while the second man crawls to the front door and gets outside. As you pick up the telephone to call police, you know you're in trouble. In your country, most guns were outlawed years before, and the few privately owned are so regulated as to make them useless. Yours was never registered. Police arrive and tell you that the second burglar has died. They arrest you for First Degree Murder and Illegal Possession of a Firearm. When you talk to your attorney, he tells you not to worry: authorities will probably plea the case down to manslaughter."What kind of sentence will I get?" you ask."Only ten or twelve years," he replies. "Behave, and you'll be out in seven."The next day, the shooting is the lead story in the local newspaper. Somehow, you're portrayed as a vigilante, while the two men you shot are represented as choirboys. Their friends and relatives can't find an unkind word to say about them. Buried deep down in the article, authorities acknowledge that both "victims" have been arrested numerous times. But the next day's headline says it all: "Lovable Rogue Son Didn't Deserve to Die." The thieves have been transformed from career criminals into Robin Hood-type pranksters. As the days wear on, the story grows. The national media picks it up, then the international media. The surviving burglar has become a folk hero. Your attorney says the thief is going to sue you, and he'll probably win. The media reports that your home has been burglarized several times in the past and that you've been critical of local police for their lack of effort in apprehending the suspects. After the last break-in, you told your neighbor you would be prepared next time. The District Attorney uses this to claim you were lying in wait for the burglars. A few months later, you go to trial. The charges haven't been reduced, as your lawyer had predicted. When you take the stand, your anger at the injustice of it all works against you. Prosecutors paint a picture of you as a mean, vengeful man. It doesn't take long for the jury to convict you of all charges.The judge sentences you to life in prison.
This case really happened. On August 22, 1999, Tony Martin of Norfolk, England, killed one burglar and wounded a second. In April, 2000, he was convicted and is now serving a life term. How did it become a crime to defend one's own life in the once great British Empire? After the Martin shooting, a police spokesman was quoted as saying, "We cannot have people take the law into their own hands."
All of Martin's neighbors had been robbed numerous times, and several elderly people were severely injured in beatings by young thugs who had no fear of the consequences. Martin himself, a collector of antiques, had seen most of his collection trashed or stolen by burglars. It started with the Pistols Act of 1903. This seemingly reasonable law forbade selling pistols to minors or felons and established that handgun sales were to be made only to those who had a license. The Firearms Act of 1920 expanded licensing to include not only handguns but all firearms except shotguns. Later laws passed in 1953 and 1967 outlawed the carrying of any weapon by private citizens and mandated the registration of all shotguns. Momentum for total handgun confiscation began in earnest after the Hungerford mass shooting in 1987. Michael Ryan, a mentally disturbed Man with a Kalashnikov rifle, walked down the streets shooting everyone he saw. When the smoke cleared, 17 people were dead. The British public, de-sensitized by eighty years of "gun control", demanded even tougher restrictions. (The seizure of all privately owned handguns was the objective even though Ryan used a rifle.) Nine years later, at Dubliner, Scotland, Thomas Hamilton used a semi-automatic weapon to murder 16 children and a teacher at a public school. For many years, the media had portrayed all gun owners as mentally unstable or worse, criminals. Now the press had a real kook with which to beat up law-abiding gun owners. Day after day, week after week, the media gave up all pretense of objectivity and demanded a total ban on all handguns. The Dunblane Inquiry sealed the fate of any still owned by private citizens. During the years in which the British government took away most gun rights, the idea that a citizen had the right to armed self-defense came to be seen as vigilantism. Authorities refused to grant gun licenses to people who were threatened, claiming that self-defense was
no longer considered a reason to own a gun. Citizens who shot burglars or robbers or rapists were
charged while the real criminals were released. When the Dunblane Inquiry ended, citizens who owned handguns were
given three months to turn them over to local authorities. Being good British subjects, most people obeyed the law. The few who didn't were
visited by police and
threatened with ten-year prison sentences if they didn't comply. Police later bragged they'd taken nearly 200,000 handguns from
private citizens. How did the authorities know who had handguns? The guns had been
registered and licensed. Kind of like cars. Sound familiar?
WAKE UP AMERICA; THIS IS WHY OUR FOUNDING FATHERS PUT THE SECOND AMENDMENT IN OUR CONSTITUTION.
"..It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.."--Samuel AdamsMost readers of this are aware that gun control mainly keeps guns out of the hands of people that aren’t a problem. What about the people gun control
should disarm?
America is faced with an ever-growing problem of violence.
Our streets have become a battleground where the elderly are beaten for their social security checks, where terrified women are viciously attacked and raped, where teen-age gangsters
shoot it out for a patch of turf to sell their illegal drugs, and where innocent children are caught daily in the crossfire of
drive-by Shootings. We cannot ignore the damage that these criminals are doing to our society, and we must take action to stop these horrors. However, the effort by some misguided individuals to eliminate the legal ownership of firearms does not address the real problem at hand, and simply disarms the innocent law-abiding
Citizens who are most in need of a form of self-defense.
To fully understand the reasons behind the gun control efforts, we must look at the history of our country, and the role Firearms have played in it. The
second amendment to the Constitution of the United States makes
firearm ownership legal in this country.
There were good reasons for this freedom, reasons which persist today.
Firearms in the new world were used initially for hunting, and occasionally for self-defense. However, when the colonists felt that the burden of British oppression was too much for them to bear, they picked up their
personal firearms and went to war. Standing against the British armies, these rebels found themselves opposed by the greatest military force in the world at that time. The 18th century witnessed the height of the British Empire, but the rough band of colonial freedom fighters discovered the power of the Minuteman, the average American gun owner. These Minutemen, so named because they would pick up their personal guns and jump to the defense of their country on a minute's notice, served a major part in winning the
American Revolution. The founding fathers of this country understood that an armed populace was
instrumental in fighting off oppression, and they made the right to keep and bear arms a
constitutionally guaranteed right.
Over the years, some of the reasons for owning firearms have changed. As we grew into a strong nation, we expanded westward, exploring the wilderness, and building new towns on the Frontier. Typically, these new towns were far away from the centers of Civilization, and the only law they had was dispensed by townsfolk through the barrel of a gun. Crime existed, but
could be minimized when the townspeople fought back against the criminals. Eventually, these organized townspeople developed police forces as their towns grew in size. Fewer people carried their firearms on the street, but the firearms were always there, ready to be used in self-defense.
After the Civil War the
first gun-control advocates came into existence. These were southern leaders who were afraid that the newly freed black slaves would assert their newfound
political rights, and these leaders wanted to make it easier to oppress the free blacks. This oppression was accomplished by passing laws making it illegal in many places for black people to own firearms. With that effort, they assured themselves that the black population would be
subject to their control, and would not have the ability to fight back. At the same time, the people who were most intent on denying black people their basic rights walked around with their firearms, making it
impossible to resist their efforts. An unarmed man stands little chance against an armed one, and these armed men saw their plans work completely. It was a full century before the
civil rights activists of the 1960s were able to restore the
Constitutional freedoms that blacks in this country were granted in the 1860s.
Today's
gun control activists are a slightly different breed. They claim that gun violence in this country has gotten to a point where something
must be done to stop it. They would like to see criminals disarmed, and they want the random violence to stop. I agree with their sentiments. However, they are going about it in the
wrong way. While claiming that they want to take guns out of the hands of criminals, they work to pass legislation that would take the guns out of the hands of
law-abiding citizens instead. For this reason the efforts at gun control
do not address the real problem of crime.
The simple definition of a criminal is someone who does
not obey the law. The simple definition of a law-abiding citizen is someone who
does obey the law. Therefore, if we pass laws
restricting ownership of firearms, which category of people does it affect? The answer is that gun control laws affect
law-abiding citizens only. By their very nature, the criminals will continue to violate these new laws, they will continue to carry their firearms, and they will find their efforts at crime much easier when they know that their
victims will be
unarmed. The situation is similar to that of the disarmed blacks a century ago. Innocent people are turned into victims when new
laws make it impossible for them to fight back. An unarmed man stands little chance against an armed one.
An interesting recent development has been the backlash against the gun-control advocates. In many states, including
Florida and
Texas, citizens have stated that they want to preserve their
right to carry firearms for self-defense. Since the late 1980s, Florida has been issuing concealed weapons permits to law-abiding citizens, and these citizens have been carrying their firearms to defend themselves from rampant crime. The result is that the incidence of violent crime has actually
dropped in contrast to the national average. Previously, Florida had been leading the nation in this category, and the citizens of that state have welcomed the change. Gun control advocates tried to claim that there would be bloodshed in the streets when these citizens were given the right to carry. They tried to claim that the cities of Florida would become like Dodge City with
shootouts on every street corner. These gun control advocates were wrong. Over
200,000 concealed carry permits have been
issued so far, with only
36 of these permits
revoked for improper use of a firearm. This statistic is easy to understand. It is the law-abiding citizens who are going through the process of getting concealed carry permits so that they may legally carry a firearm. The people who go through this legal process do not want to break the law, and they do not intend to break the law. The people who do intend to break the law will carry their guns whether or not the law allows them to do so.
Criminals will always find ways to get guns. We have criminalized the use, possession, sale, and transportation of many kinds of narcotics, but it's still easy for someone to take a ride and purchase the drugs of their choice at street corner vendors.
Firearms and ammunition would be just as easy for these black-market entrepreneurs to deliver to their customers. Today,
criminals often carry illegal weapons, including sawed-off shotguns, machine guns, and homemade zip-guns, clearly showing their
disregard for the current laws which make these items
illegal. And when they are caught, the
courts regularly
dismiss these lesser
weapons charges when prosecuting for the more
serious charges that are being committed with the weapons.
Gun control advocates have argued their case by
demonizing the gun itself, rather than the
people who commit violent crimes. This is the main fallacy in their argument. They slyly attempt to claim that possession of a gun turns average citizens into
bloodthirsty lunatics. This theory falls apart under close scrutiny.
If legal possession of a firearm caused this sort of attitude, then why are
crime rates highest in areas such as
Washington, D.C. and
New York City which have
strict gun control laws? And why are crime rates dropping in states such as Florida where private ownership of firearms is encouraged? Simply stated,
legal ownership of a gun does not cause crime.The most recent efforts of the gun control lobby have been to claim that certain types of guns and ammunition are
inherently evil.
They assign emotional catch phrases such as "assault weapons" and "cop killer bullets" to broad categories of firearms and ammunition in the hopes that people will believe that some guns have an
evil nature.
Most people who are unfamiliar with firearms do not fully understand what these phrases mean, and they accept the terms being used without question. What people do not often understand is that the term "assault weapon" has been defined to include
all semi-automatic rifles, and "cop killer" has been defined to include
any bullet that can penetrate type two body armor. It comes as a surprise to most people that a large number of simple hunting rifles can do both. Does ownership of one of these weapons cause people to become
mass murderers? It does not, and we must not fall into the trap of
blaming the sword for the hand that wields it.
The act of making it illegal to own firearms does little to prevent
criminals from getting guns. These laws only
restrict people who respect the law, the people who would only use firearms for legal purposes anyway. And when we give people the right to defend themselves, we find that criminals start looking for other victims out of fear that they will become the victims. We must work to
reduce crime in America, but we should look at the problem realistically, and develop plans that would be effective. It is obvious that gun control laws are
neither realistic, nor effective in reducing crime. Therefore, we must direct our efforts toward controlling crime, not controlling
legal ownership of firearms.
