That tormented and pathetic soul, the Va. Tech. shooter, would have been stopped if law-abiding students and staff had been able to defend themselves on campus. Probably well intentioned but nonetheless ill conceived laws prevented it.
Saying a perceived ready availability of guns is the cause of the shooting is like blaming trucks and fertilizer for the Oklahoma City bombing. Every month American Rifleman magazine, in its "Armed Citizen" column, documents six or seven current examples of guns, in law abiding hands, saving lives or preventing injury. In his book More Guns Less Crime, John Lott ably supports the idea expressed by the title. Most of the media will not tell these stories or examine this idea fairly.
We gun owners will not tolerate being blamed for tragedies we did not cause; we will not forfeit inherent rights and we will resist enactment of laws which force us to choose between defenselessness and criminality. Passage of such laws, at least in Federal law, will mean our voting the legislators who voted for such laws out of power.
We believe that the 2nd Amendment and most of the case law construing it amount to a promise that the Federal government will not attempt what it knows to be an injustice - infringement of that right - and will protect us from any power (eg. state governments, the U.N.) which attempts it. I think it odd that many of the same people who detect in the "penumbra and emanations" of the "living" Constitution a right to kill unborn children suddenly become strict constructionists on the 2nd Amendment and hold that it recognizes no right of private individual arms ownership.
We have NRA, one of the most effective lobbying organizations in the U.S.; we ended forty years of Democrat control of the House in 1994 in large part because of unjust gun laws; we showed Al Gore the White House exit because he disdained gun owner's rights. Had Gore won gun owning Tennessee, his disgraceful attempt to steal the election would have been unnecessary. Alot of conservative politicking goes on at the gun shows which are common in flyover country; that's why liberals want to shut them down. We are busy little bees and you have to pay us attention; just ask Kathleen KENNEDY, who said she wasn't afraid of the political power of gun owners and who consequently and comically lost the governorship of mostly liberal Maryland.
On the national level and in the majority of the states; yeah, go ahead and alienate gun owners by making it needlessly difficult or impossible to obtain or own firearms and you won't have a chance of being elected parking meter polisher. We have that kind of power because we come from the common sense majority, not the elitist liberal fringe.
Often people of good will ask gun owners why we "need" guns. To be blunt for purposes of this comment only: its none of anyone's business. We are a FREE people and we can choose to own anything which doesn't harm others. Our guns usually don't harm others because 99.9% of us are law abiding. I may need my guns, I may just like them, I may use them for tent posts; its my business, not yours.
After seeing how the perfectionists in this country nickled and dimed the lawful tobacco industry and smokers ( how about organizations in California which want to stop people from smoking in their homes?) we know what to expect. Increased gun control means eventual confiscation.
Tony Blair was open and honest with his vow to destroy the gun culture in Britain. His handgun ban naturally led to a spike in violent crime and British criminals and Tony's admirers (at least for that) in the U.S. are fine with it. After all, the purpose of the ban was to cut crime (huh?).
The American gun culture, the heart of which is freely chosen gun ownership by law abiding citizens is effectively anticrime and is a positive and beneficial tradition which we have the backbone to defend.
To those who ignore the rights of an unyieldingly free people, who blithely countenance the disarming of the lawful and the empowerment of criminals and who think they now have a chance to take our guns (but not the guns that protect Rosie), I say: step off, back off, leave us be! Mrs. Clinton as President and Charles Schumer as Attorney General notwithstanding, we won't take it. We are citizens of a true democracy and we know it; we've helped to establish and ensure it. If you act on your new found confidence we will defeat you in the political arena and you know it.
Banning our guns, using administrative law and prerogative to harass lawful gun dealers and manufacturers out of business, making arms needlessly difficult to obtain or use: these only increase the chance of tragedy by making us all vulnerable to criminals and maniacs. You anti-gun types ought rather to work to save all the potential year 2025 college students who are aborted every day. Cassius
