In the last post we covered the history and origins of the Second Amendment. With the Constitution as our foundation, let’s build the picture of modern day gun ownership and the role firearms play in current society.
Guns are irreversibly woven into the fabric of America. They’ve been used to protect our lives and liberty. They’ve been used to defend the freedom of countries other than our own. And that seems to be okay with everyone. However, when it comes to civilians owning or using firearms today things seem to get a little fuzzy.
As was demonstrated in the last post, gun ownership was common and not thought of as weird in any stretch of the word, unlike today. I myself am a gun owner and a proud member of the National Rifle Association. I have been asked the question “why would you want to own guns?”. I answered, “Because it’s my right to own a firearm and my right to defend myself, my home, and my family”. They replied, “Guns should just be outlawed”. I won’t go into the rest of the lengthy discussion I had with this individual but what it basically boiled down to is this: Take away guns from law abiding citizens and the crime rate will explode.
I’ve been scoffed at for making that statement. I can understand the watered down idea that if we made guns illegal then we could stop gun crime and crime in general. That sounds great in a world free of lawbreakers. But what makes a criminal a criminal? Their refusal to follow the law. If we outlaw guns, will those who commit crime suddenly see the error of their ways and turn in their weapons? I think not. In my home state of Virginia on the Lower Peninsula, there has been a wave of crime committed by a man dubbed “the bearded bandit”. He’s held up over two dozen businesses in the last year. I’m pretty sure it’s been stated sometime in the last year that robbery is a crime however that doesn’t seem to deter this man.
Interestingly, the last time this man attempted robbing a business, a local Auotzone, he was stopped. Devin McLean, the retired Airman working at the Autozone, took an opportunity to bolt out to his car and retrieve his Glock 40. He re-entered the store and demanded the crook drop his weapon. The robber took off running and is still at large. The local Sheriff proclaimed McLean a hero and that he saved not only his life but the life of his manager. Two days later he was fired. It was cited that he brought a firearm into the store which is against company policy. Don’t get me wrong, I get company policy, but the man saved his and the managers life. Do the right thing for a change and let that one go.
But this happens all the time in America. Law abiding citizens will use firearms to stop crime and save lives but are than punished or demonized for it. A 71-year old man in Florida stopped a robbery by two armed suspects in an internet café by opening fire with his lawfully concealed .380 handgun. The two criminals fled and were eventually caught. However, there was at least one major new agency (CNN) who refused to do more than make a passing mention of it. Their reason? They didn’t want to encourage copy cats. You mean you don’t want to encourage a citizen to stop a crime and defend his life and the lives of those around him? Then I guess you didn’t air even one hour of the never ending coverage about the shooting in Aurora, Colorado. You wouldn’t want to encourage someone to copy cat that, right?
You’ll see figures of how many people are killed every day by guns. But do you ever hear how many times guns are used to stop crime? Well, it’s been estimated by some, including Gary Kleck of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida State University, to be between 500,000 and 2,000,000,000 times a year. That’s also taking into account the times it may not be reported to police.
So what about the relationship between firearms and crime? Is it true that if we limited the amount of guns and ammo on the street, banned assault weapons and normal capacity magazines and increase the size and number of gun free zones that crime will diminish. Well, let’s take a look by starting with gun free zones.
A gun free zone is exactly what it sounds like; an area on a map where you cannot carry a firearm at all. These range from schools and federal building to movie theaters restaurants. Even if you have a permit you cannot carry a firearm. Once again, that sounds great on paper but falls apart in reality. Can you guess how well it works? Nearly every single major shooting massacre in the United States has happened in gun free zones. They aren’t gun free zones, they’re victim disarmament zones.
Let’s move onto assault weapons or “the bad black guns” as some call them. I’m not exactly sure why these things get a bad rap. I assume because they are a military style weapon then non-gun owners don’t see the point in owning one and therefore they are bad. Let’s be clear, they are not any more deadly than any other firearm. You can kill a person with a .22 or an assault rifle. And the argument that the use of assault rifles in crimes is rampant is not factual. In 2011 there were a total of 12,664 murders in the U.S. Of those 8, 853 were with firearms and 6,220 of those were with handguns. So how many rifles were used? Just 323. That’s less than 4% of all fire arm related murders. (Here’s the crime report straight from the FBI).
Now what about ammo and magazines? That’s just common sense thinking. Even if you limit the capacity of magazines that are legal, every single magazine that was sold before such a law could take effect would still exist. Which means they would still be available to anyone who was looking enough for one. That and if a criminal needed the extra ammo he would just carry more magazines. Can’t carry a 30-round magazine then just carry three 10-round magazines. Ammo is a non issue. There are already some restrictions on the types of ammo available to people. Attacking ammo across the board would really only hurt law-abiding citizens, as per the usual.
Lastly, let’s take a look a gun laws and crime prevention. Do gun sale restrictions, limitations, and the non-issue of concealed carry permits lower crime? The short answer is no. It’s been shown that the parts of the country with fewer restrictions on gun ownership and restrictions have lower crime rates. There has also been an interesting trend over the past five or so years. Gun sales and concealed carry applications have sky-rocketed. On Black Friday of just this year the FBIs website went down for several hours due to an overload of background checks for the purchase of firearms.
If we are to believe the anti-gunners out there then it should make sense that as the amount of guns in public hands rises so should the crime rate. Well, not really as it turns out. Due to the overwhelming amount of data provided here by the FBI I’ll just cover murder rates. They are down 3%-4% across the board. So it would seem with more guns that crime goes down. That goes against everything we are told by the main-stream media and anti-gun groups.
So as we’ve see, despite facts that are readily available, apparently easily ignored as well, people still seem to think that the problem lies with pieces of plastic and metal, not the person behind the trigger. Crimes are committed by people not things. It’s a social and moral issue, not a material issue. Maybe we should look at why these people are holding up business and joining gangs. I bet the kid forgotten by his parents didn’t join a gang because they had guns.
But people like me will continue to fight and educate for gun rights. I’ll keep supporting groups like the NRA, USCCA and GOA to lobby for your right to bear. Guns stop and prevent crime, despite what some may make up in order to sway your opinion. The left gun-hating media and their supporters will continue to present opinion and feeling instead of facts. Just read their headlines next time a shooting occurs, or even when a citizen defends themselves. I implore you, as always, do your own research. Don’t take my or the anti-gunners word for it. Dig into it yourself and do your homework.
We’ve taken a look into the past of gun right and we’ve covered what’s been going on in the present. So now we need to take a look into the future. With a known anti-gun President in office there’s thing we need to look for. And we’ll go through that in the next post.
Thank you for reading. God bless all of you and God bless the United States of America.
Next Post: The Future of Gun Ownership in America.
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