In the coming months there’s going to be a lot of talk about
the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms, the NRA and “assault rifles”. The
limp-wristed Leftists who think a gun magazine is something you read will stomp
their feet and gnash their teeth crying “we have to get guns off the streets”
and “Republicans want guns so they can kill our kids” and similar nonsense.
The ignorance on the subject of guns is truly astounding. Hollywood
has had much to do with creating false perceptions, and hypocritical, power-hungry
politicians, many of whom have armed bodyguards, try to use this to their
advantage. It’s a subject that can and will be discussed far beyond this
election cycle, and there are so many facets to it, from the constitutional to
the economic, to the ethical and moral, to the pragmatic…this article is only a
tiny toe-in-the-water attempt to dispel some of the more glaring falsehoods and
mis-characterizations of both guns and gun owners that permeate the airwaves.
First of all, guns are only one means to either inflict
injury or death. In the hands of a determined killer a gun is actually one of
the least efficient ways of carrying out an evil act. A bomb or driving a car
into a crowd is far more deadly. Just ask Timothy McVeigh or Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Similarly, guns are only one means of self-defense, but
they’re an equalizer. A trained, 115 pound gun- wielding mom defending her
children against a threatening 250 pound home invader has a far better chance
of protecting them with a gun than without one. Yes, locks, alarms, pepper
spray, a fireplace poker or baseball bat and “retreating to a safe place” are
all possible defensive alternatives, but they’re hardly as effective as a gun against
a perpetrator intent on harm.
The constant whining about “assault rifles” is sickening to responsible gun owners and enthusiasts. From Colorado Democrat Representative Diana DeGette’s idiotic statement that if there is a ban on magazines eventually the number of bullets would diminish “because the bullets will have been shot and there won’t be any more available,” to Nancy Pelosi’s bill to ban “assault magazines”, I could go on and on but I’ll simply point you to this article entitled “Top Ten Most Idiotic Anti-Gun Quotes from Politicians”.
For those of you who are NOT knowledgeable about guns, a
magazine is the part of the gun that holds the bullets or shells, and is
continuously re-used, so banning magazines doesn’t ban or reduce the number of
bullets! And, by the way, the difference between bullets and shells is the
difference between rifles and handguns and shotguns. Shotguns use shells, the
others, bullets. Magazines can hold either but each is specific to the precise
ammunition used!
Another common absurdity spewing from the mouths of Leftists
is the suggestion that the AR in AR-15 stands for “Assault Rifle”. In fact, it
stands for ArmaLite, the company that has been around since 1954 and that
designed all kinds of rifles, each named with the prefix AR.
An assault rifle is a weapon that is capable of ‘select’ or
in other words, fully-automatic fire…essentially, a machine gun. That’s what
the police and soldiers have hanging from the straps around their necks. The
Left would have you believe that ANY gun that looks scary, i.e. one that looks
like a military rifle such as the AR-15, or the most widely available gun type
in the world…the AK-47 and its variants, is an assault weapon. No! Fully-automatic, true assault rifles are
already illegal. The kind of AR-15 or AK-47 that can be bought and used
are semi-automatic. The difference is that pressing the trigger of a
real assault rifle when in fully-automatic mode will cause it to shoot bullets continuously
until the trigger is released. On a semi-automatic rifle such as the kind owned
by hundreds of thousands of gun-owners, the trigger must be pressed once for
each firing of a bullet. The infamous “bump stock” used by the Las
Vegas shooter was a device that allowed a semi-automatic rifle to simulate a
fully-automatic one, but such a device could be used on lots of different
semi-automatic rifles, including ones that don’t look scary!
Ironically, the M-1 Garand – the principal rifle used by the
U.S. military during World War II, seems to be ok with the Left because it
doesn’t look like scary but rather more like a classic hunting rifle. However,
just ask many a dead German or Japanese soldier whether they considered the M-1
to be an assault weapon!
The justification for owning an AR or AK style rifle should
not be, as some pro-gun advocates suggest, for hunting. Sure you can hunt with
one, and many do, but for pure hunting purposes, a specific hunting rifle like
the Winchester Model 70 with a scope on it will likely fill your freezer with
venison more efficiently than an AR-15.
No, the justification for owning an AR or AK
“assault-style” weapon is that they are dual-purpose – they are
effective both for hunting AND self-defense. As the Winchester Model ’94 (the
lever-action saddle “Gun that Won the West” featured in Western
movies) was the dual-purpose rifle of the late 1800 and early 1900’s, the AR-15
and AK-47 are the dual-purpose rifles of today. Can any of these be used in a
mass shooting incident? Yes, and so can a pressure-cooker bomb!
Under the heading PROPAGANDA, you may have seen a spot on television
from the Ad Council where a little boy talks to his dad about the handgun
hidden under the sweaters in the father’s closet. The clip is intended to shock
the viewer into thinking “Oh my God, the child has access to a handgun and
could do so much harm to himself or others! We simply have to ban guns.” What’s
so ridiculous about this portrayal is that no responsible gun owner leaves a
gun in a place accessible to children! And while there may be some
irresponsible gun owners who have an easily accessible loaded gun in the house,
they take other precautions, of which there are many, to ensure it doesn’t get
into the wrong hands.
But this is but one example of the ignorant bias of such
“public service” depictions. The barrage is continuous and serves no-one save
the felons who would like nothing more than the assurance that they won’t
encounter an armed citizen when they perpetrate their crimes.
I once sat at dinner with a conservative Englishman with
whom I agreed on just about every topic except guns. “How could you allow so
many guns in America and pass legislation supporting their ownership? That’s
absurd”, he said. In reply I calmly pointed out, “Let’s say we were
instantaneously able to get all 350 million plus guns in the hands of American residents
off the streets on a Monday. How many guns do you think there would be on the
streets by Friday, and in whose hands would they be?”
The suggestion that all guns are inherently dangerous is
analogous to saying that all cars are dangerous! It is a true statement,
irrespective of whether it’s uttered by the NRA or an individual gun-owner,
that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. And
while rarely publicized, the number of times annually that guns in the hands of
responsible gun-owners have stopped crimes dwarfs the number of times guns are
actually used in the commission of a crime. What is never reported, because it
can’t be, is how many times the presence of a good guy with a gun DETERS a
crime, or the times a criminal abandons a crime and flees when confronted with
the barrel of a gun in the hands of a good guy.
In summary, it is absolutely true that “guns don’t kill
people, people do”. In the U.S. there are far more responsible gun owners
than criminals with guns, and that in and of itself deters many more crimes
than might otherwise occur.
So demagogue politicians can and will denounce guns, and
fracking, and cow farts and whatever else comes along that is the “cause du
jour”. Their stupid memes and crusades aren’t going to help anyone but
those who live off the grant money and donations of people trying to “feel
good” about “doing something”.
There, I feel slightly better now. Someday I’ll tell you how I really feel!
