Why Taking Guns Away From Law-Abiding Citizens Is Not The Answer

On Sunday, The Daily Wire reported that an attempted mass shooting at a mall in Greenwood, Indiana, was stopped by a citizen with a concealed carry license.

The article reports:

A mass shooter at a mall in Greenwood, Indiana was shot dead on Sunday by an armed civilian after firing into a crowded food court, killing three and wounding two.

According to Greenwood Police Chief Jim Ison, the man entered the mall with a rifle and several magazines and began firing into the crowd at the mall’s food court. Police first responded to shooting at about 6 p.m. The shooter was killed by an as of yet unidentified good guy with a gun.

Had the mall been a gun-free zone or the state not allowed the armed civilian to have a gun, the shooting would have ended very differently. I seriously doubt that the mass shooter believed that there would be someone at the mall to thwart his plans.

The article concludes:

Despite the often repeated claim that ‘the good guy with a gun’ is a myth, studies suggest that guns are used defensively in the United States between 500,000- 3 million times per year.

I am sure that there are a number of people who were at the mall that day who are grateful that the mall is not a gun-free zone.

 

When People Espousing Gun Control Know Nothing About The Subject

The Washington Free Beacon posted an article today about some recent statements by Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat congresswoman from Texas.

The article reports:

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D., Texas) claimed to have held an AR-15 and immediately regretted it, saying it weighed as much as “10 boxes that you might be moving.”

Speaking to reporters last week, she added that AR-15s use a “.50 caliber” bullet that ought to be licensed.

“I’ve held an AR-15 in my hand,” she said. “I wish I hadn’t. It is as heavy as 10 boxes that you might be moving. And the bullet that is utilized, a .50 caliber, these kinds of bullets need to be licensed and do not need to be on the streets.”

Being a skeptical person and not wanting to mislead readers of this blog, I weighed an AR-15 with a thirty-round magazine. It weighed less than my cat–about 10 pounds. (One of my cats is part Maine Coon and weighs about fifteen pounds. Note: It is definitely appropriate that someone writing a blog called rightwinggranny would have multiple cats!)  I would hate to be the moving company in charge of moving Representative Lee if each moving box only contains one pound’s worth of goods.

The article concludes:

The Washington Free Beacon made a SuperCut in 2018 of gun control advocates bungling facts about firearms, and it included many Democratic elected officials.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) remarked it was legal to “hunt humans” with high-capacity magazines, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg had to be corrected on the difference between automatic and semi-automatic weapons, and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.) warned about “rapid-fire magazines.”

Why do Democrat lawmakers want to take our guns away? Why do they want to take our guns away while they continue to have armed security guards? Is it okay for them to defend themselves but not okay for the average American citizen to be able to defend themselves? Why are lawmakers reluctant to put armed retired military in schools to defend the children, instead leaving schools on the list of ‘soft targets’ for mass shootings? Are lawmakers aware that the Aurora movie theater shooter chose that theater because it did not allow its patrons to exercise their concealed carry right? These are the questions that should be asked of our lawmakers.

They Did Get Some Of It Right

Yesterday The National Review posted an article about the decision by Colt to halt production of AR-15 rifles.

The article reports:

This, from ABC, is a nice example of a news organization deliberately bending the truth in order to advance a narrative that it wishes were true but is not:

Venerable gun manufacturer Colt says it will stop producing the AR-15, among other rifles, for the consumer market in the wake of many recent mass shootings in which suspects used the weapon.

Wow. Sounds dramatic. ABC continues:

“At the end of the day, we believe it is good sense to follow consumer demand and to adjust as market dynamics change,” Dennis Veilleux, president and CEO of Colt, said in a statement. “Colt has been a stout supporter of the Second Amendment for over 180 years, remains so, and will continue to provide its customers with the finest quality firearms in the world.”

So the story is that, although it still respects the Second Amendment, Colt is going to stop producing AR-15s after a series of mass shootings in which they were used. Right?

Wrong. That’s actually not the story at all, as ABC notes further down:

The company did not mention mass shootings in its statement about stopping production and instead blamed the indefinite pause in making the weapon on a “significant excess manufacturing capacity.”

And that is how you take truth and twist it until it leaves a totally false impression. That is the way the current mainstream media operates.

Searching For The Truth Regarding Guns

Yesterday American Greatness posted an article detailing some of the lies the American people are currently being told about guns.

The article reports:

There’s a lot to unpack here about so-called “assault weapons.” The first challenge is the absence of any fixed legal definition of what constitutes an “assault weapon.” Numerous state laws have defined the phrase as everything from paintball guns to all semiautomatic firearms to Remington 11-87 shotguns, the latter famously used by former presidential candidate John Kerry (D-Mass.) on Labor Day in 2004 to demonstrate his legitimately good trap-shooting skills.

The vague term “assault weapon” is distinct from an assault rifle, however, which refers to a rapid-fire, magazine fed rifle that allows the shooter to select between semiautomatic (requiring you to pull the trigger for each shot), fully automatic (hold the trigger and the gun continuously fires) or three-round-burst modes. Assault rifles are, for all intents and purposes, already banned in the United States. More on that shortly.

The next lie is that the assault weapons ban worked:

Except it didn’t. “There is no compelling evidence that it saved lives,” according to Duke University public policy experts Philip Cook and Kristin Goss. A 2004 Department of Justice study found no evidence the ban had any effect on gun violence, stating “should it be renewed, the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.” Other studies have found no statistically significant relationship between “assault” weapons or large-capacity magazine bans and homicide rates.

There is also substantial misunderstanding surrounding what the Assault Weapons Ban, which passed in 1994 and sunset in 2004, actually did. It didn’t ban anyone from owning an “assault-style” (again, an undefined term) weapon. All magazines and weapons produced before the ban were grandfathered in, and some companies actually ramped up production of the soon-to-be-outlawed firearm components, drastically increasing ownership of what lawmakers were seeking to reduce.

The article mentions:

Also, given the frequently cited claim that “assault weapons lead to more murder,” it’s worth pointing out that at least 730,000 AR-15s (not an assault rifle, but more on that in a bit) were manufactured and legally sold while the Assault Weapons Ban was in effect, and the national murder rate declined.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. We are being sold a bill of goods by people who want to take our Second Amendment rights away.

The article concludes with information about the shooting that recently occurred in Odessa, Texas:

The shooter was also prohibited under federal law from owning a firearm because a court previously had found him mentally unfit. He evidently had tried to purchase a gun in January 2014 but failed because the nationwide criminal background check system had flagged the mental health determination.

The federal Firearms Transaction Record, form 4437, required for all gun purchases, asks “have you ever been adjudicated as a mental defective or have you ever been committed to a mental institution?” Falsifying the form is a crime.

It was later revealed the shooter had a criminal record that included pleading guilty to criminal trespassing and evading arrest, both of which are misdemeanors in Texas. He did not receive jail time, but instead got two years of probation.

The Odessa shooting was a horror. But existing laws prevented it from happening sooner. And the fact that he got a gun at all tells us what common sense already teaches: motivated criminals don’t abide by laws.

As my boss, former U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said recently, the breakdown of the culture is more responsible for mass shootings than the availability of the guns themselves. There are myriad reasons for this, but lawmakers, he noted, need to set a better example for how to treat people before rushing to strip Second Amendment rights from the rest of us.

If guns are illegal, people who follow the law will not have them. If guns are illegal, people who do not follow the law will have them. It’s that simple.

Something You Are Not Likely To Hear From The Mainstream Media

Yesterday Breitbart posted an article quoting statistics on firearms homicides over the past 25 years. The numbers are not what you might expect.

The article reports:

Despite endless gun violence reports put forward by the establishment media, the dirty little secret is firearm homicides have plummeted over the past 25 years.

Yet most Americans, particularly Democrats, believe firearm murders have risen period.

When you consider the fact that the media chooses what it covers and what it doesn’t cover, the fact that most Americans are misinformed about gun violence is not a surprise.

The article includes some of the statistics:

But the reality is that the high water mark for firearm murders was 1994 while 2017, the most recent year with complete data on incidents, shows a sharp drop. There were “16,136 [firearm murders] in 1994” but only “10,982” in 2017.

And if looked at in terms of the murder rate, instead of simply the raw murder numbers, the drop in firearm homicides is even more evident.

For example, the FBI calculated “6.2 firearm murders per 100,000 people” in 1994, while the murder rate in 2017 was 3.38. And the murder rate was even lower than 3.38 in 2014.

An interesting correlation with the drop in firearm murders is the incredible expansion of private firearm ownership. In other words, the number of privately-owned firearms was increasing at the same time that the number of firearm murders was plummeting.

On December 4, 2013, Breitbart News reported a Congressional Research Service study showing “gun ownership climbed from 192 million firearms in 1994 to 310 million firearms in 2009.” At the same time, the “firearm-related murder and non-negligent homicide” rate was cut in half over a roughly 17-year time period.

There are a few things at work here. First of all, criminals do not like to commit crimes in places where people are likely to be armed. Second of all, by providing wall-to-wall coverage of any mass shooting for days on end, the media puts the idea in our heads that these are common occurrences. The media is much less likely to cover events where an armed citizen protects himself or prevents a mass shooting.

I really don’t understand why the media aligns itself with the gun-control left. Do they not realize that they too will be left defenseless?

Security In Florida Schools

The Gateway Pundit is reporting today that the Florida Senate has passed a bill that will allow trained teachers to arm themselves in class. It is sad that this is probably a necessary thing to do.

The article reports:

The bill will now go to the House, after being approved by a vote of 22-17. The Republican House has been extremely supportive of the bill, and Gov. Ron DeSantis has indicated that he intends to sign it if it passes.

If passed, the bill will still require local school boards and charter governing boards to vote on whether or not they want to authorize it.

“Teachers who volunteer to bring guns to schools would have to undergo a psychological test and at least 144 hours of training, the results of which have to be approved by law enforcement,” The Hill reports.

In the past, people who carry out mass shootings have preferred places where they would not encounter armed resistance. Knowing that there were trained, armed teachers in a school might discourage a deranged person from attacking it. Obviously, the best way to stop a bad man with a gun is a good man with a gun. The need for this law is an unfortunate statement about the condition of our society, but it is the reality we live with. I believe this law, if passed, will save lives in Florida.

Why Gun Control Is Not The Answer

Yesterday The Daily Signal posted an article about a shooting in Texas. James Jones of Grand Prairie, Texas, walked into the Zona Caliente in Arlington, Texas, and began yelling incoherently. Jones shot and killed 37-year-old Cesar Perez, the bar manager, after he tried to engage him in conversation to find out what he wanted, police say. At that point an armed customer drew his own weapon and shot Jones.

The article reports:

“After he [Jones] was struck once, the suspect started shooting at the front door,” Cook told the Arlington Voice. “We know people were trying to escape, but we’re not sure if he was just trying to harm others.”

In the aftermath of the shootings, police discovered that the incident could have been much deadlier. Investigators found two more loaded guns and two knives on Jones’ body.

“We do believe he had the capacity to do much greater harm,” Cook said.

Cook confirmed that Zona Caliente is a so-called “blue sign” establishment that allows concealed carry holders to bring firearms inside. He said the shooting will be referred to the Tarrant County grand jury—a standard procedure—but doesn’t expect the concealed carry holder to be charged with any crime.

A responsible citizen with a concealed carry permit is the best response to an attempted mass shooting. How long would it have taken for the police to arrive on the scene and subdue the gunman? How many people would have lost their lives during that time?