I own eight rifles, four handguns, a couple b.b. guns, a couple pellet guns, and a musket that is on a plaque on the wall at my house up on the Oregon Coast. I fired my dad's .22 rifle a few times when I was a kid, but it wasn't until my military career began that I truly gained respect for higher caliber weapons.
The guns I own primarily were bequeathed to me when my father died in 1999, though my ownership of guns before that were not necessarily non-existent. However, in the last decade, my appreciation of weapons has grown, and my opportunities to fire weapons increased with the advent of a neighbor of mine - a fellow gun enthusiast - taking me to the range with him.
Anyway, my guns bring me pleasure, and they provide me with a sense of security. Private ownership of my weapons is also a freedom that I enjoy, and I believe is a Constitutional right given to us for many important reasons.
I have the right to bear arms, according to the Founding Fathers, and I expect to fully take advantage of that right.
I understand the anti-gun argument of the liberal left, and gun control crowd. Guns can kill innocent people in the hands of the wrong person. Guns can be dangerous in the hands of the uneducated when it comes to gun-safety. Guns can be used in ways they were not necessarily intended to be used.
Humanity as a species began as hunter/gatherers. It was the gun that eventually made methods of feeding the family more efficient. And, it was the gun that launched this nation. It was the gun that freed the slaves, and ended slavery. It was the gun that defeated Napolean. It was the gun that halted the march of the tyranny of Naziism, and Adolf Hitler. It was the gun, in the long run, that stopped the death of millions of innocent people, because the gun was also in the right hands.
I guarantee you if someone else is pointing a gun at you and intends to kill you, without a weapon of your own, you will feel quite vulnerable. I, myself, have been in a situation where had it not been for a gun in my hands, I would be dead. And a ruthless individual who would get their hands on a gun, whether they were legal or not, would be running around free - to kill again with his illegally gotten gun.
Gun control and gun bans do not take guns away from the criminal element. They only take guns away from those intent upon protecting themselves.
Of course, the argument in opposition to what I am saying would be something like, "If there was no such things as guns the need to use them to protect yourself would not be necessary as well." Indeed, that is true - and then the criminal element would be using a bow and arrow, or a bat, or a hammer to use as an offensive weapon. Would you have those items banned too, if that was the case?
It is no surprise that cities with stricter gun laws have higher crime rates. Cities with more relaxed gun laws have lower crime rates and lower murder rates. There are some towns with gun requirements (Like Kennesaw, Georgia) that basically say that if you live in the town (with the exception of felons, the disabled, and those with religious convictions against gun ownership) you will have a gun on your property. Towns like that have a zero murder rate.
Every time, worldwide, gun laws become more strict, violent crime percentages go up. And even if none of these statistics were available, and you had to only decide whether or not guns in the hands of the public should remain legal, based on your common sense, common sense would dictate that criminals intent on stealing from people, and harming people, and willing to do so with a violent tendency using weapons, will still get their hands on guns, or will get their hands on any weapon it takes - while the innocent remains unarmed - after all, criminals prefer their prey unarmed.
Imagine, a criminal desiring to steal your things, and harming anybody that gets in the way, breaking into your house. They are quick, efficient, the alarm is nothing to them. They are out of there before the police can arrive. And because they are in such a hurry, they've got a gun for the quick elimination of obstacles. They are willing to eliminate anyone that gets in their way to slow them down without even batting an eye. Now, if you don't have a gun, are you going to grab a baseball bat? Hide in the closet? What are you going to do?
If you have a gun in such a case as detailed above, and this criminal, not only bent on stealing from you, but on self-preservation as well, hears the click-click of your weapon, their self-preservation instinct is going to override their intent to steal or kill - and they will depart in more cases than not. In most cases, when a home is owned by a gun owner, and someone breaks into that house, the result is seldom a gun fight. Usually, the result is a fearful flee by the assailant. And when properly educated with gun safety, a gun can be a safe, productive, security device - as well as a pleasurable tool - after all, that is what it is. A tool. Even a hammer, in the wrong hands, can become a deadly weapon. But in the hands of a carpenter it can be a useful, and important tool. I believe guns should be banned no more than hammers should be banned. After all, like hammers, guns are a valuable tool in the war on crime, protecting your family, and as a safeguard against tyrannical governments, and tyrannical ideologies.
In the end, it is the gun that keeps you safe. And it is the gun that let's freedom ring.
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