WHAT ABOUT GUNS?

All Americans stand with students, parents and stunned survivors of the horrible mass shootings suffered from coast to coast in America.  When schools are the target, it becomes necessary to speak out.

As an author of fiction, I resist involvement in partisan politics.  As we discuss the issue of guns in America, I’ll try to stay within the facts.  It is clear, after every mass shooting, something needs to be done and suggestions flow from all corners.

As Americans, we should first read our Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the Constitution’s first 10 amendments.  Those who have actually read and understand these documents find little to disagree with.  If you haven’t read them, I strongly recommend doing so.  They’re not very long and not at all complicated.

After the writing of the Constitution, those against the approval of the Bill of Rights argued that the Constitution already guaranteed the preservation of these rights by stating that all powers not specifically granted to the federal government in the Constitution were granted to the states and to the people.

Those who wrote and supported the Bill of Rights felt it necessary to specifically name certain rights that could not be infringed by the congress while others could not be abridged by any authority within the United States.  The Bill of Rights does not grant rights to the people.  It restricts government from interfering with certain rights.

Those who wrote and supported the Bill of Right won the battle and this document stands high above all else as a guarantor of the rights of all Americans.  Understanding this is central to the argument over guns.  The First Amendment, among other things, guarantees our right to think and speak freely.  Knowing this has always put me at odds with political correctness.  How dare they tell us what to think or say?  As individuals, we owe it to our neighbors to hold their feelings dear and try never to offend.  However, if offending is your thing, it is your free-born right to do so.  Otherwise, who needs the First Amendment?

The Second Amendment, among other things, guarantees our right to keep and bear arms.

The Forth Amendment blocks government from improper search or seizure of a citizen’s property.  During colonial times, British troops could enter and seize private property, often confiscating food and goods and sometimes taking them for their own shelter and forcing the legal owners out.

When we put these three amendments together, one thing becomes clear.  Our right to keep and bear arms is to guarantee that the American people would always control their government rather than being controlled by their government.  Our right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Many voices are speaking across the airways on this subject, many remembering simpler times, times when our gun ownership was more common than now.

Some are claiming a loss of moral character, blaming the removal of God from our education system and culture.  As a Christian, I do see a logical connection here.

Rush Limbaugh recently made the claim that during his younger days, these events never took place, even though gun ownership was much more common.  This is untrue.  Below is a snip from Wikipedia.

On August 1, 1966, after stabbing his mother and his wife to death, Charles Whitman, a former Marine sharpshooter, took rifles and other weapons to the observation deck atop the Main Building tower at the University of Texas at Austin, then opened fire on persons indiscriminately on the surrounding campus and streets. Over the next 90 minutes he shot and killed 14 people (including one unborn child) and injured 31 others; while a final victim died in 2001 from the lingering effects of his wounds. The incident ended when police reached Whitman and shot him dead. As of February 2018, the attack is ranked as the eighth-deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

I have lived in Cebu, Philippines for the past eight years.  Our 7 year old daughter attended pre-school here and is now completing the 1^st grade.  Here, schools are surrounded by buildings without exterior windows or, where there are no buildings, with high concrete walls.  Points of entry are gated with armed security guards and one or more armed guards deeper inside the schools in view of the entry gates.  These guards check all those entering for weapons of any kind.  Charles Whitman, Nikolas Cruz or any other armed citizen with bad intent could never enter a Philippine School.

As a former U.S. territory, Filipinos have the right to keep and bear arms and are passionate gun owners.  Malls, banks and other public venues are likewise guarded.  Other than Muslim attacks of open villages, mass shootings do not occur here.

In Israel, where all citizens are trained in the use of weapons, teachers volunteer to carry concealed weapons.  Nobody knows who these teachers are.  All they know is that some inside the schools have the ability to shoot back.  Guess what.  Schools are not targets in Israel.

All Swiss citizens are required to own guns and are required to maintain proper training in use and safety.  Guess what.  Gun violence in Switzerland is never heard of.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida is not unlike most campuses in America.  It is a soft target and a GUN FREE zone.  To anyone who wants to kill a bunch of innocent kids, there is no safer place to get it done.  This needs to stop!

Many Americans are screaming for gun control.  Below is a January, 2013 letter to the editor of the DAILY HERALD.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: We have determined that portions of this letter are plagiarized from two separate sources, a YouTube video entitled “56 Million People Exterminated from Gun Control in the 20th Century” and a blog item at NewsWithViews.com by Lynn Stuter titled “Of Despots and Sheeple.” We have included links to the original publications and have notified the letter writer that his work will be carefully scrutinized before any future publication in the Daily Herald and banned if another instance of plagiarism is found.

Background checks, no problem. Gun registration is a big problem. Every genocide in modern history has started with a gun registration, followed by confiscation, followed by genocide.

1929: The Soviet Union established gun control. From 1929-1953, 20 million dissidents rounded up and murdered.

1911: Turkey established gun control. From 1915-1917, 1.5 million Christian Armenians rounded up and exterminated.

1938: Germany established gun control. From 1939-1945, 13 million Jews and others rounded up and exterminated.

1935: China established gun control. From 1948-1952, 20 million political dissidents rounded up and exterminated.

1964: Guatemala established gun control. From 1981-1984, 100,000 Mayan Indians rounded up and exterminated.

1970: Uganda established gun control. From 1971-1979, 300,000 Christians rounded up and exterminated.

1956: Cambodia established gun control. From 1975-1977, 1 million educated people rounded up and exterminated.

In the 20th Century more than 56 million defenseless people were rounded up and exterminated by people using gun control.

The previous information is taken nearly word for word with some minor omissions and revisions from the YouTube video at this URL. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAs9IGN4448

The right to keep and bear arms is not about anyone’s “hunting rifle”; the right to keep and bear arms is about the right of the people to defend themselves against anyone who would attempt the taking of their rights.

Two hundred and thirty six years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, our Founding Fathers are still more intelligent and have more common sense than the anti-gun crowd. But then they knew, having suffered the tyranny of King George, that the right to keep and bear arms was imperative to the God-given right of every man, woman and child to be free of evil tyrants who walk among us.

The previous three paragraphs are taken verbatim from the article by Lynn Stuter at

http.newswithviews.com/stuter209.htm.   

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I have researched and found the above statistics to be accurate.  If you doubt any of this, please research for yourself.  All of these genocides started with gun registration, went to confiscation and ended in the genocide of government opposition.

As for relying on our nation’s police departments to protect you, your family and your property, I offer a couple of cautionary notes:  First, police cannot respond to a threat.  They can talk to someone, sure.  You can file an expensive restraining order, sure.  If a restrained person wants to get at you, a restraining order does nothing to stop them.  People threaten each other all the time but seldom follow through.  This makes the Nikolas Cruzes of our communities harder to stop.  In fact, the police can take no action at all until a crime has been committed.  After a crime is committed, police arrest the criminal, if possible, incarcerate the criminal and completely forget about the victim.  Second, police response times are usually more than five minutes from the first alert, often more than ten minutes.

As a former Marine, I believe in responsible gun ownership.  This means background checks and proper training in gun use and safety.  Visit gun ranges frequently and stay sharp.  Keep your weapons away from small children.  When old enough, teach your kids proper gun use and safety but still keep them locked and keep the keys where you can access them quickly, out of reach or knowledge of children.

On age requirements:  I think it’s senseless to train young men and women in our military to use weapons and tell them to forget about it at home.  Background checks?  Sure.  Training and safety?  A necessity.

We live in an age of terrorism.  To leave yourself and family vulnerable is a choice only you can make.

Here are two undeniable truths:

First, life is a crapshoot.  If your time is up, it’s up.  However, you can prepare yourself to fight against the extinguishment of your life-light and those of your loved ones.

Second, the only stopper for a bad person with a gun is a good person with a gun.

Stay safe, my friends.