English: Current Status of Shall Issue Laws in America (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
By Bob Barney (1st published May 2010-updated since, many times)
It's about time Americans face up to the real cause of mass killings in America and who is really responsible for the mounting death toll. I am referring to Aurora, Newtown, San Bernardino, and now, Virginia Beach!
The Plain Truth is that it is the cause are because of politicians and the liberals who brought us gun control.
The fact is that the same people taking away your constitutional right to bare arms are protected by guns themselves. We have been lied to by the very people who are protected by people carrying guns. Does Chuck Schumer have armed bodyguards? How about Nancy Pelosi or President Obama?
You know the answer.
There are over 20,000 gun laws and regulations on the books in the USA. If those laws haven't made America safe by now why should we think that one or two new laws would work?
We shouldn't. We need to see the plain truth that gun laws are the number one reason why we have so many gun deaths. These laws have made all of us including our children less safe. When we are disarmed, we become victims of the aggressors. Our politicians know this and that is why they are protected by a long line of guns! What they don't tell you is that they don't give a damn about you or your loved ones. Many hope for you to be slaughtered by guns because they can gain even more power over you!
So it's time to face reality and repeal these laws – every single one of them!
In fact, I contend that nobody should need to have concealed carry permits!
By the way, read our article that Police Officers Three Times More Likely to Murder Than Concealed Carry Permit Holders.
Criminals and assassins don't obey laws. Gun laws are useless because any criminal knows that legal guns that can be traced are purchased by them in the underworld or simply steal them.
Therefore, gun-control laws don't apply to criminals or stop gun violence. They simply make it much harder for innocent people to defend themselves. And the crooks know this all too well. They actively seek out gun free zones to do their killing. The Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) recently released a report that indicates that from January of 2009 to July 2014, 92% of all mass shootings in the US occurred in gun-free zones.
Mass shootings are no more common than they have been in the past despite the impression given by the media. The most egregious time for mass killings in the U.S. was in 1929, according to criminologist Grant Duwe of the Minnesota Department of Corrections. Incidents of mass murder in the U.S. declined from 42 in the 1990s to 26 in the first decade of this century. The chances of being killed in a mass shooting is about equal to being struck by lightning. Until the Newtown horror, the three worst K–12 school shootings ever had taken place in either Britain or Germany. (Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/335739/facts-about-mass-shootings-john-fund)..
Harry Brown, a libertarian posed these facts:
Stripping Away your Safety
Let's take a brief look at how the various kinds of gun-control laws make you more vulnerable.
Waiting periods: A waiting period means that a woman being stalked will have to remain defenseless for a few extra days. Will her stalker refrain from assaulting her until the waiting period is over?
Safety locks: Although safety locks might prevent a child from accidentally firing a gun, they also can slow you down when you need a gun in a hurry to defend yourself. Imagine a woman attacked by a rapist in a parking lot. Will she be grateful for the time it takes to unlock her gun? And, of course, if her adversary is carrying a gun, it won't have a safety lock.
Registration of handguns: What would this achieve? Nothing positive. Evil-doers won't register their guns; only law-abiding citizens will. And once your gun is registered, you'll have to be afraid that some future President whose heart isn't pure will use that registration to confiscate your only means of defense against armed criminals.
Licensing of guns or gun-owners: Since criminals won't acquire them, gun licenses won't help find the perpetrator of a violent crime. They are simply a gratuitous invasion of your privacy and that of other innocent citizens.
Background checks for purchasers: No one wanted by law-enforcement agencies is going to buy a gun in a way that requires a background check. He'll get his gun from another criminal or steal it. So the only achievement of a background check is your inconvenience.
But don't background checks catch people with criminal records?
If someone is wanted by the police, he certainly isn't going to undergo a background check. On the other hand, if the gun-buyer is an ex-convict who has paid his debt to society, he should have the right to defend himself from predators — just as you or I do. Or should his criminal record also prohibit him from buying food or clothing?
Require guns to be locked up: If the law requires guns to be kept out of reach of children, how will the law be enforced? Will the police invade your house periodically to verify that your guns are in safe places? If not, what's the point of the law? If yes, this is another gratuitous invasion of your privacy.
Ban some types of guns: At first glance it might seem reasonable to ban such things as assault weapons or mortars. After all, _you_ don't need such a weapon.
But some people do.
During most riots, the police have been outnumbered and have intentionally stayed clear of gangs that were looting and vandalizing. Suppose your life savings are invested in a store the gangs are about to loot. And suppose you have little or no insurance because your store is in a poor and dangerous section of town. How will you defend the store against the looters? With a knife? With a handgun against a dozen attackers? Or with an assault weapon?
If you prevent innocent citizens from acquiring assault weapons, criminal gangs will still have them — even if they have to smuggle them into America from thousands of miles away. So why pass laws that disarm only the innocent?
You might be able to imagine the perfect law that allows just the right people to own just the right types of guns, while prohibiting other people from owning inappropriate firearms. But remember, you're only imagining such a law; it will never be a reality. Once the issue is turned over to the politicians, it will be decided by whoever has the most political influence — and that will never be you or I.
A Sane Crime Policy
The only effective crime policy is to have no laws regulating the ownership of guns, but to prosecute anyone who intrudes on the person or property of another — with or without a gun.
You really have only two choices. Either:
* Politicians will decide what you can own — and they will never stop their prohibitions at the point you believe best.
* Or people will decide for themselves what they can own.
Any apparent middle ground between the two actually grants the politicians the power to choose for you.
And all such choices will be made by whoever has the most political influence. So attempts to limit gun ownership will do more to promote the political interests of well-connected people than to reduce crime.
A Safe Society
Disarmed citizens encourage crime and violence.
Armed citizens encourage criminals to find a safer line of work.
The National Rifle Association and Republican politicians have recently urged that today's 20,000 gun-control laws be enforced — no matter how bad those laws.
Libertarians easily see the folly in this. Libertarians know that those laws are, at best, useless — and, at worst, highly dangerous. Libertarians want all the counter-productive gun laws to be repealed immediately.
This year there will be 2,000 Libertarians running for federal, state, and local offices — all the way from President of the United States to municipal offices. All of them support your right to defend yourself — without qualification.
They provide the one avenue by which you can register your unqualified disapproval for today's gun-control climate.
For safety sake, we must repeal all the gun laws.
— Harry Browne is running for President of the United States as a Libertarian candidate. More of his articles can be found at http://www.HarryBrowne.org.
The answer is not to have gun laws. The answer is that you live in the same world that your politicians and leaders live in – one of protection by armed people!
I ask that you all demand that the same protection awarded to our leaders, are awarded to us! ARM THE AMERICAN CITIZEN! Allow anyone without a criminal record, or having not been found to be mentally unstable, (by a COURT OF LAW), to carry guns everywhere at any time.
Liberals claim that we don't want to be taken back to the violent days of the “wild west.” REALLY? How many murders do you suppose these old western towns saw a year? Let's say the bloodiest, gun-slingingest of the famous cattle towns were when the cowboys were doing quick-draws at high noon every other day. A hundred? More? NOPE. How about five? That was the amount of most murders any old-west town saw in any one year, EVER. Most towns averaged about 1.5 murders a year, and not all of those were shootings. You were way more likely to be murdered in Baltimore in 2008 than you were in Tombstone in 1881, the year of the famous gunfight at the OK Corral (body count: three) and the town's most violent year ever.
No, the facts are that it was far safer to be in the “wild west” against Indians (the muslim-like terrorist of the day) and crazed gunmen like Jesse James, than you are today in any US city!
WAKE UP AMERICA- Learn The Plain Truth- You have been lied to! You have been lied to about God, the true religion of Christ, the reason why America was really blessed, and why we are now under a curse, and about climate change and gun control! If you do not start a personal study of everything you think you know, you will continue to be a victim of your evil leaders! Require them to disarm their security officers! Require Obama to disarm the secret service! If he believes that armed people don't protect you, then let him follow by example!