Counterpoint: More guns don’t equal more crime

There may be no tenet of faith so fundamental to the cult of gun control than the idea that more guns equate to more crime — a theory that was soundly disproven in 2023.

Just four years after the biggest recorded one-year spike in our nation’s homicide rate, it looks as if the United States may have just gone through the biggest one-year decline, an impossibility according to gun control activists.

There are millions more guns around than there were four years ago, yet the vast majority of cities reported fewer homicides than they did in 2020. That includes several cities where permitless carry recently took effect. Atlanta reported a 22 percent decline in murders. Toledo, Ohio, saw a 34 percent drop in the homicide rate, almost identical to the 33 percent decline in Oklahoma City.

The mayor of Miami boasted that the city had the fewest homicides since 1947, even though gun-control activists predicted the state’s permitless carry law would lead to more violence when Gov. Ron DeSantis signed it into law last year.

Those same advocates also asserted that the demise of “may issue” concealed carry laws, which required applicants to demonstrate a justifiable need to have a firearm in self-defense, would also lead to more dangerous cities. There’s no evidence that the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen had any detrimental effect on public safety last year.

Indeed, in the first full year that “shall issue” concealed carry was in place, Baltimore recorded fewer than 300 homicides for the first time in nearly a decade. At the same time, Los Angeles and New York saw 10 percent declines, even as more citizens were lawfully carrying firearms in self-defense.

Meanwhile, some of the most gun-controlled locales in the country saw their violence grow worse last year while it remained stagnant in many others. For instance, the District of Columbia reported the most murders in more than two decades. Bridgeport and New Haven, Connecticut, saw double-digit increases in homicide, with New Haven’t murders spiking by almost 65 percent.

Seattle witnessed a 20 percent rise in the number of homicides, while the number of murders in Oakland, Calif., and San Francisco were almost unchanged from 2022.

The truth is that most U.S. cities had fewer murders last year regardless of the amount of gun-control laws in place. That shouldn’t come as a surprise given the local nature of violent crime, which is typically driven by fewer than 1 percent of a city’s population and who are already well-known to local police and the criminal justice system. The most effective crime-fighting strategies are those that target the most likely and prolific offenders, which means that gun-control laws aimed at legal gun owners are wildly off-target.

Those strategies vary wildly from city to city, just like their crime rates. And their effectiveness depends far more on the individuals guiding those programs than any legislation signed into law by a governor. Take Kansas City and St. Louis, which operate under the same Missouri gun laws but saw the number of homicides veer off in different directions last year, increasing by 7 percent in Kansas City while dropping by more than 20 percent in St. Louis.

Gun-control advocates may want to point at Kansas City’s woes while ignoring the progress made in St. Louis, but if we’re serious about improving public safety, we need an honest accounting of what’s working, what isn’t, and yes, what can be done without infringing on the fundamental right to armed self-defense. The data are telling us that more guns don’t equal more crime, but unfortunately, the gun control lobby and their allies in elected office don’t seem to be listening.

No one needs an AR-15 for protection

Dear Editor: At the front and center of the debate on firearm possession and use is the AR-15 style weapon, where a line of demarcation has been drawn.

One side wants to own and use those guns publicly. The other side wants them banned publicly and for protection purposes. The AR-15 style weapon is essentially a weapon for war. There is no war in our country. No one needs to have those guns for protection.

I ask myself why proponents for owning a weapon of war deride a ban of those weapons. Is there an invisible war? And I seriously doubt they really believe a second ban of the AR-15 style would just be the beginning of a new assault on the Second Amendment. Nor that 77,000 newly hired IRS agents will be coming to take their guns.

This leaves me to think they just do not want anyone telling them what guns they can have, how they use them or the qualifications for possession.

Public safety and gun laws play second fiddle to unfettered want of individual liberty. I don’t know about you, but it sure seems to me the anarchy movement is alive and well in our country.

Bill Walters
Fitchburg

Welcome to reality.

Taking a trip to the firing range was something I’d never do before October 7

Amy Klein - Mira Zaki

Amy Klein is a journalist and author who is working on a book about older motherhood.

I’ve seen plenty of gun ranges on TV and movie screens, but nothing comes close to the ear-splitting BOOM BOOM BOOM that’s making my soul shake despite my soundproof headphones — which are not so soundproof after all.

So I step out of the double doors — one can’t open till the other closes — to get earplugs to wear under the headphones. I put my clear plastic goggles back on and reenter the smoky range to learn how to shoot a gun.

Anyone who knows anything about me knows I’m a card-carrying liberal feminist, one who won’t even watch violent movies. I don’t believe private citizens should be armed — least of all because as a parent I know that guns were the leading cause of death among children and teens in 2020 and 2021, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

And yet.

With antisemitism reaching what the FBI deems a “historic level,” threats against Jewish students on campus proliferating at universities and massive anti-Israel demonstrations taking place around the world, it’s enough to make any Jew feel scared. In my own uptown New York City neighborhood, I know of a few people who have been attacked when arguing with people tearing down Israeli hostage posters, including the head of a Krav Maga studio.

That’s how I found myself at Gun for Hire, a gun range and club in New Jersey, to learn how to shoot. I wanted to confront the question: Could my fear of violence against Jews outweigh my distrust of firearms?

‘You should be prepared’

The first time I ever met religious Jews who owned guns was in 2021; I was driving from New York City to Long Island and heard AM radio ads for shooting ranges there. “Isn’t that funny? It’s like another country,” I had mentioned to my Long Island friends at a party. “I own a gun,” one friend said, “I have two!” said another, a nervous Woody Allen type of guy I wouldn’t trust with a Nerf gun. I’d chalked that up to a couple of outliers but told my husband we’d have to ask people if they had a gun in the house before we accepted a Shabbat dinner invitation on Long Island with our kid.

That was then; this is now.

Continue reading “”

Right to bear arms

Here we are in the middle of the Fourth of July week. This is sort of the unofficial start of summer in the Flathead. If you were like most of us, this past weekend and coming week will be spent outdoors, camping, hiking, fishing, mountain bike riding, boating, swimming and kayaking.

I spent yesterday, the Fourth, at our lake cabin with family and friends. This included some fishing, eating hamburgers and potato salad, target shooting and just plain relaxing on the shore of “my” lake. Last week I was in Canada fishing. As usual, Canadian fishing was fantastic. But that is another story for another week.

We shot lots of fireworks from our dock. Seems like every lakeshore lot and cabin owner likes to help with the evening entertainment, so we all shoot a lot of fireworks. We don’t want to be outdone by our neighbors. I am always amazed at how the fireworks manufacturers can take common white explosive powder and make such a wide array of beautiful multi-colored aerial displays. Wow!

A very important part of every Fourth of July celebration is the need to remember what this day represents in the birth and history of our nation. We all need to appreciate the tremendous vision the gentlemen had who drafted the Constitution and its amendments. As a hunter and owner of several firearms, I really appreciate the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms. Of all the amendments to the Constitution, the right to bear arms seems to have generated more continuous controversy and media attention than most of the other amendments.

Many folks believe the Second Amendment was designed to protect the interest of hunters or for citizen self-protection from bad guys. Those are certainly worthy reasons for having firearms. But the primary drafter of our Constitution and its amendments was Thomas Jefferson. He is quoted as saying, “the primary purpose of the Second Amendment is to protect citizens from the tyranny of their governments.” Protection from their governments. Wow, that is certainly a different slant as the reason for having the Second Amendment!

In the last 90 years, tens of millions of common unarmed citizens in Europe, Asia and Africa have been murdered by their governments. These unarmed citizens had no way to protect themselves from their evil governments and their armed soldiers. That can’t happen in America with over 100 million armed civilians!

The current liberal mainstream news media has certainly sided with the anti-gun groups that want to reduce citizen rights to own firearms. Every time there is a mass shooting, which is defined as involving four or more people killed or wounded, there is media scream for more gun control. For some reason the shooting of four or five people seems to attract more news coverage than the 100-200 Americans who die every day in America from illegal drug overdoses. The loss of any citizen is indeed a tragedy. Drug deaths are the real current preventable tragedies in America, not gun deaths. FBI statistics show that more homicides are committed with knives than guns. Should we ban knives?

Lucky for us, the vast majority of law-abiding American gun owners, have been blessed with a conservative Supreme Court that has made several recent rulings protecting our constitutional right to bear arms. Their decisions in the Heller case (2008), McDonald case (2010) and the New York State Rifle and Pistol case (2022) have been favorable to gun ownership and possession. Twenty years ago, most states required a state or local government issued permit to open carry or conceal carry a handgun. Now the majority of states, including Montana, allow handgun carry without any permit. It’s our constitutional right.

As mentioned in the opening part of this column, last week our family was fishing in Canada. Since we drove to Canada, I had to store my handgun, which I normally carry when traveling, with a friend. Canada’s constitution does not have a strong right to firearms that allows its citizens or visitors to carry handguns.

So, as we continue to celebrate the birth of our country this week, let’s remember all rights and privileges we Americans have which are not enjoyed by most other citizens of this world. Lucky us. God bless the USA!

She is lamenting that our society is not more like China’s, where the goobermint monitors you from birth and intervenes when your social index score gets too low.

IT’S NOT THE GUNS

The “guns cause killings” idea is bogus. (Dec. 1, 8A, “Guns, not mental health issues, cause US mass shootings”) There are more guns than people in America.
If guns cause violence, then the annual homicide rate should be more than 1 million killed, with hundreds of thousands wounded. The streets of every city, town and village should be running red with blood, and the bodies should be stacked like cord wood in the streets.

Two classes of homicides dominate mass media today: gang warfare killings and mass shootings by lone killers. Gang warfare is concentrated in urban areas. One-on-one homicides are fairly rare and sprinkled across America. Mass shootings are even more uncommon.

Dealing with lone killers would require America to tackle the very tough issue of privacy. In the past 60 years, civil libertarians have invented an impenetrable bubble of privacy around everyone. This makes it difficult or impossible for employers, law enforcement and school officials to do anything before a mass shooting takes place.

A final observation: Every handgun sold to honest, law-abiding citizens is a vote of “no confidence” in government’s ability — or even willingness — to control street crime.

– Brian Bloedel, Accomac, Virginia

Rationing for the ‘unwashed masses’ has always been the goal.
Climate Change is just the excuse.

Climate Change Activists’ Embrace of Rationing

Seth Barrett Tillman, Associate Professor
Maynooth University School of Law and Criminology
(academic title & affiliation for identification purposes only)
June 20, 2023

Irish Examiner
Letters Editor
letters@examiner.ie
RE: John Gibbons, ‘Why we should ration the distance each person can fly every year,’ Irish Examiner (June 20, 2023, 11:55 AM),

John Gibbons suggests a 1,500 km annual allotment per Irish national/resident for air travel. So you could do Dublin–Paris round trip. Europe is within reach.

But if you are a new Irish national, from Caracas, Venezuela, and you’d like to visit family and friends: Dublin-to-Caracas is a 7,000 km distance, just one way. And if you are a new Irish national, from Cape Town, South Africa, and you’d like to visit family and friends: Dublin-to-Cape Town is a 10,000 km distance, just one way. And if you are a new Irish national, from New Delhi, India, and you’d like to visit family and friends: Dublin-to-New Delhi is an 8,000 km distance, just one way. Even Rabat, Morocco is over 2,000 km from Dublin.

Under Gibbons’ scheme, as near as I can make out, if you want to visit a historically Caucasian-majority country in Europe, then you can continue to do so tax free. But just go try and visit some third-world country where the majority population’s skin tone has a different complexion, and then you will be taxed for the privilege.

If one of Ireland’s minuscule right-wing nationalist parties proposed such a policy, they’d be labelled bigots. But if the very same policy is put forward in the name of environmentalism and climate change, precisely what conclusion should we draw?

Is mise, le meas,

Seth Barrett Tillman

Simple answer isn’t workable

The conclusion of the May 23 letter “Gun solution is pretty simple” is simple, yes, but impossible.

The idea of getting rid of something to solve a problem is just too easy and oversimplified. We simply get rid of guns, and we will not have a gun problem. We simply get rid of drugs, and we will not have drug problems. We simply get rid of criminals, and we will not have crime problems. It is not the idea that is important. It is the implementation that is important.

How do we get rid of guns in the hands of civilians? There are a few obstacles. First, there is the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Getting rid of guns would violate the Second Amendment. Second, who is to carry out the policy? The government could send out armed agents and takes the guns by force. However, how would we handle the gun owners who agree with Charlton Heston, who said the government could take his gun “from my cold, dead hands”?

Lastly, criminals are civilians too; they are certainly not going to get rid of their guns willingly.

There are more guns than people in the United States. It is impossible get rid of guns.


You can’t make this up.

Gun solution is pretty simple

It is not rocket science: The sooner we get rid of guns in the hands of civilians, the sooner we get rid of mass shootings and suicide by gun. If you don’t have a gun, you cannot shoot anyone.

Bradley: Will not pass muster

On April 28, a judge in the Southern District of Illinois, in the case of Barnet v. Raoul, issued a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of the recently-passed Protect Illinois Communities Act which banned “assault weapons” and standard capacity magazines. At the beginning of that case, the court made the following statement: “… no state may enact a law that denies its citizens rights that the Constitution guarantees them. Even legislation that may enjoy the support of a majority of its citizens must fail if it violates the constitutional rights of fellow citizens.”

Simply put, the Second Amendment — the only Amendment to have the phrase “shall not be infringed” applied to it — guarantees citizens have a right to self-defense.

Across the Heller, McDonald and Bruen decisions, the Supreme Court of the United States has been crystal clear on two things: That the crux of the Second Amendment guarantees the right to self-defense, and that the Second Amendment is no longer a second-class right that is subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.

There can be, or should be, no question that any law that effectively prohibits the ability of an honest and law-abiding citizen to immediately purchase the best means of self-defense is an “infringement” to the right of self-defense. It is illogical to argue otherwise, given the wording of our Constitution.

We can speculate that a waiting period may save lives for those who are intent on immediately killing themselves; that maybe, perhaps, putting time between a purchase and taking possession will give people in crisis the time to reconsider.

On the other hand, we see, every day, violence is targeting completely innocent people. Law-abiding citizens who are under a threat of violence have a right to defend themselves, and to quote Martin Luther King: “A right delayed is a right denied.”

From my research, I have found only one court challenge to a waiting period so far, and that occurred in 2014 in California in the case of Silvester v. Harris. The case was heard in the U.S. District Court of California, which ruled the law was unconstitutional. In making that ruling, the court stated: “Defendant has identified no laws in existence at or near 1791 (founding) or 1868 (14th Amendment ratified) that imposed a waiting period of any duration between time of purchase and the time of possession of a firearm.” It further ruled: “The Court has found that the 10-day waiting periods (of Penal Code § 26815(a) and § 27540(a)) violate the Second Amendment.”

That decision was then appealed by California to the 9th Circuit, who overruled it by using a two-step means-end test and by applying intermediate scrutiny — both of which have been invalidated by Bruen when considering the Second Amendment.

In considering the constitutionality of H.230, it is exceptionally telling that Legislative Counsel remained almost completely mute. Yes, they certainly did advise both Judiciary committees that the Bruen decision was a major one, one that was raising all sorts of legal challenges across the country; yet, they completely withheld any concrete statement of constitutionality.

When the Attorney General’s office gave testimony, they opined that everything was fine. When the Defender General’s office gave testimony, they stated virtually every section of the bill had severe constitutional issues. On the one hand, we have the Attorney General indicating all is kosher. On the other, we have the Defender General’s office saying almost nothing in H.230 will pass constitutional muster. Finally, we have the Legislative Counsel whose guidance appears to be “we just don’t know.”

Three very different legal opinions, with one of them being wrong. Given that, how could this bill proceed as it did, unless the majority of the Legislature was willing to consciously ignore constitutional implications? It’s a gray area; let the courts decide; to heck with the thought something may be unconstitutional?

In creating H.230, you will note one very odd section, Section 8, Severability. Per 1 VSA § 215: “The provisions of any act are severable,” meaning if one provision of a passed bill is found invalid, the other provisions remain in effect. When 1 VSA § 215 is implied with every bill enacted, why was it felt this bill warranted that specific statute reference, the first bill I have ever seen with this section in there? There can only be one explanation: The creators of this bill were clearly not sure it was all constitutional. In fact, we know of some in the majority who believe at least some of it is not constitutional but voted for it anyway.

I fully acknowledge there is the possibility that a waiting period might, maybe, possibly force someone who is intent on killing themselves to reconsider as they wait to take possession of a firearm. The Legislature, however, must acknowledge that, while they are laser-focused on attempting to save the lives of people who are intent on killing themselves, they are, at the same time, putting other citizens in jeopardy by denying them the ability to purchase the means of self-defense in a timely manner.

It’s really that simple. Any vote for H.230 is a vote that ignores constitutional implications, it puts citizens who wish to defend themselves at risk, and it will cost the state (i.e., Vermonters) money to defend laws that will not pass constitutional muster when they are eventually challenged.

It currently appears Vermonters will have to temporarily live under the dictates of the majority in the Legislature, who wish to do nothing less than ignore the constitutional right of self-defense. For those legislators voting for H.230 and everyone else who supports it, sooner or later, they will have to live under the majority of SCOTUS, as simple logic tells us waiting periods will not pass constitutional muster.

Chris Bradley is president/executive director of Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs, lobbyist for that organization and for Vermont State Rifle & Pistol Association.

Second Amendment clear and concise

Editor:

Bonnie Jean Feldkamp recently made some observations about the Second Amendment and AR-15 style firearms. Observations that need some clarification.

The Second Amendment is clear and concise in guaranteeing the Constitutional right of an individual to keep and bear arms. Court rulings and case law have upheld that since it was first tested. It is also clear that arms means firearms. It is not open to progressive’s interpretations, and Congressional clarification of the word “arms” would make no difference as to its meaning.

The AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle is the most popular and widely owned rifle in the U.S. It is patterned after the M-16 but is not a weapon of war. To take the AR-15 on the battlefield would be folly. The term “assault weapon” is an erroneous and manufactured term made up by people who know nothing about guns, but who know a lot about control.

Handguns are used in the overwhelming number of murders in the U.S. Rifles, however, are used less often in murders than are edged weapons, blunt force objects, or even personal weapons — fists and feet. And the AR-15 style rifles are used in less than 1% of all murders. These are FBI statistics.

Why are the Democrats so focused on a firearm that is used almost exclusively by law abiding citizens for target shooting, hunting and self-defense? Because it represents freedom, individual rights, and is an easy scapegoat to promote more gun control and eventual gun confiscation schemes.

Tom Overman, Woodstock

LETTER: On the U.S. Constitution

Last week, I wrote a letter outlining Sir William Blackstone’s influence on America’s Founders with regard to the Declaration of Independence. Here I will present his impact on the Constitution of the United States.

A. No taxation without representation

The Declaration was a document listing grievances against a government which the signers believed had failed to operate in accordance with the laws of nature. Chief among the grievances listed in the Declaration was the fact King George violated the “laws of nature and of nature’s God” by “imposing taxes on us without our consent.” Colonies were taxed but denied representation in Parliament. In contrast, the Constitution documents how the Founding Fathers believed that an ideal government, in submission to the law of nature, should operate. Accordingly, the Constitution sought to remedy the taxation problem by requiring in Article I, Section 7, that bills for revenue originate in the House of Representatives, the body of government closest to the American people.

B. The unalienable right to property

An understanding of Blackstone’s beliefs on property rights is impossible apart from an understanding of his beliefs on happiness, for he believed that the latter depended on the former. Blackstone turned to the revealed law of God for “the only true and solid foundation of man’s dominion over external things.” He referred to Genesis chapter one wherein the Creator gave man “dominion over all the earth.” Blackstone stated a right to property “tends to man’s real happiness, and therefore justly concluding that . . . it is a part of the law of nature.” Likewise, according to Blackstone, the converse is true—denial of property rights is “destructive of man’s real happiness, and therefore the law of nature forbids it.” When the Framers engrafted the right to property into the Constitution—with all of its complexities and exceptions—the theories of Blackstone were, without a doubt, of paramount influence.

C. The unalienable right of self-defense

Blackstone’s view of the right to bear arms is stated in the following quote: “The fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject, that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defense . . . is indeed, a public allowance under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation.”

The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution provides that a “well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” The American belief in the right to bear arms has its roots in “civil jurists of the period who had specifically dealt with the question of self-defense as a natural right.” To them, a failure to defend oneself against unlawful aggression amounted to suicide by inaction.

As one can see, our nation’s Biblical foundations run deep. This is just a fraction of the evidence that is available to those willing to seek truth and knowledge. But due to apathy, the distractions of life, or willful rejection, America is allowing its heritage and history to perish, and in the process, her people perish.

Tom Reilly

Joseph Plains

I don’t know if this is a response to the previous sophistry, or just an opposite viewpoint, but I like it.

To the editor: As a proud Asian American veteran, I know that evil comes in many forms and in many languages. Evil does not understand reason, only violence.

California has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation. Maybe it’s time to empower the people to defend themselves against evil.

California already requires background checks, waiting periods, testing requirements and more. Repeating the same steps expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity.

John Tor, Los Angeles

So, is it ignorance, stupidity, or simple mendacity?

Letter proves some just don’t get Second Amendment

The Second Amendment sure looks easy enough to understand. Some have tried to make an art out of misreading it, of course, by focusing on the militia clause at the beginning, rather than literally any other part of the text.

Still others don’t even get that far. They know roughly what the amendment is supposed to be about, but they don’t really get that it draws a hard line in the sand on guns.

Like the writer of this letter to the editor:

I understand that many citizens cling to their individual right to bear arms, as guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment. However, there have been many instances in which people have sacrificed their rights or been inconvenienced in order to save lives.

Many people were upset when laws were passed requiring seat belts and motorcycle helmets. After 9/11, there were many policies enacted that effectively restricted some of our freedoms. I remember years ago a man tried to board an airplane with a bomb in his shoe. Because of that, we must remove our shoes to be screened at airports.

The writer, unsurprisingly, goes on to call for gun control.

Look, there’s a big difference between seat belt and helmet laws and gun control. There’s also a huge difference between dealing with TSA and gun control.

None of those laws actually interfere with your rights, particularly with regard to one’s constitutionally protected rights. They might make you do a few things you’d rather not, but you can still generally go anywhere you want.

Gun control is nothing like that at all. This isn’t an inconvenience, it’s the state determining what we can and cannot do with regard to protecting ourselves and our families.

This letter writer starts by talking about the mass shootings in California, but he fails to note the very laws he’s demanding simply didn’t work. They didn’t stop either shooting.

What we can see here isn’t a cogent statement of reality, but someone who clearly doesn’t understand the Second Amendment at all.

Of course, this is a California resident, likely one who voted for Gavin “Suicide Pact” Newsom, so we shouldn’t expect much from him.

But the underlying problem is the same. This individual isn’t some raving exception who doesn’t comprehend what the masses get. He’s representative of a large number of people who really do think gun control is little more than an inconvenience.

For them, it’s easy to dismiss the bloody history of the 20th century with its genocides as something that simply couldn’t happen here. I’m sure Jews living in the Weimar Republic thought the same thing, or those living in Cambodia prior to the Khmer Rogue taking over, or the Armenians living under Turkish rule. They likely thought nothing would happen to them, and they were correct right up until the moment they weren’t.

Guns in this nation make damn sure we don’t have to be that trusting and hopeful.

Then we have the fact that most guns used on a day-to-day basis appear to be used defensively. Good people use these guns–the very guns the writer wants to see banned–to protect themselves.

Removing those guns? That’s not an inconvenience. Over a long enough time, it’s a death sentence for someone.

Guns don’t cause homicides. The real problem is everyone’s bubble of personal privacy

IT’S NOT THE GUNS

The “guns cause killings” idea is bogus. (Dec. 1, 8A, “Guns, not mental health issues, cause US mass shootings”) There are more guns than people in America.
If guns cause violence, then the annual homicide rate should be more than 1 million killed, with hundreds of thousands wounded. The streets of every city, town and village should be running red with blood, and the bodies should be stacked like cord wood in the streets.
Two classes of homicides dominate mass media today: gang warfare killings and mass shootings by lone killers. Gang warfare is concentrated in urban areas. One-on-one homicides are fairly rare and sprinkled across America. Mass shootings are even more uncommon.
Dealing with lone killers would require America to tackle the very tough issue of privacy. In the past 60 years, civil libertarians have invented an impenetrable bubble of privacy around everyone. This makes it difficult or impossible for employers, law enforcement and school officials to do anything before a mass shooting takes place.
A final observation: Every handgun sold to honest, law-abiding citizens is a vote of “no confidence” in government’s ability — or even willingness — to control street crime.
– Brian Bloedel, Accomac, Virginia

There’s no good reason to ban the AR-15 in US

In response to the Dec. 25 letter writer on AR-15s, I am one of those who does not believe that rifles such as the AR-15 should be banned in our nation.

First, to answer your question, nobody wants to be shot by anything! Surgeons report the most deadly caliber to be shot by is a .22 long rifle. It will enter in one spot and bounce around inside the body, making it very difficult for a surgeon to locate.

As to your claims about your friends who are hunters, I find this to be quite the stretch that they would think the AR-15 chambered in .223/5.56 would be so deadly. Surely, if they are true hunters, they would have rifles that are far more deadly.

The claim this round destroys the meat of deer is false. In fact, it is illegal in Ohio to hunt deer with any rifle chambered in this caliber because it is inefficient for hunting mid-sized to large game. Our soldiers have also complained to their commanding officers the round isn’t great for combat either, which is why the military is actively transitioning to a larger caliber, 6.8mm.

The AR-15 is the most common rifle in America and one that is used for sporting, self-defense and even hunting smaller game (or if chambered in a larger caliber it can be used for hunting larger game). Had you spent just a few moments on Google you could have learned a lot about this great rifle platform.

I hope you take the time to educate yourself more thoroughly about these rifles in the future. If you’d like, I’d be glad to show you them in person at my store and compare them to real hunting rifles.

I truthfully believe you’ll be surprised that these are not the evil machines the media have made you believe they are.

DAN SKINNER

Owner, Eagle Creek Tactical

Newton Falls

Gun lobby money doesn’t compare

By John Hill, Las Vegas

A recent New York Times editorial noted that the gun industry has “reaped an estimated $1 billion over the past decade from sales of AR-15-style rifles.”

While this sounds impressive, compare it to $205.5 billion in sales of iPhones in 2022 alone. An argument can be made that iPhones and other smartphones, with their associated social media apps, have had a significantly bigger impact on American culture than the AR-15.

The editorial also noted that gun rights groups have donated $50.5 million to politicians from 1989 to 2020, mostly to Republicans. But this pales in comparison to the political contributions from teachers unions of $48 million for the 2021-22 election cycle alone — almost entirely to Democrats.

If groups advocating for their Second Amendment right are to be condemned, public employee unions who work to get friendly negotiators on both sides of the bargaining table should be eliminated

To the Editor:

In the Wednesday, November 30, 2022 Brunswick Times-Gazette, page 4; Delegate Clinton Jenkins stated that “we must…pass good, safe policy regarding guns here in Virginia.” As Delegate Jenkins well knows, it is already illegal to murder a human; it is already illegal to possess firearms in the “Gun Free Zones” existing in schools, courts, some government buildings, etc.

Exactly what “good, safe policy regarding guns here in Virginia” would Delegate Jenkins suggest? I will guess that his intention is to create infringements on the lawful exercise of the Second Amendment by honest law-abiding citizens. Why would I guess that? Mr. Jenkins tips his hand with his use of good sounding, though unenlightening words, such as “good, safe policy”.

These words, like the near ubiquitous code-words “common-sense gun legislation”, serve only to lower the suspicion of the electorate to be on guard for unconstitutional infringements on Second Amendment rights of citizens. One of the most widely implemented “common-sense gun legislation” laws was the creation of “Gun-Free Zones” which, inadvertently (I hope), created large pools of unarmed “fish in a barrel” for deranged shooters.

As a Democrat, Delegate Jenkins likely never saw an unconstitutional infringement on the Second Amendment that he didn’t like and wouldn’t support. Additionally, Mr. Jenkins is likely unaware that gun control in the United States began with the attempt to save lives (of the terrorists in the KKK, at that), by disarming newly freed slaves so that they could not defend themselves against the night riders who came to rape, beat, burn, and lynch their black neighbors.

Sir Winston Churchill once said, “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.”

Perhaps Mr. Jenkins should research the efficacy of “Gun Free Zones”, which have had the practical effect of turning schools and government buildings into “Enhanced Victim Zones”; places where shooters are guaranteed greatly increased numbers of victims due to the implementation of these foolish policies. In the twenty-first century, gun control has the exact same effect that it did when it was first foisted upon innocent black citizens in the nineteenth century: it precludes intended victims from any meaningful defense against known evil intent on doing as much harm as possible in the shortest amount of time available without suffering meaningful retaliation.

Peter Agostnelli

Alberta, Virginia

Criminals Will Have Guns Whether They’re Legal or Not

Letter writer Kimball Shinkosky has missed the point in the letter to the editor published Thursday concerning ownership of “assault weapons” such as the AR-15.

The Second Amendment was put in the Constitution to ensure the public could be protected from the government.

Does the average person need an AR-15? Of course not. But you can’t pick and choose what you want to read into the amendment. If you make the ownership of an AR-15 illegal, the dominoes start to fall.

Of course, it’s already reality, and you can see the left chomping at the bit to limit gun ownership even more. They’ve moved from automatic weapons to magazine size. Does limiting magazine size to 10 rounds make everyone more safe? Heck no. It just means that the person moving through the mall firing at everyone has to reload more often — assuming they are following the law by limiting themselves to 10 round magazines.

Has anyone on the left noticed that most mass shootings take place in “gun-free zones?” Want to make your children safer? Arm some teachers. Want to make the mall safer? Arm yourself. Want to make your home safer? Have a loaded weapon available in your home. Teach your children firearm safety, don’t try to shield them from guns. Or better yet, send them to an NRA firearm safety class — and go with them.

We as a society need to understand that there are tens of millions of firearms out there, and trying to outlaw them, or limit ownership, is like spitting in the ocean to raise its level. You can make it so that good citizens cannot protect themselves from the criminal element, who will own firearms whether they’re legal or not.

Bruce Peterson

Centralia

Confiscating guns is not the answer

Now that the midterm elections are over, and Democrats are in some positions previously occupied by Republicans, here are some thoughts for your consideration:

No politician has ever explained how inconveniencing law-abiding citizens removes guns from the hands of criminals.

No politician has ever explained why habitual lawbreakers would surrender their guns to some kind of “buy back” program.

Confiscating guns in this country, as some have suggested, would not only be unconstitutional, but would entail searching every enclosed space in every structure, and you still would not get all the guns in criminal hands nor prevent them from acquiring new ones.

Does something cause you to think they wouldn’t enter by the same routes as smuggled drugs?

Both the United States Constitution, in article one, section nine, clause three, and the Pennsylvania constitution, in article one, clause 17, prohibit ex-post facto laws.

Ex-post facto, “having retroactive effect or force,” means you cannot outlaw that which is legally possessed today.

The Declaration of Independence in paragraph two lists life and liberty as unalienable rights which by their nature imply a requirement of self-defense.

Self-defense requires weapons and the Second Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights, specifies that the individual has the right to possess arms in order to defend himself.

This amendment is the second in a list of eight codified individual rights.

The Bill of Rights exists because some states were refusing to ratify the constitution because it had no explicit protection for individual rights.

In the congressional debate of the amendment, on Sept. 9, 1789, the Senate voted in the negative to insert the words “for the common defense” next to the words “bear arms,” meaning not to.

Timothy Toroian

Altoona

Masked intruder shot to death breaking into North Side residence

Northside Shooting 01-08262022103723

The man broke into the home at 1714 Packers Ave. about 2:30 a.m. and was fatally shot by one of the people inside, Chief Shon Barnes said at a news conference later Friday morning at the scene. A man, woman and girl were in the duplex at the time the masked man broke in, he said, and “shots had been fired.” No one else was hurt.

The body of a man fatally shot after breaking into a home on Madison’s North Side early Friday morning is removed from the scene at 1714 Packers Ave. A man, woman and girl were inside the apartment at the time. They were not injured, but one of them shot the intruder, police said. Police were called from outside the home by the man who had been in the home, and he led them to the dead man, Barnes said.

Multiple weapons were found at the scene, he said, but it wasn’t immediately clear who they belonged to. The Dane County Medical Examiner’s Office will release the identity of the dead man. Barnes did not release the names or ages of the people in the home at the time the man broke in but said they are cooperating with police. He said the girl is older than a toddler.

“She’s with her mother now and detectives are talking to them to try to figure out why this particular residence was targeted, what issues may have been involved,” Barnes said. Police had no information yet on whether there would be charges in the case.Barnes said there had been “general disturbance”-type calls to the area and building in the past, but it wasn’t clear if the calls were specifically to the apartment where the shooting occurred. City property records show two residential units at that address.

The apartment had a sign in the window that said “Anisa World,” with dates that match the date 11-year-old Anisa Scott was born and the date she died after being shot in a drive-by shooting on Madison’s East Side on Aug. 11, 2020. She was a passenger in a car on East Washington Avenue when occupants from another vehicle opened fire, intending to strike the driver.

Barnes said he wasn’t immediately aware of any connection between Scott’s murder and Friday’s fatal shooting.

Barnes said the home invasion was the second of two in that neighborhood overnight Thursday. He did not believe they were connected but said the area will get additional police attention over the weekend.

Friday’s fatal shooting is the seventh killing this year in Madison, Barnes said, although two were deemed justified.

Gun control is not the solution to gun violence in America. Here’s why
Gun control is a false hope. There are better ways we need to approach the gun violence issue in America.

After recently perusing the advertisements in my mid 1960s Boy Scout Handbook, I noticed a number of ads for semiautomatic .22 caliber rifles for hunting and shooting fun. These ads illustrate our country’s longstanding and popular tradition of gun ownership and usage.

Like it or not, we are a gun-nut nation. This is exemplified in our laws, our history, our foods, our criminality and our popular culture. First person shooter video games proliferate like rabbits.

We do like our guns, but we also hate and fear them — and with good reason. Guns are serious tools, potentially dangerous and deadly to users as well as others through carelessness.

Guns are double-edged—able to be used for good and bad, hence their association with criminality. For more than a century we have tried to control for the criminal aspects of guns, but with varying levels of success.

Failed gun control attempts

Control has landed athwart competing interests of custom and culture as well as law. As with many issues in American history and life, lines are drawn fairly hard and evenly.

Some issues with guns, like school shootings, call for immediate solutions. Yet we dither and have been doing so for decades. One consistent attempt has been to try to ban assault rifles.

Currently in the wake of recent shootings, this has become the go-to solution for many as it has been in the past.

But this is not the solution to this problem.

We tried this before from 1994-2004, and yet saw no end during that time period in mass shootings. Recently many have vilified a particular assault rifle, and wish to ban the AR-15 rifle.

Some, such as the great pundit Whoopi Goldberg or the great gun expert President Biden, have claimed the only purpose for this rifle is just to kill people. But when introduced to the American public in 1963 it was marketed as a great rifle for camping, hunting and collecting, much like the Boy Scout rifles of the 1960s.

Newsflash, all guns can be used to kill people. Years ago a student shot up his school using a relative’s target pistol. What if we do ban assault rifles, or just the AR-15 in particular?

Will mass shootings decline? No.

Most mass shootings, upwards of 65%, are committed with pistols. Few are committed with assault rifles. Sadly, since most of these mass shootings are committed at close range, the Boy Scout rifles advertised in the 1960s handbook are just as deadly.

Supposedly, the small .22 caliber bullet has been responsible for more American civilian deaths than any other caliber.

Gun control is not the solution to school shootings. We cannot magically wave away 400 million guns, some 20 million of which are assault rifles.

What is the solution then?
Simply, and sadly, we have to recognize the reality of things as they are now and harden the schools; bullet-proof glass at the main entrance and controlled access; metal detectors; and make sure all other doors lock from the inside and are locked always.

More armed personnel, police and some teachers, in the schools. For society as a whole, more people need to carry concealed. Gun control is a false hope.