Once again, the opponents of the 2nd Amendment are using a national tragedy perpetuated by a radical Islamist to argue for additional gun control. Not even one day went by before the calls began.
The simple truth is this: It is the constitutional right of Americans to “keep and bear arms.” In those places where this right has been abridged, illegally in my view, the murder rate is often higher, not lower. In Chicago, which has one of the nation’s strictest gun control laws, murder — by firearms — is rampant.
If outlawing certain practices worked, then America would be drug free, sex trafficking would not be taking place, and no one would be speeding down the highways. Bad people will always find a way to do bad things. Timothy McVeigh used fertilizer. The Boston bombers used a pressure cooker. The criminals of 9/11 used box cutters.
In 2012, “More people were killed with hammers than were killed with those guns (assault weapons).” FBI crime data doesn’t specifically define “assault weapons.” But the number of murders in 2012 committed by beating (aka “personal weapons”) was 678. That outpaced murders by rifles (322) and shotguns (303) combined. Cain killed Abel with a rock.
In 2010, there were an estimated 5,419,000 crashes (30,296 fatal crashes), killing 32,999 and injuring 2,239,000. The 32,479 traffic fatalities in 2011 were the lowest in 62 years (1949). Records indicate that there has been a total of 3,613,732 motor vehicle fatalities in the United States from 1899 to 2013. Should we not then outlaw automobiles?
In the state of Georgia, there are just about 10,000,000 residents. Some 400,000 of them have concealed carry permits, which is more than twice the number of U.S. Marines world-wide. In 2010, there were 376 gun fatalities. That’s a very low number considering the number of weapons in use. My bet is that a great many of those were committed by criminals who don’t obey the gun laws anyway.
Interestingly, most mass killings take place in so-called “gun free zones.” Why? The answer is obvious. Law-abiding people obey the “gun-free” rules while criminals do not. Neither do terrorists.
Any and every “gun-free zone” is a killing field waiting to happen unless armed police are on the scene and employed by whoever owns the “gun-free zones.”
I have friends who are rabidly anti-gun. Fine. That also is their right. My advice to them is, find a friend who has a legal carry permit, and if and when things go terribly badly, hide behind them and hope they protect you.
Gun owners, the 200,000,000 in this country who own at least one, are not the problem. The National Rifle Association is not the problem. Evil people and evil ideologies are the problem. And they don’t obey any of the laws.
[David Epps is the pastor of the Cathedral of Christ the King, Sharpsburg, GA (www.ctkcec.org). He is the bishop of the Mid-South Diocese which consists of Georgia and Tennessee (www.midsouthdiocese.org) and the Associate Endorser for the Department of the Armed Forces, U. S. Military Chaplains, ICCEC. He may contacted at frepps@ctkcec.org.]
