'Tis Only My Opinion!™April 2016 - Volume 36, Number 4"The Fallacy of Gun Control"The Second Amendment to the ConstitutionThe Second Amendment of the United States Constitution protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms and was adopted on December 15, 1791, as part of the first ten amendments contained in the Bill of Rights.
Since its adoption in 1791 there have been many attempts by
politicians and others to restrict the right of the people to keep
and bear arms. They have used licensing, outright prohibition and
taxation policies to restrict US citizens from having free and
unfettered access to arms. How many privately-owned guns are there in the U.S.According to a copyrighted article by Dean Weingarten in 2015 on Gun Watch.com.
Gun-Free Zones are simply "free-kill zones!"Well-meaning politicians and citizens have legislated into
existence gun-free zones which often include shopping malls,
schools, theaters, and sporting venues as well as liquor stores and
bars. It should therefore not be surprising that most mass killings have occurred in gun free zones. Licensing and RegistrationBoth at the federal, state and local levels there are
requirements dealing with the licensing and/or registration of
firearms. Isn't it interesting that Chicago and New York City have instituted serious gun control legislation and make it extremely difficult for law-abiding citizens to obtain a permit to carry a weapon and yet have some of the highest murder rates in the country. The Australian FiascoAustralia outlawed semi-automatic rifles, certain categories of shotgun, and implemented strict licensing and registration requirements. The cornerstone of its new gun-control scheme, however, was a massive gun buyback program. The Australian government purchased 650,000 to one million guns with funds raised via a special tax. Australia’s vaunted gun buyback program was in fact a sweeping program of gun confiscation. Of course, the number of guns existing in private hands in Australia was slightly less than the 300,000,000 million or so existing in the U.S. Did the crime rate and/or the murder rate in Australia go down. In 2002 -- five years after enacting its gun ban -- the Australian Bureau of Criminology acknowledged there is no correlation between gun control and the use of firearms in violent crime. In fact, the percent of murders committed with a firearm was the highest it had ever been in 2006 (16.3 percent), says the D.C. Examiner. Even Australia's Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research acknowledges that the gun ban had no significant impact on the amount of gun-involved crime:
Home made weaponsCriminals who have access to any relatively well-equipped machine
shop can easily make not only their own magazines but also their own
weapons.
In fact, Bob Bradley of Winchester Arms in Connecticut while visiting the New York police armory where the seized weapons were laid out on tables found several firing mechanisms which he thought were ingenious. Mr. Bradley had his engineers evaluate and incorporate a couple of those firing mechanisms in weapons they were developing. Today, the internet has many sites showing how to make a pistol, a rifle or even an automatic-firing weapon. Here is an example of a 12 gauge pistol made entirely out of readily available material in any Home Depot, Lowe's or hardware store. The cost is about $20 in material.
Licensing, regulation and/or confiscation is simply not going to prevent criminals nor terrorists from obtaining weapons. Besides methods for creating havoc on a much larger scale exist under most kitchen sinks. Some of those items are drain cleaner and rust remover which contain nitric or sulphuric acid which are required to make the high order explosive nitro-glycerin. Model engine fuel contains nitro-methane, a chemical with explosive properties greater than TNT which mixed with an oxidizing agent such as ammonium nitrate creates an explosive of even greater power that nitro-glycerin. The Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic terrorist bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. Carried out by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, the bombing destroyed one-third of the building, killed 168 people, and injured more than 680 others. The blast destroyed or damaged 324 other buildings within a 16-block radius, shattered glass in 258nearby buildings, and destroyed or burned 86 cars, causing an estimated $652 million worth of damage. ConclusionWith over 300 million weapons in the U.S. currently, any attempt to confiscate those weapons is likely to cause serious political upheavals and could lead to even more violence. When law enforcement agents and their swat teams have more weapons than the U.S. Marine Corps, it makes you wonder what is going on. It is apparent that most politicians and many citizens have no concept of -- "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." The Second Amendment's “right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" language was clearly not intended to allow for extensive reasonable regulation. Rather, it was intended to prevent all laws and regulations that would result in the people being deprived, abridged, restrained, narrowed, or restricted in the exercise of their fundamental right to keep and bear arms. But then progressives and those who believe in big government rather than in personal responsibility or that the government will provide for their sustenance and security are willing to be slaves to the state rather than to be free. But then - 'Tis Only My Opinion!Fred Richards www.adrich.com Corruptisima republica plurimae leges. [The more corrupt a republic, the more laws.] -- Tacitus, Annals III 27 'Tis only My Opinion! Archive Menu, click here. This
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