The Second Amendment: More important now than ever

The tyrants are in charge, and they want your guns.

While the left has denied it for decades, anyone who pays attention knows that the ill-named "progressives" want to totally eliminate the Second Amendment.  Period.  The so-called "red flag" laws popping up around the country, as well as the gun-hating zealot nominated by Biden to head the ATF, are just two examples of Marxism's accelerated drive to disarm law-abiding citizens.  It won't be long before the Democrats attempt to push through a gun registration law, always the final step before total confiscation.

We can't allow this to happen.  We can hope that Republicans in Congress, aided by a handful of rational Democrats (assuming there are any left), will make a stand...but don't hold your breath.

In the history of this Republic, there has never been a time when protecting our right to keep and bear arms was more important.  Whether it's the Biden administration's open borders, the defunding of local law enforcement, the massive retirement numbers at police agencies, the skyrocketing crime rates in urban America, or the violation of individual rights that we have long taken for granted, the Second Amendment is the final roadblock against total federal tyranny.  The Founding Fathers knew this, which is exactly why the Second Amendment was created. 

Liberals are quick to mention increasing homicide rates as their rationale for creating more redundant gun laws, but this is another left-wing lie.  The highest modern homicide rates in the United States were recorded from 1950 through 1995 when the yearly total averaged 9.22 homicides per 100,000 population.  The worst year was 1980, when the number hit 10.4 per 100,000. The number in 2018 was 5.9, almost half of what the homicide rate was in 1980.  While there was a spike in homicides in 2020, many analysts attribute that to the China Virus lockdowns; the widespread and uncontrolled rioting; and the defunding of police departments, especially in urban hotspots. 

Another consideration is the definition of what's classified as a homicide with a firearm.  In fact, suicide by firearms is included in the DOJ's annual statistics, the benchmark for virtually all the articles published on gun deaths.  According to UCDavis Health, hardly a pro–Second Amendment institution, in 2019, there were 39,707 deaths from firearms in the U.S., with sixty percent — sixty percent — by suicide.  That's 23,941 — a number that, in my opinion, greatly hinders the left's anti-gun narrative.  A suicide is tragic, but someone who is so unhappy that he wants to end his own life will, if he can't access a firearm, find another way to do it.

I believe that leftists, in their normal disingenuous fashion, are intentionally using suicides to inflate their anti-gun numbers — without mentioning the fact that the majority of fatal shots were self-inflicted.  But what else is new?  (To their credit, USA Today published a piece in December where they acknowledged that approximately 23,000 of the estimated 41,500 gun deaths in 2020 were by suicide.  That's fifty-five percent.  It wasn't a pro-gun article by any stretch, but at least they were honest about the numbers.)

Then there's the left's oft-repeated canard about the evil "weapons of war," almost always referring to the AR-15.  Let's make this brief: the AR-15 is not a "weapon of war."  It is a semi-automatic sporting rifle — normally in the smaller .223 caliber — that is the most popular firearm in the United States.  A "weapon of war" is a fully automatic machine gun that — like the M-16 (military version of the AR-15) or the M249 light machine gun — can fire 700 to 950 rounds per minute.  Furthermore, fewer than 364 people were killed by rifles in 2019 — not just AR-15s, but all rifles — while 1,476 were killed by knives or cutting instruments.  I hate to use clichés, but are they planning to ban knives as well?

So how many people are killed per year by an AR-15?  Specific numbers are hard to find, and estimates vary widely depending on the writer's political persuasion.  But using CDC and FBI statistics, the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) concluded that there aren't too many: "With an average of 13,657 homicides per year [excluding suicides] during the 2007-2017 time frame, about one-tenth of one percent of homicides were produced by...shootings involving AR-15s.  Banning or confiscating such firearms from the civilian population would likely produce little to no reduction in violent crime rates in America."

The left knows this.  Public safety is not the reason leftists want to ban so-called "assault rifles" — or any other firearms, for that matter.  They plan to disarm law-abiding citizens because they want total compliance with their ever-increasing Marxist mandates.  A well-armed citizenry is anathema to power-mad tyrants.

This brings us to taking action.  We must resist the unconstitutional mandates that will be forced upon us in the not too distant future, gun registration being foremost on the left's agenda.  You can write or call your state and federal representatives; organize rallies with fellow patriots; write letters to your local newspaper; and, if you're not already a member, join the NRA (it's not great, but it's the best game in town).

If we can't stop this madness soon, the nightmare will only get worse.  The Second Amendment is an essential component in the foundation for liberty.  Without it, our other freedoms will be gone as well.  As I've said to more than one anti-gun liberal in the past, "it's not about duck-hunting!"  Let's never forget that.

Image via Pxhere.

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