by Paul Gallant, Alan J. Chwick, Sherry Gallant, and Joanne D. Eisen
New York –-(Ammoland.com)- We are witness to a unique phenomenon: America’s weapon-prohibitionists are finally revealing their goal for our country’s norm of private firearm ownership: they want to destroy it!
The evidence lies in the outrageous, non-sensical law passed in the dark of night by the NY State legislature and signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, “introduced on the first day of the 2013 legislative session and signed into law the next day.” And it lies in the Executive Orders proposed by President Obama.
These people and their ilk insist that they want to promote the “safety of our children.” Conspicuously absent among all these proposals has been any concern for the self-defense of Americans and their families. In fact, both Cuomo’s law, and the proposals of Obama, have nothing to do with “safety” of Americans (except for the safety of criminals), and all to do with the gutting of the Second Amendment.
It is the media and its allies that are driving the fear of firearm owners and their guns, which prevents any rational conversation about a safer society.
The New York Times said we peaceable gun-owners suffer from “cultural paranoia” and that we have “lost our grip…on reality.” Others call us “looney goons,” “crazy”, “unhinged,” “bizarre” and other terms which describe their attitude towards us, far more accurately than they describe us.
The Sacramento Bee deemed us “paranoid.” The paper stated at the outset: “Inordinate fear, unfortunately, drives the politics of guns in this country, making it extremely difficult to have a rational discussion on reasonable regulation. They wrote, “Any mention of regulation and the cry goes up – ‘Get them now before they are taken away!’ – though no one is talking about confiscating firearms.”
This is blatantly untrue. Media people and politicians are, indeed, very vocal about their hopes for disarmament.
We believed the issue was settled when, in the 2008 Supreme Court case of the District of Columbia v. Heller, the Court ruled that the U.S. Constitution protects an individual’s right to own a gun for personal use. Despite this, the weapon prohibitionists persist in muddying up the waters about the meaning of the Second Amendment, and insist that the “militia clause” interpretation of the Amendment is the true interpretation.
Robert Klose, a teacher at UMA-Bangor, gave his own opinion about the Second Amendment. According to Klose, who obviously presumes to know more about Constitutional law than the U.S. Supreme Court justices who ruled on the Amendment’s interpretation, “My first reaction to this ruling was that the justices shared a common malady: the inability to read and interpret dependent clauses; in this case, the first part of the Second Amendment, which reads, ‘A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State.’” And because of this alleged disparity between the militia-clause and the personal-rights clause interpretations, he declared: “When in doubt, throw it [the Second Amendment] out.”
Norm Stamper, a former Seattle police chief agreed with Klose. Stamper opined publicly, “the Second Amendment–the right to own a gun–should be done away with.” Stamper’s opinions were spread across extreme leftist publications.
New York’s governor Cuomo more cautiously said, “Confiscation could be an option. Mandatory sale to the state could be an option.” But as a last resort, if he could not achieve those goals, he continued, “Permitting could be an option–keep your gun but permit it.” Cuomo’s sweeping new gun restrictions showed his true intent.
Social safety does not arise out of restrictive firearm laws because criminals do not obey them. Such laws have been repeatedly shown not to work as promised. Media, politicians, and thinking people should know about the two following meta-studies and their conclusions, but even when they are forced to confront them, they refuse to accept those conclusions.
In 2003, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”), released a meta-study of the efficacy of gun control. The report included a review of fifty-one published studies on a variety of restrictive gun laws, including bans on specific firearms and ammunition, measures prohibiting felons from purchasing guns, mandatory waiting periods, firearm registration, and background checks.
The Associated Press summarized the report: “A sweeping federal review of the nation’s gun control laws–including mandatory waiting periods and bans on certain weapons–found no proof such measures reduce firearm violence.”
The National Academy of Sciences (“NAS”) reached a similar conclusion in 2004: no link could be established between restrictive firearm laws and lower violent crime rates, firearm-related violence, or even firearm accidents. The 328-page report contained a review of 253 journal articles, 99 books, and 43 government publications, as well as independent research by the NAS.
It is our knowledge of these findings that proves to us that our Founding Fathers were correct: science bears out the need for our Second Amendment.
The truth is that restrictive gun laws are not effective. In some cases, they are counterproductive and dangerous to the public welfare.
It is a fact that only the law-abiding among us obey our laws. Therefore, it is futile to expect additional restrictive laws to affect criminal behavior–purportedly aimed at preventing criminals from committing evil acts–when they will not obey the thousands of restrictive firearm laws already on the books.
What is the purpose of limiting the number of rounds in a firearm’s magazine owned by a peaceable gun-owner, when criminals will be able to load as many rounds as he/she wishes into magazines of guns declared “illegal” by the government? How will preventing the types of guns a peaceable American citizen can own change the outcome of the actions of an evil person bent on harm and destruction and the commission of despicable acts? What kind of “logic” is involved in such “reasoning” by the anti-gun extremists? There is no logic in such restrictions, and because of this, their true intent–the disarming of peaceable Americans–is indisputably revealed!
We believe that the reasons for the ranting, frenzied behavior of the weapon-prohibitionists stems from their guilt. They know –deep down in their guts– that their philosophy is flawed, and that the path to a safe society does not run through a disarmed populace, as they constantly insist.
They know about the research of John Lott and William Landes regarding mass public shootings. They know that “gun-free” zones create pools of easy, indefensible targets for evil-doers. So they must therefore know that their scheme of “gun-free school zones” is the real cause of all those horrible deaths of school children over recent years.
To all you anti-gun extremists: you apparently can’t admit the truth even to yourselves. Yet, you have the gall to accuse peaceable, responsible gun-owners of all kinds of horrible things that result from your own dangerous agenda, and call us –the ones who protect even you and your families through the deterrence of our gun ownership– all kinds of despicable names.
So, is the real truth that you are lying to the public, to our politicians, and to our media, because you only want to disarm gun-owners, and you don’t care one whit who gets hurt by your misguided agenda in the process?
We believe it is!
About the authors:
Dr. Paul Gallant and Dr. Joanne D. Eisen practice optometry and dentistry, respectively, on Long Island, NY, and have collaborated on firearm politics for the past 20 years. They have also collaborated with David B. Kopel since 2000, and are Senior Fellows at the Independence Institute, where Kopel is Research Director. Most recently, Gallant and Eisen have also written with Alan J. Chwick. Sherry Gallant has been instrumental in the editing of virtually all of the authors’ writings, and is immensely knowledgeable in the area of firearm politics.
Almost all of the co-authored writings of Gallant, Eisen, Kopel and Chwick can be found athttps://gallanteisen.incnf.