Gun Control

In the last few years, if not decades, there has been an ever-increasing pressure from certain groups to crack down on gun users and those who promote the ownership of guns. It is interesting to note that that the opposition that leads this quasi-religious movement are protected by bodyguards wearing concealed weapons. Such arrogance falls into the category of “let them eat cake.”

A surprising number of the armed “protectors” have fairly shady backgrounds of their own. Defrocked policemen, ex-military, and a long list of actual felons and other shady characters are allowed… somehow… to carry concealed weapons. One study from a large Midwest police department found that only about 40 percent of hired bodyguards in the entertainment industry had a legal right or license to carry a concealed weapon, and in the same study found that nearly 20 percent had previous felony convictions. Yet they carry their weapons into public events, concerts, and on the street. In most jurisdictions, the average citizen would be thrown in jail if apprehended for committing a similar crime. If you are “one of the boys” (read police),you get entrance to events when armed, with just a wink and a nod.

A silly singer or movie star who is completely unknown by the average public gets several strong-armed bullies to protect him or her, while Jane Doe can wait up to 30 minutes to even get an answer to a 911 call, then another 30 minutes for a response. A prima facia case for home gun protection. The police simply can’t protect you in your own home. They get there after you and your family are dead.

The NRA and other groups preach and teach the safe use of firearms to our citizens… at no cost. The NRA trained our Boy Scout troop in the proper handling of guns… for free. I was raised in a gun-rich environment in Utah and Nevada. The main use of guns was for hunting – we needed the food. There were a few pistols in my very large extended family, but they were mostly used for protection either while hunting or in the home. 

As a side note, I came from a family where I counted 154 first cousins, and all of them, including their fathers, mothers, and teenage children had or used guns. The extended family ran into the hundreds. I don’t know of one single gun injury or killing, accidental or otherwise, among that group.

As a youngster, the only time I saw people getting shot was in newsreels or movies. There was a limited amount of movie murders when I was young, but those have slowly increased to mass killings of up to hundreds per movie on the modern screen and television. And the shootings were actually part of the story, not the story. The depictions in current movies portray the killing of people in all sort of manners as if this was an important part of any real story. Both good guys and bad guys rush in with the most sinister of automatic weapons – the ones the gun control people want to ban – and proceed to cut one another in half, blow the brains out of heads, and leave a trail of dead bodies the length of Hollywood Boulevard.

It is also interesting to note that the age of admission to violent movies has slowly dropped in the last number of years as the depiction of violence increases. These movies are routinely rated PG-13. First, in most cases, there is no parenting involved, so forget the PG part. Second, a child at age 13 is a very impressionable person. They see movie after movie depicting atrocities on other human beings and perhaps begin to think this is normal behavior. As if the killing of a real person just might be “normal.” Then the same violent depictions, and sometimes worse, migrate to the video gaming business.

No wonder gun violence at schools and the workplace frequently lead the evening news. Why in the world is anyone surprised? The first thing from the clowns at CNN after a shooting event is to campaign for more gun control. Gun control laws in Chicago are the toughest in the nation, yet Chicago has more murders than the entire United Kingdom and more murders than Baghdad (war-related deaths excluded), even though the two cities have virtually the same population. And, nearly all men and many women carry a gun in Baghdad. The murder rate in our nation’s capital is also greater than Baghdad. Business Insider’s reports list the 50 cities in the world with the highest murder rates. Baltimore, St. Louis, Detroit, New Orleans, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., are on the list… Baghdad is not.

Most of the gun-ban crowd are completely ignorant about guns. Both Dianne Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi still refer to the AR-15 as an automatic assault rifle. No self-respecting soldier would consider carrying the AR-15 into battle. The AR-15, for the most part, is a slightly more powerful .22 rifle with an ominous-looking handle on top. Take the handle off and it is really a squirrel- or varmint-hunting gun.

If you were faced with a charging bear, the only thing an AR-15 would do is annoy the creature. And it is certainly not automatic. Automatic weapons in the U.S. were banned decades ago. It is semi-automatic, requiring the pull of the trigger for each round fired. Wolf Blitzer and one of his loons announced on CNN that the AR-15 was capable of firing 100 rounds into a crowd in about 10 seconds. Quite a feat, in that it would require the pull of the trigger 10 times per second, an impossible feat. In addition, you would have to change the magazine four times. I have an AR-15 used for target practice because the ammunition is really cheap.

At a Las Vegas gun range, an instructor did his best to get off 100 rounds in the shortest time. It took two minutes and 20 seconds to get off 79 rounds before the barrel overheated and the gun jammed. That is 20 times longer per round than Blitzer’s account, and it wasn’t 100 rounds. But for Blitzer, being off 2,000 percent is not an embarrassment. The instructor is a world-class competition marksman.

This is not to say that the AR-15 is not a dangerous weapon… it definitely is; all guns are dangerous. This example was cited to show just how ignorant many gun control advocates are. By the way, nearly all gun deaths in the U.S. are from the use of pistols… not rifles. The ratio is nearly 30:1. It really is not easy for a woman to conceal an AR-15 in her purse, or a man to hide one in his suit jacket.

I believe in free speech. But is it appropriate to teach young people by example that excessive violence and wholesale killing is acceptable? I don’t really believe that falls into the category of free speech. The Hollywood portrayers of violence and mass killings are the very people who decry that we need more laws and who lobby for suppressing gun violence.

You don’t need to look for these self-serving hypocrites to change their ways. Actors, directors, producers, and distributors involved in their soul-destroying industry are further emboldened by the massive amounts of money they make; they are far too arrogant and self-absorbed to do anything else. The least they could do however – if they don’t have the courage to turn down the money and are too stupid or lazy to make films with real content – is just shut up, make movies, and let the rest of us protect ourselves from the mayhem – at least partly caused by the crap this group turns out – as best we can.