Today, I received a note from an acquaintance of mine, who kindly took issue with my opposition to Universal Background Checks.
This woman mistakenly believed our government was much too inept to ever getting around to the total ban and confiscation of our guns.
What you are about to read is my response to this dear lady:
I am truly sorry for the bad experiences you’ve had.
I grew up on guns. My family hunted. My wife’s family hunted. Guns were a part of our culture.
My children were instructed in their safety and usage almost from birth. In fact, my nine-year old daughter scolded my fully-grown nephew, who came to our house to return a couple of my guns that he borrowed.
Kaity said, “Now, Josh, you shouldn’t be messing with Daddy’s guns. Those aren’t toys and they might hurt you or someone else.”
For many years, I was an outspoken advocate for allowing concealed carry in the state of Ohio. However, I was also a law-abiding citizen, who conformed to the law as it currently existed then.
Somewhere around that time, my wife and I were all dressed up and going to some kind of a fundraiser. For no apparent reason whatsoever, a pair of cars began harassing us. Each one of the cars had two young men in the front seats. I couldn’t identify how many might have been in the back.
While on the four-lane, one of them pulled in front of me and began to slow down. The other one got on my left and wouldn’t let me around. This continued for several minutes.
It was wintertime and after dark, before the current status of a cell phone in every hand.
I realized at the time that I could probably defend myself against one individual, but I was certainly no match for four. And as a half-marathoner and a hunter, I had no doubt that I could likely lose the four or more of them in the woods, in the darkness.However, I could do all of that only by myself. My wife was wearing heels and a fancy dress.
Therefore, I would have to stay and try to confront whatever they might do, armed with nothing more than a tire tool—if I could reach it without getting out first.
I never felt so defenseless in my whole life.
I realize that my life doesn’t matter much in the large scheme of things, but my wife’s most certainly does.
And at that very moment, I decided that I would never again be placed in that type of no-win situation, totally unable to protect my precious wife from danger. I made a huge decision, which the law eventually made a legal one.
Now, I am a proud and fully-licensed concealed carry individual.
I constantly pray that my gun will never be needed to defend myself. I am fully ready if it is.
And if you were ever in the mall when a shooting started, I hope you have the good fortune to be standing next to someone like me, someone who wouldn’t deliberately go looking for the shooter, but would do everything in his power to get you safely out of the building and back home to your loved ones.
As to the matter of governments, I agree with you that they are often quite inept at most things. But governments certainly do ONE thing well.
They are absolutely great at consolidating power.
Obama care is the best example of this that I can cite.
A majority of the public opposed it. Congress even had to break their own rules to pass it. But pass it they did!
Every gun advocate loves to bring up Nazi Germany in relation to gun control. However, in more recent history, Britain, Canada, and even rugged Australia started off with some type of “harmless” gun registration.
Every single one of them soon got around to total gun confiscation.
In fact, I doubt you can name me a single country in which one hasn’t followed the other. It’s happening in New York City right now.
Most of the rest of the things I said to this woman are of no real interest to you.
However, hers is a mindset shared by way too many people in our country. They are good and well-meaning souls, but misguided ones, falsely thinking they aren’t trading away their rights for a promise of security.
Unfortunately, we have a president who is more than willing to exploit these uninformed ideas to advance an agenda that ultimately has nothing to do with neither freedom nor security.
And there are people in Congress, Pelosi, Schumer, and Feinstein, just to name a few, who are every bit as power hungry and ruthless as humanity’s worst dictators, if given the same power.
Some of us can see this. And that is why some of us are bold enough to oppose it.
Image: Courtesy of: http://www.antredugreg.be/souriez-vous-etes-surveille-en-belgique/
