I recently heard someone refer to gun-free zones as “shooting ranges for criminals.” After experiencing violent, unthinkable tragedies at Fort Hood in Texas and a Pennsylvania high school within just one week, the controversial yet unavoidable issue of personal protection is once again at the forefront of the political scene. The New York Times published an article on April 9th titled “Again, President Obama Offers Comfort at Fort Hood After Soldiers Are Killed.” More like, “Again, President Obama Used a Solemn Ceremony to Push His Radical Unconstitutional Agenda.”
In his usual glib and monotone reading of the teleprompter, the President spoke to mourners about the ongoing pain Fort Hood has experienced since the 2009 shooting spree by “radical” Muslim military psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan, who mercilessly claimed 13 American souls
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Obama went on to say: “This tragedy tears at wounds still raw from five years ago. Once more, soldiers who survived foreign war zones were struck down here at home, where they’re supposed to be safe. We still do not know exactly why.”
Well, POTUS, the difference between protecting America in a foreign war zone and domestically is the presence of firearms for protection. You see, America has become its own little war zone because the mentally ill and evil are preying on everyone and anyone, knowing full well their prey cannot protect themselves. This is partly why they do what they do. Fatalities do not mean anything to them, so why are we continuing to allow innocent people to die at their hands? Why are military members, some of our most trusted keepers of freedom, not entitled to protect themselves against those who wish to harm them? The left is perfectly fine with the military possessing firearms abroad and their security teams armed, but who is protecting those who protect us?
The glaring contradiction that “gun-free zones are safer” is the undeniable fact that in more instances than not, a gun has actually ended the attack either directly or indirectly. Indirectly meaning a firearm was brandished and the perpetrator either committed suicide or surrendered. The Fort Hood tragedies in 2009 and 2014, the D.C. Navy Yard shooting earlier this year, Clackamas Town Center mall shooting in 2012, the New York AT&T store shooting in 2010, and the Trolley Square shooting in Salt Lake City in 2007, are but a few of the numerous violent attacks that have been subdued by a firearm. Are liberals going so far to say that had these firearms not been used to subdue the suspect(s), lives would have not been saved? Whether liberals and anti-gun advocates like it or not, guns save lives.
It is incredibly ignorant, in fact dangerous, to believe that it’s perfectly acceptable for law enforcement, military (abroad, of course) and Congressional security teams should be permitted to use firearms to protect them, yet a law abiding American citizen cannot. Can you imagine if another military officer at Fort Hood or a firearms trained faculty member in Pennsylvania were packing heat and could have ended the bloodbath before lives were lost? It’s an atrocity to continue to allow places like military bases, schools, malls and other public places to remain gun-free with the unthinkable acts that are being committed on a regular basis in this country. We’ve seen all too often, when these horrendous tragedies occur seconds count, but the cops are minutes away.
I know what liberals are thinking right now, “Oh okay, so the answer is to just give everyone a gun?!” Not so fast. Let’s take a look at Obama’s old stomping grounds and city with the highest crime rate in the country, Chicago. Last year, the Illinois legislature passed a bill allowing concealed carry. The Chicago Police Department recently released statistics showing that during the first quarter of 2014 the city has experienced the lowest murder rate since 1958. Although the concealed carry permits weren’t issued until February 2014, the correlation between the presence of concealed carried firearms and reduced murder rate is glaring.
Concealed carry and potential lower crime rate doesn’t end there. Recently, Detroit Chief of Police James Craig, as reported in the Detroit News, supports citizens to conceal carry, stating, surprise, surprise, that it actually deters crime. Craig explained that while working at the Los Angeles Police Department he was not a proponent of concealed carry but after moving to Portland, Maine he noticed the increase of law abiding citizens concealed carrying actually did, in fact, deter crime.
Are bad things going to happen? Yes. Are they going to happen without our being able to control them? Of course. But the difference between a gun rights advocate and a gun control advocate is the gun rights advocate believes not in limiting personal freedom, but confronting and, if necessary, using force against the proponent of that violent crime. We cannot prevent evil from happening because evil will take on endless shapes and forms. It’s “kids” playing the knock out game, students stabbing each other, home invasions…things that scissors and rape whistles can never be expected to stop. Not only is the suggestion of using these useless devices to stop a crime completely idiotic, it’s downright insulting.
So wise up libs, and try to at least grasp the cold hard fact that if you don’t want to be staring down the wrong side of a barrel or on the receiving end of a knife, a firearm to protect you and your family at least provides the reassurance that you have a standing chance to survive and possibly save lives. Without the ability and right to possess a firearm, citizens become vulnerable to all that is a threat to free will, freedom, and personal safety.
If you cannot find it in yourself to own a firearm, you do not have the right to take away mine much less a member of our military. My lady hero and idol Miranda Lambert said it best in her song “Time To Get a Gun”:
“Well I think it should be up to me ‘cause when it’s all said and done
Somebody’s gotta walk into the night and I’m gonna be that one
It’s time to get a gun”
Image: Courtesy of:https://www.flickr.com/photos/kazvorpal/8282987334//
