Gun ownership is one of the rights many Americans believe will come under fire if Barack Obama is elected to a second term in 2012. With the Second Amendment in mind, I share “A World Without Guns,” a seriously funny video from my friend, Joel Berry, at SweetTeaFilms.com.
This morning, a reader shared a link to a USA TODAY online poll in which readers are asked to answer the question, “Does the Second Amendment give individuals the right to bear arms?” It was not until after I clicked “Yes” that I noticed the poll had been online for approximately 26 months. The results:
A ten percent drop in murders during the first six months of this year at a time when gun sales were up dramatically is more proof that there is no correlation between gun ownership and violent crime, say officials with the Second Amendment Foundation.
The FBI released data Monday that shows murders dropped by 10 percent from the same period in 2008. Meanwhile, according to data released by the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System shows that during the first six months of this year, gun sales were up.
January 2009 background checks rose 28.8 percent over the same month in 2008, February’s NICS checks were up 23.3 percent and in March they were up 29.9 percent over March 2008. The trend continued in April, with NICS checks up 30.3 percent, while May showed a slowdown, up only 15.5 percent, and in June they were up 18.1 percent.
“What this shows,” said Alan Gottlieb, SAF executive vice president, “is that gun prohibitionists are all wrong when they argue that more guns result in more crime. Firearms in the hands of law-abiding citizens are no threat to anyone. Perhaps violent criminals were actually discouraged by all of those gun sales earlier this year, because the media made a point of reporting the booming gun market.
“Anti-gunners,” he continued, “have lost another one of their baseless arguments. Millions of Americans bought guns during the first six months of this year, many of them for the first time. Yet with all of those new guns in circulation, coupled with an increased demand for concealed carry licenses around the country, the streets have not been awash in blood, as gun banners repeatedly predict.
“Hard facts trump hot air,” Gottlieb concluded. “These people are consistently wrong about our rights. Millions of people bought guns, especially semiautomatic sport-utility rifles that gun grabbers want to ban because they say people aren’t safe with all of those guns in private hands. Well, the people disagree, and so does the data.”
UPDATE 12/30/09: Listen to me discuss this post and others on WBAL-AM’s The Shari Elliker Show today at 11:15 a.m. Eastern/10:15 a.m. Central.
Seventy-five percent of Americans believe the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right of an average citizen to own a gun, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey* of 1,000 adults conducted Feb. 27-28.
Just 14 percent say gun ownership is not a constitutional right, and 11 percent are not sure.
Of those with a gun-owner in the household, 89 percent say the Constitution guarantees a citizen’s right to own a gun. Sixty-four percent of those without a gun owner in the home agree.
*The margin of sampling error for the survey is +/-3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.
The 24th Annual Gun Rights Policy Conference (a.k.a., “GRPC 2009″) will take place in St. Louis Sept. 25-27, offering gun rights advocates their once-a-year chance to network and get involved with pro-gun rights strategies for the coming year.
Click to download.
Past GRPCs have outlined victory plans and made public the latest firearms trends, according to the Second Amendment Foundation’s event web site. Fittingly, the them for this year’s conference is “Challenges Ahead.”
Critical issues to be covered at the conference include: City gun bans, youth violence, “smart” guns and concealed carry as well as federal legislation, legal actions, gun show regulation and state and local activity. In addition, upcoming court cases will be previewed and past cases, such as the U.S. Supreme Court’s Heller Decision, will be revisited.
To download the registration form (pdf) for GRPC 2009, click here or on the graphic (above right)
Forty-eight-year-old Bruce Pardo set into motion a series of events on Christmas Eve that, according to a Los Angeles Times report, has resulted in nine deaths inside the Covina, Calif., home where members of his ex-wife’s family had gathered for the holidays. Not surprisingly, little time passed before the folks at the Brady Campaign began banking on the tragedy to promote their own gun-grabbing, anti-Second Amendment goals.
Early this afternoon, Brady Campaign President Paul Helmke issued a statement in which he used 117 words to wrongly place blame for the tragedy on the gun(s) involved. Further, he failed to acknowledge the fact that the scope of this tragedy could have been minimized dramatically — and possibly prevented — if only one adult inside the home had had access to a firearm as well as training in how to use it properly.
If you believe gun ownership is a Constitutional right that shouldn’t be modified or surrendered, make sure your member of Congress knows where you stand. CONTACT YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS in Washington, D.C., and give them a piece of your mind. Threaten them with your vote. Say whatever it takes to convince them to leave the Second Amendment alone. As is. As intended by the Founding Fathers.
Anti-gun activists are far-outnumbered in Missouri by law-abiding, gun owners, and I suspect many of those gun owners will head toward the St. Charles (Mo.) Convention Center Sept. 6 to bid on items in a collection of more than 300 firearms and more than 25,000 rounds of ammo that will be sold at auction.
The Brinker Estate Firearms Collection includes Belgium Brownings, Smith & Wesson and Colt manufactures along with war-time firearms. Many are in “like new” condition in their original boxes, according to the auction web site. Preview begins on the day of the auction at 10a.m. and continues until auction time at 1 p.m.
To learn more about the auction, click here. To see a list of some of the items up for sale, scroll down:
