Posted by
Dan@Minuteman1 on Sunday, July 06, 2008 10:24:58 AM
I think it is safe to say that the men who sat down and drafted our Constitution were some very smart men. They used their own experiences along with very sound reasoning, to create to the best of their abilities the most perfect government possible. In the drafting of our Constitution, very word had a purpose. And I think you have to agree that after over 200 years it looks like they succeeded. At least up to this point.
There are many today who love to constantly try to convince us that the Constitution is a "living" document. That what the drafters wrote 200 years ago is not applicable today. I get real tired of hearing from those people who seem to think they know so much more than those men who made our current way of life a reality. One the favorite targets today, if not "the" favorite target, is the Second Amendment. They continually point to civilized Europe and its policies against private gun ownership as the example the United States should emulate. I for one completely disagree! I get tired of being referred to as uncivilized because I believe in the constitutional right of the individual to own a gun. We keep hearing how if only we would ban guns the result would be so beneficial to our society. It’s all nonsense. If you really look closely at most if not all of those advocating strict control, they all usually have some sort of paid security people all carrying guns. DUH!
Let’s look at a few of the countries that the gun control folks tout as being better off because of their stricter guns laws. If you take the time to look closely at those same countries, which most of those wanting to ban guns rarely if ever do, you’ll see that the gun laws that the advocates want forced on us have done absolutely nothing to keep crime rates from rising. For example, since Australia passed a law in 1996 which made it a crime to use a gun defensively, (STUPID), armed robberies rose by 51 percent, unarmed robberies by 37 percent, assaults by 24 percent and kidnapping by a whopping 43 percent. While murders did fall by 3 percent, manslaughter rose by 16 percent. I just don’t seem to see any benefits here. In Canada, after stringent gun controls were enacted in 1991 and again in 1995, the citizens of Canada were definitely not made any safe. "The contrast between the criminal violence rates in the United States and Canada is dramatic," says Canadian criminologist Gary Mauser in 2003. "Over the past decade, the rate of violent crime in Canada has increased while in the United States violent crime has plummeted." Here’s the clincher. In England, according to the BBC, handgun crime rose by 40 percent in the two years after it passed its draconian gun ban in 1997. It is now a fact that British citizens are now more likely to become a victim of a crime than are people here in the United States. The rate of robbery now stands at 1.4 times higher in England and Wales than in the United States and the burglary rate is nearly double that here in America.
No matter which country you look at that has limited private gun ownership the results are the same. If you take guns out of the hands of private citizens, crime rates explode! Gun control advocates continue to point to that ever so civilized, gun free Europe as the end result they wish to see here in America. But they always seem to ignore the overwhelming number of murders that have been committed in Europe. Over the last 70 years Europe has averaged 400,000 murders per year, when one includes the murders committed by governments against mostly unarmed people. That murder rate is about 16 times higher than the murder rate in the United States.
These are just a few examples of the damage done and of the additional risk of life created by supposed gun control. In reality the term "gun control" is really nothing more than an oxymoron. Because you’re never going to be able to control guns, all you’ll be doing is limiting the people who have them. The law-abiding citizens will be prevented from owning a gun to protect themselves and their families, while the citizens wishing to commit a crime will have ready access to the weapon of his or her choice.