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Greetings Fellow Activists,
Saturday 6/26/1999 a group of fellow activists successfully organized and executed
a Second Amendment Civil Rights Rally in Niagara Falls NY. In just under six
weeks Niagara county SCOPE with help from chapters round the state, the state
organization and were able to put nearly 200 people with signs on City hall
steps and march them down to the Post Office after two hours crammed with talented
capable speakers from the Second Amendment community across the state all building
on the same theme. We have inalienable Civil Rights and Civil Liberties that
must be protected and preserved, and passed from generation to generation if
our freedoms are to survive to protect our heirs.
Those rights we can not pass on to the next generation die with us on our watch. Those rights our heirs have to revive in their day, if they ever can, will probably be much harder for them to reacquire, than for us to defend. Our ability to defend our rights today is much easier today because of those who shouldered the responsibility of protecting and preserving these rights before us. Right such as freedom of speech and the right to peaceably assemble to petition the government for redress of grievances, equal treatment under law, etc.
The most glaring example of the popular assault on these freedoms and rights is the popular denial and assault on the Second Amendment as a Civil Right, and on those who exercise it. At one point people were taught the be wary of belief systems that encourage us to despise and regard a group of people with ridicule and contempt for the actions of a few in their group. We were taught to be wary because such belief systems promote bigotry and prejudice and are usually based on lies and exaggerations. It is a simple message, easy to teach that most people can remember, and many can recognize as true.
With a little prodding most people can recognize where this warning against bigotry and prejudice probably based on lie applies to gun owners. If you have heard it enough that you feel you know it, how about going out and spreading it? How about helping organize a rally in your area . The best defense against bigotry and prejudice is to expose the lies and exaggerations that encourage the contempt and ridicule that promotes bigotry and prejudice. We've got hundreds of converted scholars on our side, the peer reviewed scientific research to back our arguments is staggering and growing.
For less than $20.00 you can purchase a soft copy version of BLACK'S Law Dictionary New Pocket Edition of the 1996 version. With this pocket edition of the country's most respected legal dictionary you can show doubters that our Civil Rights are individual rights of personal liberty guaranteed by the Bill of Rights (The first ten Amendments including the Second Amendment) plus a few other Amendments and Civil Rights Acts. YOU can start to expose the popular lies and exaggerations, exposing the lies and exaggerations discredits the Opportunist Bigots exploiting the bigotry and prejudice these lies and exaggerations promote. Discrediting the bigotry and prejudice and the opportunist behind them undermines their power and influence, disables and eventually stops their ability to do damage, and starts us on the road to undoing the damage they have done.
This is no more no less than every successful Civil Rights movement in the world has ever done. We live in the age of the most modern communications mankind has ever seen and the Internet, most of the people in the country have already been sensitized to the issues of Civil Rights. So much has already been done for us by those who did their duty back in 'the bad old days'. So much has been set in place and started that we can use to make life easier for our heirs. Or we can neglect the tools we have inherited, let them fall into disrepair and force our heirs to have to pick up and push on from what ever survives our neglect.
Our generation has been conditioned to see what these Opportunist Bigots have done as a fundamental evil in a class with racism, sexism and anti-semitism. Not only in promoting bigotry and prejudice against millions of innocent people, but in lying to all of us to seduce us into helping with their evil.
We may take years to get people with a solid stake in the status quo to accept that they have been used, but there are tens of millions who sympathize with us already but won't take a stand with us until it is acceptable, even fashionable. People who will welcome the "Respectability Treatment" they have never seen us widely afforded in their life times, as well as many seeking to rebel against the status quo who flock to any new worthy cause that reveals the flaws and hypocrisies of the mundane. All these people, what ever their motivation can help turn the tide of public sentiment in our favor.
What happened in Albany NY three months after the Martin Luther King March is no more a fluke than what happened in Niagara Falls just two months later. We demonstrated the many people could recognize, remember and respect these rights. And local anti-gun politicians don't like this amongst their constituents in their district.
Not many local anti gun politicians who can stand to have the light of truth shined on their bigotry and prejudice on the eve of an election. Whether they are running or not, our ability to field crowds of Civil Rights activists pointing out their exploitation of bigotry and prejudice is a wake up call.
Whether these politicians ever looked at the Amendments as Civil Rights or not law makers should know what our Civil Rights are, and if not, why not? It is an important part of their job to protect these rights and freedoms.
If they do know these rights are Civil Rights and they haven't had the courage to stand against public sentiment to defend the Second Amendment as have those politicians that they ridicule and treat with contempt for doing so, then they are knowingly using lies and exaggeration, bigotry and prejudice to undermine a Civil Right and to advance an agenda. The obvious answers to the question of do they know what our Civil Rights are, would be if not why not? and if so, "Why do you don't you defend the Second Amendment as you defend the First?" These are questions many opportunist bigot politicians are not eager to be confronted with.
We are asking you to look into organizing or supporting a rally locally. See if you can get local gun clubs or state organizations to help defray the cost, sponsoring signs with their name on them, renting speaker systems, or cover the cost of permits for a rally or insurance and permits for a march from city hall to the local federal building which can be the local post office if reasonably close. A rally is an effort to educate people about their rights and walk them through peacefully standing up for and speaking out for their rights, to expose and discredit beliefs that undermine our rights, render these beliefs harmless and starts to undo the damage these beliefs have done. Rallies and marches draw attention to our efforts and expose others to our beliefs, and these activities help prepare attendees to go public with our beliefs.
If pro gun organizations can not help organize a local rally, can they sponsor a bus or fact finding committee to go to the nearest rally? If the local clubs can not pitch in to help sponsor a bus load or two of people to the nearest rally with signs sponsored by the clubs, can they reimburse travel expenses for people who car pool and bring their own cameras, cam corders and American flags? Every rally that breaks the 1,000 participant mark helps us all. Everybody who comes back able to inspire others helps us all.
Maybe if some of the clubs' leadership goes on such a fact finding trip they will be inspired to help organize a rally in their area for next year. Given the tendency for local legislators to be inspired by prevailing anti gun sentiment, it is probably better to have some long range plan of action in the works to make your local opportunist bigot pay for selling us out, (preferably on the eve of an election).
To just go to the next town meeting and fight the latest brush fire with classic tactics is just more of the same old fight everybody is familiar with. It inspires no new insights and tends not to win new converts. New arguments at least have a better chance to inspire new insights, especially when a lot of people recognize and respond to the truth in your arguments because they have been conditioned for decades to strongly respect such arguments. If sentiment is running against us 70% to 23%, do 200 sportsmen at a meeting represent the same old dwindling 23% or the fresh new 70% . Do two hundred Civil Rights activists, speak of something new?
Activists with media and eye catching signs that convey a simple sound bite message that Free Speech or Freedom of Worship, or the Right to Peaceably Assemble to Redress Grievances is a Civil Right on one side and the Second Amendment is a Civil Right on the other side. The Right to be secure from Unreasonable Search and seizures, or Right to Due Process of Law, Right to a speedy and public trial, right to legal counsel for defence, protection from excessive bail or fines, protection from cruel and unusual punishment. All these rights and protections are widely respected and widely recognized as arising from the Bill of Rights.
They are also readily accepted as Civil Rights, (if not break out your pocket copy of Black's Law dictionary). Use them as examples of Civil Rights on one side of a sign and the Second Amendment as a Civil Right on the other. Your people don't have to say or chant anything, just hold and turn the sign occasionally.
Do such activists at one of several rallies being held simultaneous around the state in the wake of a successful rally in Albany N.Y. and
another in Niagara Falls indicate something new and growing to consider? Do they put our opposition at risk of being on the wrong side of a Civil Rights issue? Freedom of speech and right to peaceably assemble A Civil Right signs at the front of a march make a lot of people hesitant to be caught on video tape or film looking like they are infringing those rights. How about signs Protect, Preserve and Pass on These Rights!!
Can they make us look like kooks and extremists if we are carrying the messages above about protecting, preserving and passing on Civil Rights, protections and freedoms preserved for us by those who came before?
If we are reminding people what our Civil Rights are and how to protect them, that whether they are called Civil Rights, Civil Liberties or Constitutional Rights they are one and the same and mean as much to tens of millions of gun owners, Constitutionalist, Traditionalist and Conservatives as Civil Rights mean to millions of Blacks and liberals are we dangerous , hate filled extremists?
If we show how far we've come in 36 years from the 1964 Civil Rights act to today, when most people don't know what all our rights are, were to find them or even how to recognize threats against them, are we paranoid to feel our rights are being taken away and that the loss of our freedoms await us at the bottom of a slippery slope we have already started down? Are we paranoid when it is fashionable for our law makers and public pinion shapers to lie to us and about us, to turn our people against us and our exercise of a fundamental right that they are trying to destroy?
Let's start putting these arguments before as large an audience as possible. Please distribute far and wide, and visit our web site at: http://www.SCOPEny.org for a better over view of the gun ownership as Civil Rights issue.
A Civil Right is a birth right of all native born citizens, and is extended to all naturalized citizens. In the United States, these are the rights, freedoms and protections guaranteed by the Bill of Rights -- the first ten Amendments -- to the federal Constitution.
All of these Amendments (including the Second, which sets forth the right to "keep and bear arms") are now deemed by leading Constitutional scholars and historians as intended by the Founding Fathers to be individual civil rights. Further, our individual civil rights are strengthened and/or buttressed by the 13th, 14th, 15th and 19th Amendments. To briefly explore this topic, see "Civil Rights", "Civil Liberties", and "Bill of Rights", in a current issue of Black's Law Dictionary (America's preeminent legal dictionary for over a century).
The Founding Fathers did not develop the Bill of Rights out of thin air. They drew heavily upon the rights of Englishmen, as set forth in the English Bill of Rights of 1689 -- which specifically included an individual right to keep and bear arms. The English Bill of Rights was an outgrowth of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which brought William and Mary to power and ended a long period of civil war and political conflict in England.
Civil rights are also individual rights, freedoms and protections set forth and/or expanded on by states' bills of rights -- some preceding the federal Bill of Rights -- and New York is no exception.
(See also Mc Kinney's Consolidated Laws of New York Annotated, book 8, New York State's Civil Rights Law. The Civil Rights law starts with the State Bill of Rights, of which Article II, Section 4 is the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, almost verbatim. The state Bill of Rights substitutes the word "can" for the word "shall" in the somehow controversial phrase, "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." The Mc Kinney's Consolidated Law book series are a standard reference in American law libraries, and the law sections of many public libraries. )
Society's failure to treat civil rights as belonging to ALL Americans -- with equal respect for the civil rights of all citizens, ignited the classic civil rights movements of the 1960s. During this period, we came to see that "popular knowledge" about a group of people that encourages others to ridicule, denigrate (defame, blacken one's character) and despise (look down on, feel contempt for) them is wrong. Such "popular" or "common knowledge" that encourages this kind of treatment of a group of people, for certain actions of a few of their number, is seriously flawed.
Schools once taught us to recognize accepting and acting upon such flawed "common knowledge" as promoting bigotry (stubborn and complete intolerance) and prejudice (negative opinions, usually based on inadequate knowledge) against a group of people, most of whom don't deserve such treatment.
Today, much "common knowledge" depicts firearms owners as uneducated and unstable, irresponsible fools or as abusive or dangerous criminals. The facts show that this is not merely wrong -- but is based on misinformation, exaggerations and lies intended to encourage people to ridicule, denigrate and despise gun owners. Thus, such "common knowledge" promotes bigotry, prejudice and discrimination against this group of American citizens.
Once, schools taught us to recognize "common knowledge" that fostered bigotry, prejudice and discrimination against various groups of innocent people over what MAY possibly be true for a few individuals in their groups. Today, however, many teachers and school boards promote such "common knowledge" against gun owners. They are, likely, well-meaning , but seduced by popular beliefs that sound reasonable. However, the facts, as well as recent scholarly work by most constitutional scholars and criminologists, disagree with these popular beliefs. (See: Why Good People Own Guns).
Bigotry and prejudice are so dangerous because of the seductive nature of misinformation -- it motivates good people to abuse and sanction others, who have usually done nothing to deserve such treatment. Often, bigotry and prejudice encourage abusers to steadily escalate these abuses. This bias compels those seduced to demand and applaud increasing levels of abuse. Over time, "good" people can adapt to accept, even demand, some truly horrific mistreatment of innocent people. If this sounds far-fetched, study what went on in Nazi Germany during the 1930s and during World War II. ( See: Jews for Preservation of Firearms Ownership).
The "common knowledge" that denies that the Second Amendment is a right of individuals -- much less a civil right -- is, as noted above, obviously wrong. "Popular or common knowledge" that encourages people to ridicule, denigrate and despise firearms owners as "wackos" and "gun nuts" for the actions of LESS THAN TWO-TENTHS of 1 percent (0.2%) of firearms owners is also wrong. Further, the "common knowledge" overlooks the fact that 11 percent (11.0%) of law-abiding firearms owners have successfully used their firearms for self-defense. Most of that tiny minority who commit violent crimes are repeat offenders and career criminals. They are, generally, barred by law from owning firearms -- but obtain them illegally.
Do we sanction ANY OTHER minority group for such a small percentage of unwanted criminals in their midst? Is it right -- for instance -- to sanction, ridicule, denigrate or despise a million "assault rifle" owners over less than a dozen deaths per year (on average), by military-style semiautomatic rifles -- which are not truly "assault rifles"? Assault rifle is the Anglicized translation of the Nazi term Sturm Gerwehr for a rifle that fires full or semi automatic. The semi- auto only civilian versions incorporate the ruggedness and reliability of equipment designed to function reliably under the worst conditions experienced by man, the modern battlefield. This is the same trait of rugged reliability that lead to sport utility vehicles, it does not indicate a mentality to despise, or regard with contempt any more than S.U.V. ownership does.
By the same token, should government sanction ALL Black, Asian, Italian and Hispanic males for a minority of unwanted criminals in their midst? Should schools encourage sanctions of any or all homosexuals because of those who have HIV or AIDS and may pose an infection risk? Is a person, (regardless of sexual preference) who knowingly or unknowingly passes on HIV to others, any less "dangerous" than a criminal with an "assault weapon"? Yet, many school teachers promote "common knowledge" concerning all firearms owners, as well as "fashionable" sanctions or controls against them -- for the acts of criminals.
That leads us to a question: Whom, besides criminals, should we sanction for the acts of criminals?
Why are proposals to sanction Blacks, Hispanics and homosexuals not only "politically incorrect", but highly unlikely at this time? BECAUSE SO MANY MEMBERS OF THESE GROUPS ARE DEMANDING THEIR RIGHTS AND JUST TREATMENT, THAT FEW DARE CHALLENGE THEM! WHEN ENOUGH PEOPLE DEMAND THEIR RIGHTS AND JUST TREATMENT, THEY BECOME "FASHIONABLE"!
For political expediency, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is helping to politicize deadly infectious diseases (HIV and AIDS) to Civil Right status -- but is politicizing a real Civil Right (the right to keep and bear arms) as a "disease" that needs to be "treated" and eradicated. (See: Guns in Medical Literature -- A Failure of Peer Review)
These scenarios -- of policy driven by bigotry, prejudice and "political correctness" -- are no less ridiculous and, sadly, no more unlikely than what has already been done to gun owners. There are extremists who depict all men as rapists for the actions of a few. Extremists and some "do-gooders" blame virtually everybody else in society, at least partly, for the acts of rapists, pedophiles and other criminals. That scenarios driven by bigotry, prejudice and "political correctness" continue to happen suggests that, if we cannot learn from past experience, we will be doomed to repeat it. Speaking of a history of policy driven by bigotry and prejudice.
There are people in every group with the courage to resist injustice -- and prevail! Remember, at one point today's fashionable, respected minorities were unfashionable "out" groups, until they organized and demanded their rights. Many of today's unfashionable "out" groups were once respected and fashionable, until enough people unwilling to defend their rights let their rights slip away.
What do we want to teach our young people?
Is this the message we teach : "Equal civil rights belong to all Americans for all time. They are guaranteed by our federal and states' bills of rights"?
Or do we teach: "Civil rights are special privileges for the fashionable minorities of the day -- fashionable because they have had enough people with the courage and cohesion to demand their rights"?
Is the lesson to be: "It is acceptable to abuse innocent people for whatever is considered a "good cause" at the time; to punish the many for the misdeeds of the few"?
Is the message we teach: "As groups pass in or out of fashion, their treatment depends more on their being fashionable, than on everybody's inalienable rights"?
Is the final lesson to be: "Over time, all groups and their members are grist for this mill"?
Actually, all the above messages and lessons are true. These lessons may be "politically incorrect" to society's elitists and opinion leaders, but are amongst the oldest and truest in the world.
So, gun owners (and everybody else): if you believe in your rights, organize and demand them, stand up for them, fight for them -- or be abused. What you let slip away in your lifetime, your descendants will have to fight to recover in theirs.
Question "Common Knowledge" Bigotry and Prejudice!
When will good "people of conscience" question the body of bigotry and prejudice that passes for "common knowledge" about gun issues, and examine the body of knowledge that refutes it? In short, when will they resist their own bigotry and prejudices, and lead others to do the same?
Specifically, if YOU are a person of good conscience who has been seduced by anti-gun "political correctness", are YOU ready to question the "common knowledge" about gun issues? We invite you to examine, question, verify or disprove the facts we offer.
That corrupted "common knowledge" based on exaggerations and lies clearly promotes bigotry and prejudice against a law-abiding minority group -- citizens responsibly exercising their civil rights -- was very clear to those who led the civil rights movements of the 1960s.
Today, such "common knowledge" on which so many laws against gun owners have been based would lead us to sanction approximately 65 million gun-owning citizens -- the vast majority of whom are NOT criminals -- and deprive all 260+ million Americans of a basic civil right.
The Civil Rights Act (CRA) of 1964 was enacted to reinforce the rights, freedoms and protections that our Bill of Rights guarantees to all law-abiding citizens. Today, many citizens have come to interpret the CRA as promoting special privileges for minorities. That interpretation is a fallacy. It would exclude those who are not minorities -- and undermine the concept of equal civil rights for all Americans. This interpretation would, therefore, hurt all of us.
Does anybody remember when "good people of conscience" were willing to risk injury or death to raise public awareness to gross injustices and arouse a demand for "equality of civil rights for all Americans"? Remember the Equal Rights Amendment for women?
It is now a third of a century after the CRA of 1964 was enacted. How far have we come?
Even people once willing to risk their lives for equal civil rights for all Americans accept bigotry and prejudice against gun owners. They have been seduced into demanding legislation based on corrupt "common knowledge", seduced into allowing this "common knowledge" to be taught in our schools.
Although most of the public is not aware of it, this "common knowledge" is now refuted by criminologists.
For further information, please contact:
Leonard Whitley
95 B Stoney Hill Rd., Eatontown, NJ 07724 Tel: 732-544-1483
Email: aapfo@emailchoice.com
Introduction:
Speaking as an African-American, I depend upon our representatives
in government and the African-American leaders in our communities to keep you
and me informed of racism in all its forms. Because we live in Orwellian times,
racism is more subtle today and is often disguised.
Needless to say I was shocked when a co-worker (who is white
by the way) handed me an essay titled "The Racist Roots of Gun Control" by Clayton
E. Cramer. This essay covers the long history of gun control in America, and
how it was originally used to keep African-Americans "in their place." Originally,
gun control laws were never intended for whites.
My question is: Why am I only learning of this now? How is
it I never learned this in school? Where is Al Sharpton? Jesse Jackson? NAACP?
Shouldn't they have brought this issue to light?
When I first started making copies of this essay and passing
them out I thought I would receive resistance from the Klan, Skin Heads, members
of the Aryan Nation, etc. But I never heard from them. However, I have been
contacted by representatives of the NAACP from several states telling me to
"back off" in my attempts to make these facts known. Each call boils down to
"...now is not the appropriate time..." Why not?
At the present time, the NAACP has a lawsuit against a number
of firearms manufacturers, claiming that they've flooded black communities with
firearms. (Fact of the matter is the manufacturers have no control over where
the firearms go -- that's determined by the dealers who order the firearms.)
Revealing the historical facts concerning how gun control laws were racist in
their beginnings would be counterproductive at this time, I'm told.
If the NAACP goes through with their lawsuit at this time
they can never, I repeat, never, bring up the issue of how Blacks have been
discriminated against via racist gun laws in the future. How can the NAACP complain
that Blacks in America have been historically denied the protection of the Second
Amendment and at the same time sue firearms manufacturers for selling guns to
Blacks? They can't have it both ways. Besides, if the NAACP does win the lawsuit,
won't that make the cost of guns we need for self-defense unaffordable for some
poor people who might need them the most?
To add insult to injury, it's almost as though the NAACP is
saying that none of us African-Americans can be trusted with firearms because
the criminal element misuses them. Are we really so irresponsible that we let
guns "flood" our neighborhoods, and then somehow let those guns jump up and
cause crime? Rather than make that argument, why doesn't the NAACP go after
the perpetrators of crime instead of gun manufacturers whose product is absolutely
necessary for defense against racists and criminals?
The purpose of this newsletter is to inform as many African-Americans
as possible about the true motives behind gun control.
"The Racist Roots of Gun Control" essay alerted me
to the true nature of gun control in America. Read it for yourself and decide
if our leaders and teachers have been keeping the truth from us. --Leonard
Whitley
Anti-gun-owner "common knowledge" is so entrenched that many educators and school boards reject the National Rifle Association's (NRA) time-tested, award-winning "Eddie Eagle" firearms accident prevention program for young children. Eddie Eagle teaches four things to a young child who sees an unsecured firearm or an unsupervised child with one: "Stop! Don't Touch! Leave the Area! Tell an Adult!"
The NRA Eddie Eagle Program has won the National Safety Council's Award of Merit. The program is recommended by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for the children of its agents. Eddie Eagle does not teach or encourage firearms handling. It carefully does not condone OR condemn ownership, nor implies anything negative about firearms owners. Aversion programs condemn guns, gun ownership and gun owners.
For the sake of "political correctness", some school boards reject the NRA's Eddie Eagle program, which has been proven successful, to wait for programs often not yet developed -- to avoid exposing children to the influence of "The Gun Culture"! They await programs based on "common knowledge", that educators SHOULD recognize as promoting bigotry and prejudice against firearms owners -- yet prefer them for their "political correctness".
Thus, some school boards delay implementing ANY firearms accident prevention programs for their children. Seduced by "common knowledge", they neglect a very fundamental step to prevent accidents involving firearms and children.
How would one justify NOT teaching accident prevention education for any other tool or object -- like household chemicals or matches, for instance -- that is dangerous when misused? Should we teach children to hate, ridicule and despise swimming pools, bathtubs, cigarette lighters and household chemicals -- and their owners? These objects are all dangerous when misused. They are involved in the deaths and injuries of many MORE children than firearms -- and are not used to protect people from crime as are firearms.
Spurred on by certain leaders and members with anti-gun agendas, over 100 reputable professional organizations in medicine, education, entertainment, religion and civil rights endorse "politically correct" anti-gun "common knowledge". These organizations include the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, Centers for Disease Control , American Jewish Conference and Children's Defense Fund. Their positions are refuted or questioned by researchers and such dissident groups as Doctors for Integrity in Public Research (DIPR), Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership (DRGO) and Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JFPO).
DIPR , DRGO and JPFO are among a growing number of small groups that endure ostracism and ridicule to support a maligned civil right, before doing so is fashionable. These dissidents agree with the vast majority of criminologists and constitutional scholars -- who accept methodical, peer-reviewed research that refutes the anti-gun "common knowledge". Most of the researchers conducting these studies expected their research to support the "common knowledge". They had the courage and integrity to stand by their research when it produced controversial, contrary results. (See Edgar Suter links, John Lott links, Don Kates links, Gary Kleck links in suggested sites links at end of document.)
The researchers -- and the peers who reviewed their work -- were not rebels seeking to create controversy. Spectacular claims disproved by peer review would damage a researcher's professional credibility. All the leaders in these fields who endorse these findings appreciate what is at stake. When will the public learn about and appreciate these people, their courage and their work -- as so many now laud the proponents of politically correct, but increasingly discredited, "common knowledge"? ( See Paul Blackman links, Clayton Cramer links, Paul Gallant links in suggested sites links at end of document.)
On one side, we have expert criminologists and historians, and those familiar with their findings, disagreeing with "common knowledge". On the other side, we have misinformed amateurs, politicians, advocates and others promoting "common knowledge" based on prejudices, bigotry, lies and exaggerations that undermine a civil right.
"Common knowledge" based on bigotry and prejudice, lies and exaggerations should not be the basis of legislation. Nor should it be taught in schools to prepare the next generation to support legislation against their civil right to keep and bear arms. All the time, resources and money invested in legislating "crime problem solutions" based on bigotry and prejudice, might better be spent legislating real solutions based on facts. Bad legislation often makes a bad situation worse. Leading criminologists, for instance, have shown through research that more widespread ownership of firearms by law-abiding citizens is linked to a reduction in violent crime.
Does treating crime as a disease make any more sense than treating disease as a crime? You would say "no", yet today's "common knowledge" includes such assertions as gun crimes are a "disease", as promoted by Emergency Room Doctor Arthur Kellermann and Medical Examiner Dr. Donald Reay. They have, for instance, claimed that "a firearm in the home is 43 times more likely to kill a member of the household or a friend than a criminal intruder". The widely-advertised "each day, firearms kill 14 children", or "firearm crime is a public health problem, a disease", exemplifies their approach. ( Do these "factoids" encourage ridicule and contempt for firearm ownership?)
In a 1985 New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) article, Doctors Kellermann and Reay described the "proper" way to determine how many people we lose, and how many we save, with firearms. They say that the tally of benefits should include "cases in which burglars and intruders are wounded or frightened away by the use or display of a firearm, and cases in which a would-be intruder purposely avoided a house known to be armed...."
However, when they calculated their results (based on studying just TWO counties out of 3,054 in the nation) and submitted their results in NEJM in 1986, they excluded these cases. They counted ONLY those instances in which the homeowner killed the intruder, and did so inside the house, as opposed to outside. (See Dr. Edgar Suter , Doctors for Integrity in Research Policy.)
This line of reasoning would imply that police are only effective in stopping crime when they kill their suspects. Approximately 1 in 1,000 defensive uses of firearms involve a fatal use of firearms. By counting only the fatal usage, Kellermann and Reay underestimated the protective factor of firearms by 1,000!
(Furthermore, they include suicides as "family killings" (killer had same relatives as victim), thus multiplying "family killings" by a factor of five -- in spite of the fact that most of the suicides in their study did not even involve a gun. However, suicides that did involve a gun accounted for 84 percent of all gun deaths in this study.
By 1993, another Kellermann-Reay study -- of three counties -- for the five years from 1987 to 1992, had brought the likelihood that a firearm would kill a member of the household rather than a criminal intruder down from 43 times to 2.7 times. Still, it was not until 1997 that criminologists had an opportunity to review and critique the methodology and data. (The Centers for Disease Control, the study's sponsor, is taxpayer funded, yet CDC does NOT require funded scientists to divulge their data.)
Kellermann himself acknowledges that the 1993 study suffers many of the same shortcomings as his previous study. Every leading criminologist trashed this study because of its many glaring flaws.
Preston K. Covey, Director of the Center for the Advancement of Applied Ethics, Carnegie Mellon University, described Kellermann-Reay's 1993 study as an exercise in politics, not statistics. Most of these contemporary criminologists, remember, at least started as liberals working under the influence of "common knowledge", only to have such knowledge disproved by their findings.
Drs. John Lott, Jr., and David Mustard found, in their study of all 3,054 counties in the country, during the fifteen years from 1977 to 1992, that people used firearms four times more often to prevent a crime than commit one. The study also indicated that, where citizens can carry concealed handguns, the crime rate decreases with virtually no increase in firearms accidents.
Drs. Lott and Mustard calculate that, if the 19 states that did not allow concealed carry did allow concealed carry, we could avoid approximately: 1,576 murders, 4,177 rapes and 60,000 aggravated assaults yearly. Their studies indicate 2.5 million defensive uses of guns yearly, most times with no shots fired. Of those cases in which shots were fired, most resulted in neither injury nor fatality. Their data indicate that 400,000 defenders believe their situations involved ending a serious threat to life.
his meticulously peer-reviewed research is compatible with other peer-reviewed studies. Faced with potentially armed victims, criminals resort to crimes against unattended objects. Thus, they avoid confronting a possibly armed individual. This contemporary research also indicates higher benefits in high crime areas where, before potential victims armed themselves, unarmed citizens simply provided criminals with more targets of opportunity.
All this is well-documented in Dr. John Lott's new book, "More Guns, Less Crime," and an excellent book by Donald Kates and Gary Kleck , "The Great American Gun Debate". (See the book summaries links on these two books for the information in the summaries and overviews.) The summaries only hint at the information these excellent works contain. The books offer a glimpse at the current research and study that contradicts the "common knowledge" view of firearms owners and firearms ownership and use.
Kellermann and Reay's study revealed that 71 percent of the victims in their study of shooting deaths in homes had LONG CRIMINAL HISTORIES. So did 75 percent of the killers. This indicates most of the in-home shootings were actually criminals killing criminals -- not average citizens making mistakes or going berserk against friends and family.
Among the facts this Kellermann study fails to determine is whether or not the person killed is actually an intruder or a guest, or whether a gun from that house was used in the killing! All they ask is: "In this household where the homicide was committed, was there a gun, any gun, in the house?" They ask nothing more.
The 15 leading contemporary studies (peer-reviewed by criminologists), indicate defensive firearms usage at 1 to 4 million incidents per year -- compared to just 600,000 criminal uses of firearms. The studies also show 38,000 deaths (primarily of criminals) by firearms compared to as many as 400,000 life-threatening situations successfully ended by defensive uses of firearms.
According to National Safety Council and FBI figures, up to 14 "children" (so defined up to age 24!) a day die by firearms. ANY infant death by accident or criminal act is a tragedy, but they actually number ABOUT 10 out of nearly 40,000 infant deaths a year.
On average, of the 47,000 tragic fatalities each year to children age 14 and under, only 240 involve firearms accidents. ALL firearms deaths account for less than one percent (1.0%) of child fatalities in this age group. Note: ONE SIXTH as many children die from firearms as die from ingesting improperly stored household chemicals, or drown in unattended bathtubs and pools.
These are ALL tragedies. So, to treat everybody equally, do we penalize the parents for these non firearm tragedies with punitive special legislation -- as has been done to firearms owners? When do we hang the threat of special retribution to compound tragedy over ALL parents with young children, and all people who have young children visiting their homes?
Often, punitive legislation against firearms owner is justified by the question: "Does anybody really need a gun?"
By the same token, does anybody "really need" a bathtub (we have showers), or a private swimming pool? Do we "need" dangerous household chemicals that might poison a small child, or small objects that might choke a small child?
Most of us have such items in our homes, garages, yards, outbuildings or motor vehicles. Does anybody "really need" cleaners, glues and other household chemicals that older children sometimes inhale to "get high" -- with tragic results? How many times do people use household chemicals, bathtubs or swimming pools to prevent or stop a crime?
Shall we specially sanction parents to discourage negligence with ALL useful things that are potentially dangerous to children? Shall we base policy on statistics that include "children" up to age 24? Shall we regulate all high-performance and recreational vehicles and activities, and all chemicals one can sniff to get "high", as threats to children, by counting everyone so injured or killed up to age 24 as a "child" -- the same as some agencies and organizations do with firearms statistics?
Based on HIV infection statistics for "children" up to "age 24", shall we establish HIV-free school zones, and test students for HIV, much as we search for guns? Who decides when everybody must be sanctioned because too many "children" have been injured or killed as a result of the lifestyles that spread HIV and AIDS?
The atmosphere for embellishing sanctions is favorable amongst a generation of Americans raised to applaud "improvements" on legislated sanctions -- even sanctions based on the popular "common knowledge" bigotry, prejudice, lies and exaggerations of the times.
If the real, acknowledged experts on a situation disagree with "common knowledge", how and why do we continue to get anti-gun legislation based on "common knowledge"? If the legislators who make our laws, media opinion makers who shape public opinion consult these experts -- as one might expect them to, why do we continue to have anti-gun legislation based on bigotry, prejudice, lies and exaggerations? For that matter, why is bigotry and prejudice against gun owners taught and encouraged in many of our schools and universities?
For the time, money and resources spent to solve serious social problems, is it too much to expect our legislators to get the best information and consult the most learned experts available? Shouldn't lawmakers know that our civil rights are in the Bill of Rights, that the Second Amendment is a civil right? Shouldn't they be knowledgeable enough to question assertions that come from those who claim otherwise?
Shouldn't lawmakers and opinion shapers be able to recognize bigotry, prejudice and discrimination? They should know how harmful it is to repeat lies and exaggerations that promote bigotry and prejudice, to encourage people to ridicule and denigrate a group for some of the actions of a few of its members. Are too few "community leaders" learning to question or recognize such things unless it is "fashionable" to do so? Do you see how bigotry and prejudice can so easily get so much worse than it is today?
The principles and rules we establish and raise our young under may be embellished and improved on with time. Thirty years ago, the Gun Control Act of 1968 was not supposed to lead to registration of all firearms. The Mc Clure-Voelker Act supposedly guaranteed that. But look where the Brady Bill brings us to in November, 1998. A little-publicized add-on to the legislation provides that ALL sales of all guns are to be recorded. Regulations proposed by the Clinton administration provide for saving these records -- and records of repairs of firearms as well -- at least 18 months by the FBI. Where do such embellishments and improvements end?
The criminologists have weighed in with their research results: restricting firearms access for law-abiding citizens does not deter crime, but greater access for the law-abiding does. Criminals skirt or ignore the laws, only the law abiding comply with them. Disarmed citizens are simply easier targets for illegally armed criminals. How does making ownership more difficult for those who would follow the law help? Still, such restrictions are embellished and pushed forward without end. Gun control doesn't control guns, gun control controls the civil rights of the law-abiding.
Shall we stigmatize and ridicule those who posses ALL objects that are dangerous if improperly used, as we have with firearms? Should we denigrate and despise those who engage in activities that are risky (even if done properly), as we do those who have firearms? Doesn't make sense does it? But, we not only have laws and public policy based on these principals, many prominent people have even built their careers promoting them.
All firearms deaths account for less than 1 percent of fatalities among children age 14 and under. Yet, anti-gun groups stir the emotions of the public by EXAGGERATING such tragedies: they include figures for people to age 24 so as to exaggerate their data by a factor of 20, and understate the benefits of ownership by a factor of 1,000 (by ignoring non-fatal defensive usage), to discredit gun owners and gun ownership. They imply that it is okay to use these lies and exaggerations to promote bigotry and prejudice, because this is all for a "good cause."
There are "people of conscience" in education, medicine, academe, journalism, entertainment, clergy, laity, business, government, finance -- all walks of life, in fact -- that you would expect to recognize bigotry and prejudice when they see it. If they cannot recognize and oppose it (but actually practice and endorse it to children), who will teach these children to recognize bigotry and prejudice?
When will we as a country treat "people of conscience" -- who really do "blow the whistle on bigotry and prejudice" with the respect they really deserve? When do we acknowledge people with the courage to recognize and oppose fashionable bigotry and prejudice, AND the conscience to defy corrupt "common knowledge"?
Too often, those who see themselves as "people of conscience" ignore, ridicule, denigrate and despise criminologists with the courage, character and conscience to stand by and even publish their research when the results do not fit "common knowledge". These people do this for a "good cause" that fits their world view: a view that they are a more "civilized elite" than the "commoner" who cannot handle "the responsibility and temptations of power" inherent to owning a firearm.
It is easy to see how so many in Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan were seduced into denying or destroying the right of self-defense by accepting bigotry and prejudice based on lies and exaggerations -- and in the case of Japan, on a unique cultural tradition.
In this country, though, look "how far" people who once may have risked injury and death to help African-Americans overcome centuries of bigotry, prejudice and discrimination since slavery, have come since the 1960s. While we fight for the civil rights of once-unfashionable "out" groups, we MAKE an unfashionable "out" group of tens of millions of gun owners -- responsible citizens engaged in a once-respected activity. As discussed previously, the right to keep and bear arms IS a civil right that the vast majority do handle responsibly. It is proven to be far more a benefit than a detriment to society.
ARE we learning from the 20th Century's painful and expensive lessons of the evils of bigotry and prejudice and the dark roads they take us down? Unfortunately, many people support community leaders who perpetrate such wrongs as gun registration, gun bans and gun confiscation. Obviously, we are NOT learning when such people support efforts to codify anti-gun bigotry and prejudice into laws based on "common knowledge".
Lawmakers -- who KNOW that they should consult creditable experts before acting to deny gun owners' civil rights -- are lionized for efforts to deny these rights. Legislators and experts who have the courage and character to learn the facts and stand WITH gun owners are ridiculed, denigrated and despised. They are depicted by spokespersons for "mainstream media" and anti-gun groups as ignorant or "corrupted" by the "gun culture" and/or gun industry.
Those who exploit anti-gun-owner bigotry and prejudice many applaud: "How far we have come!" Once, good people risked arrest, injury -- even death -- for equal civil rights for all Americans. Today, many of these people and their intellectual or political descendants accept -- even promote -- what they should recognize as bigotry, prejudice and intolerance. They refuse to look at the evidence which now refutes their views. How far we have come!
Patriot's Day celebrates every day citizens standing against the world's most powerful army to make permanent their rights and those of their fellow citizens, as they saw to be in accordance with the will and wisdom of God for ALL men. Independence Day celebrates their success in achieving that end. Our rallies and marches the weekends before both days were our way to preserve and protect the rights, freedoms and guarantees that are the Civil Rights of ALL people, but were won, protected, preserved and passed on to us by generations of patriots before us.
We want to remind our fellow Americans that the rights, freedoms and protections guaranteed by various Amendments to our Constitution that include the Bill of Rights and the Second Amendment, are our Civil Rights. Whether they are called Civil Rights, Civil Liberties or Constitutional Rights they are the same rights generations of Americans before us struggled, suffered and sacrificed to protect and preserve so they could be passed on from one generation to the next.
These rights mean the same thing to tens of millions of gun owners, Constitutionalist, traditionalist and conservatives as some Civil Rights mean to millions of blacks. Anyone who can not understand this trivializes and underestimates the commitment of those who demand these rights be preserved. Down playing and concealing the above facts and sentiments from popular exposure does encourage people to trivialize and find ridiculous, contemptible and despicable the sentiments and beliefs of gun owners, Constitutionalist, traditionalist and conservatives. It is hard to have a meaningful dialog and just policies and legislation when your beliefs are treated with patronizing contempt by those with most of the power to sway public support, so we expect our opposition to try to suppress these beliefs and sentiments.
We want to remind people that if they have forgotten what their rights are, they can not protect these rights to pass them on. If they can not recognize the Second Amendment is a Civil Right they can not recognize their Civil Rights to protect them all. If they can not recognize that Civil Rights are the rights, freedoms and protections guaranteed ALL Americans, not just a few, then they can not pass on to their children what their parents passed on to them, and what their children are due.
We must teach that a belief system that encourages people to ridicule, despise and feel contempt for the members of a group, for the actions of a small minority of that group, is a belief system that encourages bigotry and prejudice. A belief system that encourages bigotry and prejudice is usually based on lies and exaggerations. Check such beliefs for accuracy, if they are accurate, expose and discredit those doing harm to disable them and stop them from doing harm. Then work to undo the damage they have done. If the beliefs are not true, expose the lies and those exploiting them, discredit them and work to undo the damage they have done.
Much as a forty year investment program of tens of thousands of investments based on exaggerations and lies is unlikely to provide funds for a high quality retirement, like wise forty years of gun control built on 20,000 laws based on lies and exaggerations is unlikely to improve our quality of life over what we had when the experiment started. We are not working on the real problem. We are wasting time and resources on the wrong target, only Opportunist Bigots are well served when the populace can not recognize policies based on lies and exaggerations, ridicule and contempt, bigotry and prejudice.
What bigotry and prejudice?
Since the Littleton Massacre President Clinton and his anti gun allies have invoked the old fallacy that 13 children are killed per day with firearms. This is true if you include people as old as 24 years as children. This is not to suggest each of the 180 fatal firearms accidents of children aged 14 and under per average year are not each a tragedy, but they are a fraction of the fatalities from drowning, accidental poisonings or bicycle accidents. (Neither are the 700 fatalities of children 14 and under from firearms due to all causes including accidents the average year. But 700 fatalities into 365 days a year does not equal 13, and they are still a fraction of the fatalities to these other causes).
Why exaggerate the risk from firearm accidents by a factor of 24 or more? Why does the advertising campaign that promotes this fallacy depict preschool and preteen children accessing firearms when children are mentioned? Why except to promote the belief that possessing a firearms in a home with children is an irresponsible, despicable, contemptible, ridiculous risk. A threat to children comparable to a pedophile who maims and kills his victims. These lies and exaggerations promote attitudes that in turn promote bigotry and prejudice against gun owners.
It is probably accurate to state 90% of the population has had sexual relations with someone 24 years old or younger by the time they are in their mid 20s. So why not say 90% of Blacks, Hispanics or homosexuals have had sex with children? Why not further claim 90% of Jews, Catholics, or Muslims have had sex with children, when by the word children you actually mean people up to 24 years old? Why not include 90% of people who live in barrios, ghettos, small rural communities or the southern states as people who have sex with children in your presentation, as you depict preschool and preteen children? The thirteen children per day killed by guns campaign used the same technique.
Why is it racist, bigoted, homophobic, anti Semitic or elitist to so depict these citizen groups, while it is accepted to so depict firearms owners?
The claim that a firearms in the home is 43 times more likely to kill a member of the household or an acquaintance uses the same principal. This is based on a study of two counties for 2 or 3 years. By only counting the use of a firearm to kill an intruder as a successful use of a firearm to prevent a crime, roughly 99% of successful uses were discarded. This is the same as claiming police are only effective in preventing crime when they kill their suspects. Police as with the majority of people who use a firearm to stop or prevent a crime do not have to kill to achieve their ends 99.9% of the time. Police or Civilian the vast majority of the time the firearm does not even have to be fired to stop or prevent a crime.
When peer review forced the researchers to count non lethal interventions and add a third county their figures dropped from 43 to 2.7. But their sample was still atypical for the nation, 85% of the deaths in their sample were suicides compared to the 50% national average.
Those gun owner homes in the sample where fatalities occurred had several times the incidence of substance abuse, domestic violence, involvement in the drug trade, and incarceration in prison and/or mental institutions than neighboring households with firearms but no firearm fatalities. The gun owner homes with the prevalence of criminal and psychiatric problems had the vast majority of fatalities, again 85% of these were suicides compared to the nation average of 50%. Yet these households were depicted as representative of those who own firearms and are still widely regarded as representative to this day.
During this same time period two researchers, criminologist and Civil Liberties attorney Don Kates and criminologist Gary Kleck studied all 3,054 counties in the country for 15 years. Their research revealed firearms are used four times more often to prevent crimes than commit them. Given the majority of the crimes committed with firearms are robberies and intimidations as opposed to murders, their research indicates firearms are approximately 50 times more likely to be used to prevent a crime than commit murder.
Is a violent murderous pedophile comparable to something that is 43 times more likely to kill or mutilate a member of your household than be of useful service? Consider a study based on two counties out of 3054 counties for 2 or 3 years, a study that claims violent or murderous child molesters are 43 times more likely to be Black, Hispanic or homosexual than any other group. Substitute Jews, Catholics or Muslims, or people who live in barrios, ghettos, small rural towns or southern states.
Imagine that adding a third county and taking a closer look at the methodology drops the figure from 43 to 2.7. Imagine a study of all 3054 counties in the country for 15 years reveals members of the targeted minority is not only 4 times less likely to injure and 50 time less likely to kill, but actually 4 times more likely to act to prevent physical abuse and 50 times more likely to act to prevent murders of children than the average 'refuse to get involved' bystander.
Thirty six years after the 1964 Civil Rights Act, why do we need examples like this to remind people what is a belief system that promotes bigotry and prejudice? Why do we have to substitute fashionable minorities to be able to see what should be glaringly obvious? Why don't we automatically recognize those who use such bigotry and prejudice to advance their careers as Opportunist Bigots? Why do so many citizens accept that those with the courage and character to stand up to such popular bigotry and prejudice are owned by 'special interests', as opposed to courageous patriots?
Our legislators and law makers should at least be well educated enough to recognize the significance of ALL the Bill of Rights and our other Civil Rights Amendments, the 13th, 14th, 15th and 19th Amendments. Not only should they be well informed they should recognize the importance of the citizenry being so informed and having the ability to pass these birth rights from generation to generation. Should these birth rights of all citizens naturalized or native born be any less a priority than awareness of politically correct issues like global warming, threats to the rain forests, water and air pollution, endangered species etc?
Could effective teaching to recognize bigotry and prejudice, their warning signs, (and that they imply beliefs based on lies and exaggeration), have been sacrificed to preserve bigotry and prejudice as effective tools for manipulating public opinion? With all the time, and resources devoted to battling bigotry and prejudice the past three dozen years why can not everybody recognize the warning signs of bigotry and prejudice based on exaggerations and lies that are all over the treatment of gun owners? Why are not all Americans as aware of their rights under all the Amendments to the Bill of Rights as thoroughly as they are aware of popular environmental issues?
How can we say we are ready to pass on the rights we inherited, when we can not say those we are passing these rights on to have been prepared to respect, protect and preserve them, much less pass them on, given so few can see these basic problems? For that matter when so many of our generation passing these birth rights on, can not recognize the most basic problems threatening them?
After 225 years this knowledge is dying, and it is dying on our watch! For that which we do not pass on to the next generation dies with us! The rights, freedoms, protections, and guarantees WE inherited on the struggles, suffering and sacrifices of those who preserved these Civil Rights to pass on to us, are fading away on our watch to where many of us don't even know what they are or where to find them. Much less recognize their deterioration.
If we are slowly, quietly seduced into blending into a One World Government, one that did away with these Civil Rights by using lies and exaggerations to promote bigotry and prejudice against tens of millions of people responsibly exercising these Civil Rights, where in this "one world" does one immigrate to find 'a better, more free and open society respectful of it's citizen's Civil Rights'?
If we let this once brave social experiment that was the American way of life vanish from the face of the earth, how long before it can be revived if ever, and at what cost? Given emerging technologies to monitor people, keep track of their movements, location, and communications, at what handicap do we leave our descendents to try and recover the rights we are letting be taken away?
"Still if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."
-- Winston Churchill.
Again I ask please post this far and wide, please visit the SCOPE web site, and look for gun ownership as a Civil Right. Consider organizing a few friends or relatives to at least attend one of our rallies on a Saturday. Every person counts in drawing attention to our message and making supporting our Civil Rights easier for our more timid citizens. Bring Cameras, Cam corders and / or American Flags, we will provide signs for use during the rally and or march, though home made signs are welcomed. please come neatly and casually dressed. Remember much of the media is just looking for an excuse to depict us all as kooks.
For those of you who have children or grand children you might bring to an informational Second Amendment Civil Rights Rally, Saturday Sept 25th I have a few things I would like you to consider.
Show the important young people in your life the Bill of Rights and explain these ten Amendments plus the 13th, 14th, 15th and 19th Amendments and a few Civil Rights acts guarantee their Civil Rights. They may not be taught this in school , but explain to them knowing what their Civil Rights are and where to find them is something you want to pass on to them.
Explain it doesn't matter if they are not a minority, Civil Rights are a birth right of all Americans extended to all naturalized citizens. ALL citizens. They are also called Civil Liberties and Constitutional Rights. You might pass on to them, the knowledge that sometimes you must stand up and speak out for your Civil Rights, even before it is a fashionable or popular thing to do. Freedom is not free, you must work to preserve it. If not that which we fail to pass on to those who follow dies on our watch with us.
You might say you would like to walk them through standing and speaking out non violently for their rights. You would like to teach them that effective Civil Rights activists can be, and have been of all races, creeds and religions. They will have to be. If ours is to remain the land of the free, it must also be the home of the brave. (The National Anthem will be the anthem of this movement, this is after all a Patriotic movement, attempting to restore that honorable concept (patriotism) to it's proper respected place in the minds of ALL citizens).
For the history of this country is the story of one struggle after another to preserve and expand the rights, freedoms and protections guaranteed her citizens, a story of struggle by one group of citizens or another. Americans have struggled, suffered sacrificed and died for these rights of American citizens for over 200 years. Since the days when it as acceptable to regard with gratitude and pride a group of patriot militia men standing against the most powerful army in the world for our freedom and Civil Rights, ours has been a history of Civil Rights struggles.
Please consider trying to organize a few friends to organize such a rally. Consider all of this dress rehearsals to raise public awareness on the road to the 2000 elections, by which time with work, a majority of voters will be able to identify an Opportunist Bigot from a Patriot of character and courage.
There are many links to many firearms and Second Amendment sites on the web. We cannot vouch for all of the information and opinions you will find in your search. Knowledgeable people have strong views about the ways that we in the firearms community are being lied to and lied about by well organized, financed and respected adversaries. These powerful adversaries are determined to vilify us, and with the apparent blessing of a large segment of society, rob all Americans of their individual civil right to keep and bear arms.
Included in the links below are some of the sites of our adversaries so you can read in their own words the arguments they use to disparage gun owners and gun ownership. These arguments are being circulated to as many people as possible, as many ways as possible. Read them and see how well prepared you are to answer them.
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