PA Bill Number: HB335
Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.
Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...
Last Action: Removed from table
Last Action Date: May 1, 2024
You need a gun for the same reason peace officers need guns :: 03/05/2016
President Obama recently achieved another headline with the soothing declaration, “I’m not going to take your guns.” That he is no fan of an armed citizenry; offered the same hollow assurance on retaining private health coverage; and approaches almost every promise with Pinocchio-like aplomb was ignored.
In today’s formula for media integrity, charm trumps truth.
Political doubletalk aside, might I suggest consenting unarmed adults reexamine that position? If defending self, home, and family is of personal interest, your tools need to be as sincere as the opposition’s.
I’ll begin with a preemptive strike on assured howls and scowls from the left-minded. Any political persuasion viewing 55 million aborted lives as a positive choice has no credibility on safety and compassion – period.
In support of gun ownership, I’d also like to pirate some of the favored slogans of progressive-liberal-socialists. ‘‘Don’t want an abortion – don’t have one’’ can become ‘‘Don’t want a gun – don’t buy one.’’ ‘‘Keep your hands off my body’’ can become ‘‘Keep your hands off my body and my live children.’’ May I also suggest ‘‘homophobia’’ and ‘‘hoplophobia’’ are birds of the same feather? Or that one word – immature – describes governments not trusting their own citizens enough to support the rights and means to self-defense?
The public needs guns for the same reason peace officers need guns. Law enforcement reliably responds before or after crime through patrol and prevention or investigation and report. When it comes to those crucial seconds in-between, our protectors are statistically absent and intervention is personal.
No wish to discourage self-defenders relying on mace, wasp spray, tasers, martial arts, knives, burglar alarms, baseball bats or charm. The problem is most bad guys are not particularly intimidated by those things. A firearm in the hand of someone clearly willing and able to use one is another matter. Most really bad guys fear guns and demonstrate such by carrying their own.
Gun phobics have dramatically missed the mark in asserting America’s firearms owners would accelerate violence and mayhem. According to the FBI, though firearms purchases have skyrocketed since the turn of the century, violent crime is down by 30 percent. During the same period a disarmed Britain became the most dangerous mainstream country in Europe – with at least twice the violence of the U.S. Note the impunity with which Islamic terrorists recently assaulted a powerless Paris. Any limits on the havoc fell to manpower, folly or bad luck versus public safety proficiencies.
Yes, thanks to our wealth and liberties, America has the highest per capita gun ownership in the world. But did you know we are not even among the top 100 in murder rates?
Still, far too many people are killed here by firearms. Most of those numbers track to black-on-black crime, government housing projects, and drugs – social ills landing firmly on the doorstep of the failed public policies of the left. Would that you guys channeled misguided gun-control hysteria toward the mayhem going on in your abortion clinics, illegal immigration havens, public housing stockades, and PLS governed cities such as Baltimore, Oakland and New Orleans.
Concerned about mass shootings? You should be. Recognizing that most of these are perpetrated in gun-free zones by the medicated and psychologically impaired tells you where the real solutions rest.
Ironically, gun murder stats are beat ten-to-one by the numbers killed each year by hyper-regulated prescription medicines. We don’t stop giving pills because the lives we protect drastically exceed those we don’t. Guns are similarly applied infinitely more often to prevention than harm.
If you decide to get a gun, learn how to use it properly. When faced with a choice between lots of gun and less training or lots of training and less gun – go with the latter. Make sure your finger and brain are as proficient as your weapon.
It was in the highlands of Vietnam I had my most powerful lesson on the vulnerabilities of a disarmed citizenry. Isolated with an interpreter in a mountain village recently challenged by the opposition, I looked up as a low-flying South Vietnamese Skyraider pilot casually tossed a racially-motivated smoke grenade on his aboriginal allies. On inquiry, my Montagnard compatriot shrugged, “It’s OK.” “Before you Americans came, Saigon’s pilots routinely saved their leftover bombs for us – they did not fear our bows and arrows.”
The eternal struggle between the good guys and the bad will never be fair. A good gun in a bad circumstance can make it more so. Besides - the most dangerous weapon in our society is spelled C-H-O-I-C-E.
Carl Mumpower is a psychologist and former elected official.
