Originally Posted by Sarah_W
(Post 2099233)
Full disclosure: I am a hunter and grew up in a hunting family. I am a competition shooter, competing in speed pistol and precision rifle. I am a certified firearms instructor and co-founder of US Womens Shooting Academy. I know a lot about firearms. Lastly, I speak publicly on the Constitution as well as the 2nd Amendment.
I mean no disrespect regarding the two posts I highlighted above. There were several to choose from that are factually inaccurate and typify much of the rhetoric today. The majority of people screaming for more gun control are not knowledgeable about firearms.
The fact of the matter is, the AR-15 is not the weapon of choice for school shooters. The handgun is used 10 times more often. As a general note, it doesn't even rank in the top ten for weapons of straight out murder. AR style rifles account for an average of 17 murders over the past ten years. Blunt objects such as hammers and bats are used more often. The common denominator with school shooters are they are individuals who have been traumatized, bullied, marginalized, etc.
Some people believe AR stands for Assault Rifle. It does not. The AR line of firearms were manufactured by Armalite Rifles.
The AR has been around since the 1950's. Today it is popular with hunters and sport shooters alike. The AR does seem to frighten people who don't know anything about guns, whereas the Ruger Mini 14 Ranch Rifle doesn't bother them. The fact is, they both fire the .223/5.56 round with the same capacity magazines, at the same rate of fire which is one round for one trigger pull. The AR is a scary black rifle and the Ruger looks like Grandpa's pickup gun in his gun rack.
The second quoted post above calls the AR and assault weapon and considers it a weapon of war. Neither is true. The military version of the civilian AR is the M-16, a fully automatic rifle. The AR is not fully automatic. Nobody has a definition of assault rifle. It is a term used to frighten people. Never has the US soldier carried an AR-15 into battle. Our soldiers carry the M-16, among others.
The problem is not just that the average citizens doesn't know the facts, the problem is even bigger because many of our politicians don't know the facts, or conveniently twist the facts to suit their agenda and that is a bigger problem still. In my opinion, Legislators should have mandatory education on the important issues they draft laws to govern. Within the United States we have over 300,000 laws related to firearms. As noted, many are not enforced. That is a huge problem. Fun fact: Nobody knows how many laws there are in total in the US. That seems like a system out of control.
It is disturbing to me how little the average American knows about our freedom documents and the reasons our Founding Fathers created this Constitutional Republic of the people and for the people. In my personal library I have over 70 books on this subject. The oldest printed in 1785, Samuel Johnson's Dictionary. The very dictionary our Founding Fathers used to write the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Addressing the second quoted post above I'll limit this to the 2nd Amendment. There is history to the Bill of Rights but I'll save that for another discussion. We shall use the text as it currently appears.
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
The second quoted post above erroneously connects some imaginary dots that the guns of the militia should be regulated and our country does not regulate guns. Both assertions are false. First, there are many regulations on guns, at the Federal and State levels. The CZ Shadow 9mm handgun is one of my favorites. Try buying one in California. Hint: You can't buy a new CZ Shadow 2 because it is not on CA "approved roster of handguns".
Let's break down the second amendment. "A well regulated militia"...the definition of a militia in 1787 "the part of the community trained to martial exercise." The militia should be well regulated. The definition of "regulate" was to "direct". Therefore, another way of saying the first portion is "A well directed part of the community trained to martial exercise". The definition of "martial" is "war like".
"Being necessary for the security of a free State". This portion is very basic. There were 13 states at the time of the writing of our Constitution. The very much valued their freedom and intended to retain the freedom they fought 8 bloody years for.
"The right of the People to keep and bear Arms". So many on the left of center seem to not understand this. What is the Right? To keep and bear arms. To keep Arms means to hold and keep in custody. To bear arms means to carry arms. Who owns that Right? The People, not the State and not the militia as an entity, but the People. Arms means armaments as in armor for defense and weapons for offense.
"Shall not be infringed". Infringe means to violate, to destroy, to hinder.
Our Founding Fathers feared and did not favor a standing army. They had just won their independence fighting the British Regulars, the standing army of Britain. When the British moved to disarm the Americans on April 19, 1775 at Lexington and Concord, it was not George Washington's army who met them. It was the militias of that area. Bakers, farmers, blacksmiths, shop keepers, etc. stood firm against the most feared military of their time and refused to surrender their weapons.
Today our media demonizes the word militia. it is easy to understand why. The American citizen is actually the largest armed force in the world. There are many who wish to destroy that. It begins with undermining our Rights, infringing on our Rights, and taking away our Rights.
To the school shootings and other mass shootings. Prior to the internet, mass shootings were very rare. It would be interesting to track the rise of social media and the rise of mass shootings. Young people have been kept isolated for the past two years due to a disease that is 99.6% survivable. Young people spent and inordinate amount of time on social media platforms. Touching another human being is being replaced with keypads. Looking another human being in the eye and reading their body language as been replaced by a monitor. Netflix is full of violent movies and rarely post up a comedy or romance. Take a young man, bully him online, keep him isolated so he doesn't know his self worth, fail to instill morals and then let him binge watch John Wick movies and play hour upon hour of Call of Duty. The outcome is predictable. There will be more mass killings by mentally ill people. We are doing nothing to identify them and treat them. Many want to blame the instrument instead of the societal failings of our culture. The list of reasons for killing someone or many is actually a pretty short list. Mass shooters are particularly mentally ill. I suspect in their mind being famous or infamous is one in the same. Their name will be known. I will say that predators do measure Risk versus Reward. It should come as no surprise that they choose Gun Free Zones to inflict as much carnage as they can before they are stopped.
Note: I had plenty of links for citations I listed above, but being a new poster here it would not post.
|
