by Jim Wagoner President Obama has initiated 23 executive orders relating to gun control during his 51 months in office. He has also called upon Congress to enact intrusive and possibly unconstitutional new restrictions on the right of the American people to keep and bear arms. If there has ever been a class of law found wanting, unworkable, and destructive to our well-being, it is restrictive gun controls. I think these laws rank right along with the 18th Amendment for creating a whole new culture of unintended and unloved consequences. It is amazing that the president has such a fetish about guns. It is a well known fact that in every city, county, or state that has freed up its restrictive gun laws, they have experienced a significant decrease in violent crimes among the citizenry. The FBI tells us that a vast majority of violent crimes in America occur in cities with 250,000 plus people. Sadly many of these cities have very strict draconian laws against private gun ownership – as the cities compete for murder capital of the world. In Switzerland there is entirely a different approach to ownership of guns and shooting. At age 20, young men are universally conscripted( females volunteer) into their national militia. Once they have completed this military training they are issued their own private fully automatic SG 550 assault rifle with ammunition. Every 5 years the Swiss government subsidizes the purchase of guns and ammunition and hosts the world’ s biggest shooting competition. They encourage their militia to be“ sharpshooters” all. While the Swiss standing army is only 4,200, they take pride in the fact that they survived two of the greatest wars ever fought in Europe with their militia. They understand they will never win a specific battle. They also know they will never lose their homeland with those millions of sharpshooters spread throughout the nation. While practically every able-bodied Swiss man, and many of their women, have been trained to shoot people and given the rifle and ammunition to do so, the Swiss kill very few people. With their 8 million population, only 53 murders occurred in 2010( 40 of which utilized a firearm). Whereas Chicago with its 2.7 million people and very strict laws against any type of gun ownership, suffered more than 500 gun-deaths in 2012. As an American how can one ingest such reprehensible numbers while maintaining a bit of sanity? Surely there is a lesson here for Chicago Mayor Emanuel. Many people that I’ ve discussed gun ownership with believe that the Second Amendment was included in the Constitution so that people could put food on the table by shooting rabbits and deer— in other words, for hunting. No, the Second Amendment is there to insure that ordinary Americans were always ready to form an armed militia to protect their liberties against enemies foreign and domestic.
I’ ll leave the last word to Thomas Jefferson: WHEN THE PEOPLE ARE FEARFUL OF THEIR GOVERN- MENT THERE IS TYRANNY. WHEN THE GOVERNMENT IS FEARFUL OF THE PEOPLE, THERE IS LIBERTY.
People Control aka“ Gun Control”
Pono Press, May 2013, Page 6