What If Your Neighbor Refused To Support Your Right To Free Speech?
By Frank Jack Fiamingo
New Jersey –-(Ammoland.com)- It is not that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens can never be used to commit a crime or be involved in an accident.
Not only can those things happen, it is inevitable that they will occasionally happen. Fortunately, they are an extreme rarity, but they do happen.
That is still not an excuse to disarm the majority of law-abiding citizens who use firearms safely every day for target shooting, sporting events, hunting and most importantly self-defense.
No amount of rhetoric on the part of gun prohibitionists is going to change the fact that guns save lives. In most cases, guns save lives without a shot being fired. That is why you don’t hear about it.
When states adopt sane laws supporting the right to carry a defensive handgun, violent crime rates go down. This is a fact.
Without a shot being fired, the possibility of a potential victim being armed is a serious deterrent to the would-be criminal. How can the impact of that fact be fairly evaluated when the Main Stream Media will only report on the most revolting and sensational gun related deaths they can find while virtually ignoring actual crime statistics. Statistics do not earn them an audience and thus they do not care. They also do not care when a criminal is deterred from committing a crime by the simple presentation of a firearm by the potential victim. No one got shot. There is nothing “newsworthy” there as far as the media are concerned. There is no other method but “common sense” to fairly evaluate whether or not the right to carry a firearm for self-defense is more valuable to a society than the possibility of an accident or misuse of a firearm.
Even if it was not obvious that guns save lives, we do not strip people of their cars because some people choose to drive drunk, or are careless in their use of a car. We prosecute the individual. That is the American legal system at work. A driver is not considered guilty until proven innocent just for possessing and using a car. Yet possession of a firearm in New Jersey is almost ALWAYS a crime except under some VERY specific instances (such as going to or from the range or moving to or from a residence).
What makes it worse is the RIGHT TO DRIVE is not a constitutionally protected right as the RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS *IS*!
This is a backwards, BIZARRO-land approach to a very important constitutional right. As responsible United States citizens, you should support the constitutional right of your neighbor to keep and bear arms for legitimate purposes whether or not you yourself wish to possess a firearm.
Would you consider it wrong for your neighbor NOT to support your right to FREE SPEECH?
Please keep in mind that our founders created the Bill of Rights to protect ALL our fundamental rights. Free Speech is protected by the FIRST Amendment, and the Right to Keep and Bear Arms by the SECOND. I think it is pretty clear what they had in mind. An unarmed citizenry is vulnerable to any gang of thugs who decide to use force against them. It doesn’t matter whether that means a street gang, or a gang of politician’s intent on stripping you of your fundamental rights.
I don’t know how to state this any clearer. If the average citizen is going to allow the media or the Mayors Against Gun Owners, or the Brady Bunch, or any other of the Gun Prohibitionist Groups to dictate the creation of unconstitutional laws based on a false appeal to their emotions, this country is in for a MUCH worse situation than just the economic recession. We COULD lose our freedom.
I would like to invite those of you who believe in the right to keep and bear arms as I do, to join me Thursday evening September 15, 2011 at the Essex County Friends of the NRA dinner at Mayfair Farms in West Orange, NJ. You can sign up to sit with me and the other members of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society by registering for the event on our website at www.nj2as.com. Just go to the EVENTS page and click on the Friends of the NRA Dinner REGISTER button. Feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions by emailing me [email protected]. I’ll look forward to seeing you there. Thank you.
About:
New Jersey Second Amendment Society – Our mission is to promote the free exercise of Second Amendment rights within the community and Legislature of New Jersey, to educate the community regarding the enjoyable, safe, and responsible use of firearms, and to engender a sense of camaraderie and fellowship among the members and their families. Visit: www.nj2as.com