by Alan J Chwick & Joanne D Eisen
USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- Our problem is that change can be difficult. One doesn’t know what to expect, how to act, how to succeed, or what to teach your child, so they will be prepared for surprises.
We are now at that point. The trust required for rational, civil discourse has been broken. Discourse has been changed to epithet filled threats.
The attempt to steal our nation by stealth has, hopefully, failed, or is in the process of failing. We still are not certain of success. But the fact remains that there was an attempt to steal the nation from us all.
It would be foolish to return to old habits of friendship, good manners, and trust with our political adversaries, as they are NOT ready for that.
At this point, THEY have replaced those basic, civil behaviors with lying, theft, and insane behaviors. Just listen to US Representative Maxine Waters, et al.
We cannot permit the weakening of the Second Amendment because even though the enemy can never get our guns, our status would be switched from the guardians of freedom and liberty to mere selfish right-wing criminals.
It would be self-destructive to compromise with hysterical children backed by the liars in our media. What counts now is that we all fight back and counter these miss-truths in order to protect the Constitution. We cannot back away from the crazed loathsome, lying, feckless mobs.
As an example, let us look at some media creations. The NRA, Michael Harriot writes, is a “criminal cabal that bribes lawmakers with barrels of cash and knowingly promotes and participates in a plot that results in the deaths of seven children every day. The National Rifle Association kills people.” (Emphasis added)
We old coots used to wonder whether statements like that were born of willful ignorance or the lies of wishful thinking. It really doesn’t matter any more, as there is now a heavy dose of hatred in the mix. Therefore, all bets are off. We have been shamelessly attacked!
The misinformed writer, Michael Harriot, used information from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. But the Brady Campaign misrepresented the picture of 2,455 gunshot children.
The Brady Campaign and Michael Harriot told a lie by falsely inflating the numbers.
First, they inflated gun death figures by adding criminal use of guns and suicide with guns. The fact is that researchers know that firearms availability may affect the number of suicides by gun, but not the overall suicide numbers. However, adding in suicide with gun statistics more than doubles the total number of gun homicide figures and creates fear and loathing of guns. After all, these deaths are all considered firearm homicides.
According to the Harvard Public Health Magazine, in 2010, “19,392 people committed suicide with guns, compared to 11,078 who were killed by others.” Add those together and if you are seeking inflated numbers, that’s what you will use.
However, according to pro-gun criminologists Gary Mauser and the late, great, Don Kates, “There is simply no relationship between the the extent of suicide and the extent of gun ownership.” Kates and Mauser are joined by famous anti-gun criminologists Ludwig and Cook, who agree, “Implementation of the Brady Act appears to have been associated with reductions in the firearms suicide rate…but not with reductions in overall suicide rates.”
We all need to be aware that anti-gun media almost always magnify the truth by using this technique of adding murders and suicides to the gun numbers.
Second, gun-control proponents also commonly inflate the data by adding teen statistics in with the much lower child statistics. And that’s what the Brady Campaign did.
Brady Campaign added teenagers up to 19 years together with children. Then they state that “2,737 kids die from gun violence.” (the emphasis theirs) They admit that 958 under age 19 deaths were from firearms suicide.
Again, child firearms deaths can be added to teen firearms suicide and teen firearms murders to arrive at a totally false, yet more scary, picture of kids firearms deaths.
We gun folks really need to understand that these lies are designed to frighten the unknowing public. What can be changed and increased is the fear and loathing of firearms and firearms owners. But we are not, and never were, the problem.
Another key piece to these methods of lying is to neglect to mention that those teen deaths are mostly gang related and occur in limited areas of the inner cities.
Very sadly, few are willing to name the problem of race as the driver of firearms statistics. Brady Campaign misleads us all by ignoring that fact. But, if you can’t name a problem, you can’t solve it. In the US, the percentage of Black and African Americans is only 13.4 %. Yet even though about 13.4 percent of the population, Blacks commit about 50% of homicides, depending on your source, like, for example, the Justice Dept violent crime table 43.
The Violence Policy Center admitted that the black victim homicide rate is 18.68 per 100,000 while the victim homicide rate for whites is 2.67 per 100,000. Yet, while detailing the severity of the problem, they assert, “Successful efforts to reduce America’s black homicide toll, like America’s homicide toll as a whole, must put a focus on reducing access and exposure to guns.”
What rot!
Gun-control proponents know that truthful, accurate data changes the nature of the argument of our American gun problem from the horror of weapons prevalence to one of social disorder in the inner cities.
Gun proponents are afraid of racial bias slurs that might be thrown at them. But they should never back away from truth. We have already been branded as bigots and racists. So be it. Our answer is obvious. We are not the problem.
David French went a bit deeper into the racial stats. In his recent 2017 article, Gun Culture in Black and White, he writes, “77 % of white gun deaths are from suicide,” with only 19% as homicides. He continues, “A staggering 82 % of African-American gun deaths are homicides,” with 14% as suicides. What this means is that Blacks commit and suffer from an extraordinary amount of gun deaths. And, French notes, “Gun deaths are lowest in the population that owns the most guns.”
It is no secret that criminologists are aware that Black gun violence tends to occur in very small, localized inner city gang controlled areas, yet it is not something openly discussed.
A Yale blogger who refuses to identify him/her self explains, “The real story is one of intense and highly concentrated violence in what researchers call ‘micro-places’ or ‘hot spots’… In 2006, 1 percent of youths age 15-24 in the Boston area were responsible for half of all murders and 70% of shootings, and this tiny fraction of kids was usually involved in gang activity as well.”
Why should responsible owners tolerate epithets or accept the blame from people who need to lie and obfuscate truth in order to make their point? Why do we aid the cover up when we are not at fault? We are the keepers of society, not its destroyers. We need to know the truth and be able to say it loudly, without shame. We are not murderers! We all need to spread the word. We need to become a grass roots public relations force. The nature of the war against guns and gun owners has changed.
If the gun control freaks manage to create enough fear of us, we will be facing an onslaught against the Second Amendment. This new breed of enemy will stop at nothing to take our guns. We know that a nation of free people who govern themselves requires voters who are educated and rational – yet we can see that such a requirement is problematic.
Truth. You may not like it. You may deny it. But it’s the truth.
We must counter their propaganda so no voter is fooled into voting against their best interest.
About the Authors:
Alan J Chwick has been involved with firearms much of his life and is the Retired Managing Coach of the Freeport NY Junior (Marksmanship) Club, Division of the Freeport NY Revolver & Rifle Association, Freeport, NY. He has escaped from New York State to South Carolina and is an SC FFL (Everything22andMore.com). – [email protected] | TWITTER: @iNCNF
Joanne D Eisen, DDS (Ret.) practiced dentistry on Long Island, NY. She has collaborated and written on firearm politics for the past 30+ years. She has also escaped from New York State but to Virginia. – [email protected]
Take your friends and neighbors to the range. Tell them about your ability, and willingness, to defend the lives of your family and anyone around you. Tell them it feels good to have that ability/responsibility. Tell them the cops can’t be everywhere. Ask them if they would like your help selecting a weapon (doesn’t have to be a gun) for their own defense. Tell them that disarming good people will not make bad people go away. BE a good, friendly, helpful person. Don’t rant about other parties, organizations or conspiracies. Calm, rational communication. We may not get them to buy… Read more »
I would like to add that I believe it’s very important for us never to engage in angry ot heated debate. They are timid, frightened little souls and they have been loosing the battle and are acting quite deranged. We are the strong ones and we need to remember to stay calm and smile and use tact and diplomacy at all times. Be welcoming and genuinely friendly. Try your best to invite them to any events and let them meet people!. Offer anything you think they might accept in the way of invitations to do some fun target shooting and… Read more »
Exactly. Calm, rational response is the only path. We need to be armed with facts so that we can logically challenge their false claims. Getting involved in emotional arguments never works well.
@ Todd Noebel. Good post. Human nature will always seek to self justify for the purposes of pushing ones own opinions and desires through emotion. Invariably those who do always abandon sound reasoning and factual arguments, or result to hoping that a lie repeated often enough will become truth. Unfortunately, the part that we often forget to include with calm rational responses is speaking up when one of our own allows their tongue to lead them off the deep end. If we hold those we agree with accountable first, only then can we demonstrate consistency when we challenge false claims… Read more »
As has been noted in the past, while figures might not lie, liars figure.
The left has been using the court system and it’s liberal judges to advance their agenda for decades now. It is time to stop trying to take the high road and fight back.
A single act could reverse this. If the various associations were to finance several hundred thousand individual libel and slander suits for their affected members (tying a libelous article such as the one mentioned in the story above to discriminating treatment by financial institutions, for instance) would likely bankrupt both the publication and the author. Once one successful suit has been litigated, the false narratives will stop. This could be the greatest single investment ever made by all of the gun advocacy organizations. If all of them contributed to a single pool of funds, this could be easily accomplished.
I guess my question is: Why aren’t the pro-gun organizations that we support working overtime to counter the false and inflated numbers to the general public? I only see them being addressed to us, which is like singing to the choir. Sure, we can each try to do our part within our own sphere of influence, but a coordinated effort by our pro-gun groups – similar to the coordination of the anti-gun groups – would go a long way. Yet what do I hear from them? Crickets!! I see NRA commercials promoting Judge Garland, as well as commercials touting themselves… Read more »
I have repeatedly asked the very same question. I also write, repeatedly, large companies in our community and ask them how much money and time they devote to defending their direct consumers rights. I never get answers to either question.
“Why aren’t the pro-gun organizations that we support working overtime to counter the false and inflated numbers to the general public?” My first thought is, they are but they are fighting an uphill battle because the mainstream media does all they can to ignore the facts and create promote the false information regarding gun control so they can further their agenda. The only apparent media where this kind of information is readily available is on conservative and pro gun sources. Perhaps it’s because those groups also thirst for real facts to debate against the rhetoric of the masses. I see… Read more »
Ya so whats so new about the above article? We all knew that. I do believe the author was sending a codified msg to individuals who knew little or anything about gun culture good or bad.