Opinion
United States – -(AmmoLand.com)- The October 2021 print issue of The Atlantic features an article by David Frum claiming that responsible gun ownership is a lie.
Loyal AmmoLand News readers know that Frum is the one who is lying. In fact, Frum’s article has a buffet of triple whoppers with bacon and cheese (apologies to the Burger King menu item). That said, this is an important article to read and understand.
Why? Because Frum is not talking to us, or even trying to convince us. Instead, his audience is others among the usual Acela Corridor/Hollywood/Silicon Valley elites, who are eyeing potential Supreme Court rulings in cases like New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen with no small degree of dread. While Second Amendment supporters are on the cusp of some significant legal victories, whether or not those victories are decisive as opposed to fleeting depends on how well we make our case to America.
We cannot make that case without trying to understand just what our enemies are trying to do. Frum’s article is instructive in this, especially as he cites Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), and he makes the absurd claim the Moms Demand Action is somehow the same thing.
However, Frum misses one very big fundamental difference:
MADD ultimately sought enforcement of drunk driving laws, and also to toughen the penalties for those who chose to break the law. Moms Demand Action is demanding that tens of millions of responsible gun owners be punished for horrific crimes and acts of madness they did not commit.
Furthermore, the statistics actually sink Frum’s argument as well.
When one considers that there are about 400 million firearms in the United States, if anything, the stats bear witness that the vast majority of those who choose to exercise their Second Amendment rights do so responsibly.
According to USAFacts.com, there were 39,707 deaths involving firearms from all causes. That is one death for every 10,073.7905155 firearms. In addition, of those deaths, 23,914 were from suicide, only 486 were characterized as unintentional, 346 were undetermined, 520 were from “legal intervention,” and 14,414 were homicides. Subtract the 520 “legal intervention” cases, and the ratio goes to two firearms out of every 20,415 that are misused, using the widest possible definition of “irresponsible.”
Now, suicide prevention efforts have been discussed on AmmoLand News before, both in the context of legislation and those carried out amongst the Second Amendment community. That is a complex issue, and not necessarily the result of irresponsibility. In addition, the undetermined cases are, by their very nature, impossible to definitively label as the result of “irresponsibility.”
So, in reality, the only definitively “irresponsible” cases of firearms ownership fall under homicide and unintentional, and that comes to 14,900 deaths – one death from definitive “irresponsibility” for every 26,845.6375839 firearms.
So, Frum’s misdirection is apparent at this point. But remember, he’s not trying to convince us. Who is he trying to convince? CEOs, the upper and middle management types, and members of the professional class (like doctors) who are the audience The Atlantic tends to reach. Frum postulates that the best way to eventually enact anti-Second Amendment legislation is to shrink gun ownership by convincing gun owners (or their descendants) to give up gun ownership.
As important as efforts in the political, legislative, and legal arenas are, the fact is, financial blacklisting and social stigmatization are also serious threats to the Second Amendment, and Second Amendment supporters need to work on the one-on-one advocacy to save our rights. The fight for our freedoms is a full-spectrum fight that must be taken seriously.
About Harold Hutchison
Writer Harold Hutchison has more than a dozen years of experience covering military affairs, international events, U.S. politics and Second Amendment issues. Harold was consulting senior editor at Soldier of Fortune magazine and is the author of the novel Strike Group Reagan. He has also written for the Daily Caller, National Review, Patriot Post, Strategypage.com, and other national websites.
More people in the U.S. die from drug overdoses or abortion’s yet these bleeding heart liberal aren’t screaming to stop these deaths.
It’s about control, just like demanding you wear a mask after having had the covid shots, power and control is what they want.
There’ no need to apologize to Burger King, they donate to anti-gun groups.
The case to the people has already been made Harold! They have voted with their wallets by buying new record numbers of guns every month for years now. Just FYI, it’s hard to find guns on the shelf, and ammo is sold out virtually as soon as it rolls out of the plants, even at today’s prices which are more than double what they were a couple of years ago. According to many reliable sources, many of those are first time buyers. About the only ones that think that the jury is still out are the politicians that you regularly… Read more »
You want to convince me to turn in my gun? That is NOT going to happen. Our “government” is letting criminals out of jail and, even allowing criminals to commit crimes and, you want ME go “give up my guns”? You must be our of your minds! I will NOT give up my guns and, I will NOT succumb to the demands of our “government”, under any circumstances. I will keep my guns and, I will use them to protect myself and my family. If the “government” doesn’t like that. TOO FREAKING BAD!
To keep up with the MADD/MDA analogies, there are about 1 drunk driving death per 28,400 registered vehicles.Pretty close to the same ballpark. Where the call to ban those high capacity assault vehicles?
All of these anti-gun-rights groups are hypocritical. They don’t want guns to go away. They still support government and police having guns, and all manner of weapons. So it becomes obvious that every argument against the people exercising their rights is just an argument for tyrannical control of society by a well-armed government against a disarmed population.
Pretty simple. And every time the argument is made, it should be called out as tyrannical and traitorous, because that is what it is.
85% of what he writes is either a lie or distortion of the truth. i think this quote is most telling, “The gun you trust against your fears is itself the thing you should fear. The gun is a lie. As more Americans recognize the lie, they may notice a powerful new possibility. Once emancipated from the false myth of the home-protecting gun, they will find it easier to write laws and adopt policies to stop the criminals and zealots who carry guns into the streets.” david, a firearm is not a lie, it is an inanimate object that requires human… Read more »
Hmm with something well over 100 MILLION Law Abiding Citizen gun owners and that number increases almost daily, exactly who is frum trying to ‘convince’? The demographic that the atlantic mag tries to reach have likely already made up their minds about where they stand on gun related issues. Never mind that on any given day very very few of that 100 million plus commit absolutely no crimes of any sort and are in fact seven times less likely to do so than the LE community based on numerous studies. And that is even more true for the (at least)… Read more »
It would be good to acknowledge that MADD not only successfully lobbied for enforcement and tougher penalties, that organization also successfully lobbied Congress to determine that while persons 18 years of age have more than sufficient intelligence and understanding to determine who should be elected to represent “the people”, those same 18 year olds are far too childish to be allowed to legally drink “adult beverages”.
I have too much invested in them to just give them up. And I figure if I just kept as many as I need, which would be one pistol, one bolt rifle, one shotgun, one semi auto rifle and one .22 rifle that the other $200,000 worth I want $5,000,000 for. And why not? They print all they want and create it out of thin air. And besides I’d really like a attack helicopter to protect my neighborhood like the ones Chairman Xiden gave to the Tailiban. I don’t think that is asking too much. JUST ONE. That’s all! Not… Read more »