Take the Blame for Mass-Murder? Then I Want the Credit for Lives Saved by Guns

U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- I saw this on social media and in the news after a crazy man attacked an elementary school in Texas.

The claim was that honest gun owners are responsible for murdering schoolchildren in Texas because we wouldn’t give up our guns.

That got me thinking. Maybe I’ll take the blame for mass murder but then I also want credit for the many lives that ordinary gun owners save every day. Let’s sort through this argument of claims and counterclaims.

Active shooters killed 103 people last year. The FBI said there were 12 incidents last year that met the narrower definition of a mass shooting.

Gun-prohibitionists say that we would vastly reduce crime and mass murder if we outlawed guns. They ignore that we’ve seen and continue to see mass murder where guns were completely outlawed. For example, Chinese murderers attacked people at a train station with knives. Mass murderers used guns to attack us in the US even where ordinary citizens were disarmed. The gun prohibitionists ignore that criminals use guns even where guns are outlawed in the entire country like in Mexico and in France. We’ve seen dozens of protesters who were murdered by Mexican politicians that were working with the drug gangs.

For a moment we’ll ignore all that and let the gun prohibitionists’ claim stand without examination. Let’s pretend you could stop armed violence with more ink on paper.

What the gun prohibitionists want to hide from us is that our guns save thousands of lives every day. Ordinary citizens like us use a firearm for defense over a million times a year. Think about what that says. For us to legally use a firearm in self-defense means that we faced an immediate and unavoidable threat of death or great bodily injury. That means a lot of those armed victims are going to be hurt if they were disarmed. You deserve credit for the thousands of lives you save every day.

You Save Ten Times More Lives Every Day Than Mass Murderers Take In A Year.

The counterclaim is that criminals would be disarmed too if honest citizens were disarmed. I doubt that. If criminals obeyed the law then they wouldn’t be criminals. If prohibition worked then we wouldn’t have drugs in every high school. You’ll have to show me where criminals turned in their guns and violent crime dropped because of gun-control laws. I’ve looked and I can’t find it.

We already know that 85 percent of violent crime doesn’t involve the criminal having a gun. How will innocent victims stop violent criminals once the victims are disarmed? Is grandma supposed to go hand-to-hand with violent thugs who break down her door? Gun prohibitionists say we should call the police. The gun prohibitionists ignore that we are only able to call the police once the crime is over and the damage is done.

What the gun-prohibitionists also want to deny or at least hide is that guns STOP mass murder.

We’ve seen that happen in restaurants, parks, malls, churches, and schools. If we’re going to blame honest gun owners for the actions of criminals then we also have to give gun owners credit for the lives they save. While we’re handing out credit and blame, does this mean that federal, state, and local governments owe armed citizens and gun manufacturers a reward because ordinary gun owners save so many lives and saved society so much money by reducing violence?

I also want credit for another benefit of civilian firearm ownership. Guns in civilian hands help politicians to respect human rights and to obey the rule of law.

We’ve heard US politicians talk about arresting people who wouldn’t wear a mask. Politicians talked about arresting business owners who wouldn’t close their shops. We’ve seen that happen in China, but we still have the rule of law in the United States, at least for now. Neither side wants to say this out loud, but politicians follow the law rather than use armed force because armed citizens can push back. I like that we use words and arguments rather than clubs and guns. I like that, and I want gun owners in the US to get credit for all of it.

With that settled, now the gun-prohibitionists can tell me how criminals will obey their next gun-control law after the thugs ignored the 23-thousand firearms regulations we already have.

I love a good story.

About Rob Morse

The original article, with sources, is posted here. Rob Morse writes about gun rights at Ammoland, at Clash Daily, at Second Call Defense, and on his SlowFacts blog. He hosts the Self Defense Gun Stories Podcast and co-hosts the Polite Society Podcast. Rob was an NRA pistol instructor and combat handgun competitor.