Here is the text of my next column...the subject is easily guessed.
I'm gonna send this in soon, so I don't have a lot of time.
Please suggest anything you wish (grammar or content), but be aware I'm already slightly oversize and can't add anything without removing something else.
And please don't be offended if I don't use a suggestion (though I welcome all suggestions).
...................
Ive been paying very close attention to the Second Amendment debate raging in the public forum across this nation recently. There seems to be a commonality in all the discussion and debates emanating from the control side. That commonality is the lack of actual facts, statistics, and meaningful thought in the arguments.
English pundit Piers Morgan likes to bring up that AR-15s were used in Clackamas, Aurora and Sandy Hook. While he is correct, he infers that AR-15s are the weapon of choice for mass murderers. Not so, Thomas Hamilton, the perpetrator of the infamous 1996 Dunblane massacre in England (which prompted the UKs very restrictive rifle and pistol ban) only used pistols, half of which were 6-shot revolvers. Seung-Hui Cho, the perpetrator of the Virginia Tech massacre, never used any long arm either.
Charles Whitman, a former Marine, killed 14 people from a bell tower at the University of Texas in 1966 with a Remington 700 deer rifle. I have that same hunting rifle at home. Timothy McVeigh, using common products easily found, blew up the Murrah Building and killed over 100 people in Oklahoma City. In Apeldoorn, Netherlands, a Dutchman killed 5 people by plowing his car into a parade at high speed. None of these cowards used AR-15s, AK-47s, rifle magazines holding 10 or more rounds, or any sort of scary tactical features currently included in Feinstein's ban.
Furthermore, it can be seen that, from FBI crime statistics, that rifles account for only 2.7% of total murders in the US from 2007 to 2011. Since the FBI doesnt further breakdown the type of rifle used, it cannot be known how many of the rifles used were semi-automatic or similar to an AR-15, but it can be safely assumed that not all of them were.
More striking is the fact that more people were killed with blunt objects alone, knives alone, or personal weapons alone (defined as feet, hands, etc) than by rifles between 2007 and 2011. These statistics do not come from the NRA, but from the FBI. It cannot be claimed that the statistics are biased.
It is ridiculous, as Morgan, and many others suggest, to severely regulate or ban millions of pieces of property owned by millions of law-abiding Americans just because two or three psychopathic cowards used them in recent events.
As the amount of firearms has increased and the number of firearm laws decreased in the past years, FBI stats show that the total number of murders has declined (by 15% from 2007 to 2011). What has increased, however, has been the perception of the frequency of gun crime as portrayed by media and political figures.
There has been an appearance of an increase in gun crime, while, in reality, it has been declining. More and more attention has been paid to AR-15s and mass murderers. This attention further encourages the psychopathic killers to become dark celebrities and shows them exactly what the popular weapon to use is.
Not every knife, blunt object, or handgun murder is reported in the national news, but now the rare AR-15 crimes will politicized at every opportunity. Public perception is easily manipulated. Fortunately, the truth is not.
I'm gonna send this in soon, so I don't have a lot of time.
Please suggest anything you wish (grammar or content), but be aware I'm already slightly oversize and can't add anything without removing something else.
And please don't be offended if I don't use a suggestion (though I welcome all suggestions).
...................
Ive been paying very close attention to the Second Amendment debate raging in the public forum across this nation recently. There seems to be a commonality in all the discussion and debates emanating from the control side. That commonality is the lack of actual facts, statistics, and meaningful thought in the arguments.
English pundit Piers Morgan likes to bring up that AR-15s were used in Clackamas, Aurora and Sandy Hook. While he is correct, he infers that AR-15s are the weapon of choice for mass murderers. Not so, Thomas Hamilton, the perpetrator of the infamous 1996 Dunblane massacre in England (which prompted the UKs very restrictive rifle and pistol ban) only used pistols, half of which were 6-shot revolvers. Seung-Hui Cho, the perpetrator of the Virginia Tech massacre, never used any long arm either.
Charles Whitman, a former Marine, killed 14 people from a bell tower at the University of Texas in 1966 with a Remington 700 deer rifle. I have that same hunting rifle at home. Timothy McVeigh, using common products easily found, blew up the Murrah Building and killed over 100 people in Oklahoma City. In Apeldoorn, Netherlands, a Dutchman killed 5 people by plowing his car into a parade at high speed. None of these cowards used AR-15s, AK-47s, rifle magazines holding 10 or more rounds, or any sort of scary tactical features currently included in Feinstein's ban.
Furthermore, it can be seen that, from FBI crime statistics, that rifles account for only 2.7% of total murders in the US from 2007 to 2011. Since the FBI doesnt further breakdown the type of rifle used, it cannot be known how many of the rifles used were semi-automatic or similar to an AR-15, but it can be safely assumed that not all of them were.
More striking is the fact that more people were killed with blunt objects alone, knives alone, or personal weapons alone (defined as feet, hands, etc) than by rifles between 2007 and 2011. These statistics do not come from the NRA, but from the FBI. It cannot be claimed that the statistics are biased.
It is ridiculous, as Morgan, and many others suggest, to severely regulate or ban millions of pieces of property owned by millions of law-abiding Americans just because two or three psychopathic cowards used them in recent events.
As the amount of firearms has increased and the number of firearm laws decreased in the past years, FBI stats show that the total number of murders has declined (by 15% from 2007 to 2011). What has increased, however, has been the perception of the frequency of gun crime as portrayed by media and political figures.
There has been an appearance of an increase in gun crime, while, in reality, it has been declining. More and more attention has been paid to AR-15s and mass murderers. This attention further encourages the psychopathic killers to become dark celebrities and shows them exactly what the popular weapon to use is.
Not every knife, blunt object, or handgun murder is reported in the national news, but now the rare AR-15 crimes will politicized at every opportunity. Public perception is easily manipulated. Fortunately, the truth is not.
