WHY EVERYONE SHOULD OWN A GUN

Now we have public prosecutors, prison bosses, school children, cops and movie watchers being shot and killed at what seems to be an almost daily basis.  Some of the shooters have been mental basket cases, some have been those with vendettas.  From what I have been able to determine, about 99.9% of the shooters had no legal right to be in possession of a gun.  In virtually all cases, the victims were defenseless; cops who have been killed predominantly have been in a position where their sidearms were still in their holsters.  The rising incidence of shootings against law enforcement officials in-and-of-itself suggests to me that the killers are becoming more and more brazen; as I write this post, I learn of a shooting inside a police station in Mississippi. 

Only a fool would argue that if guns were illegal, those killings would not have taken place.  

At the same time, we have FBI statistics which reflect beyond a reasonable doubt, a direct correlation between the number of people owning guns in a community and the rate of violent crime occurring in that community.  The higher the percentage of gun owners by law-abiding citizens, the lower the rate is of violent crime of any type. 

Then we have the utterly naive argument that, if guns were all confiscated and made illegal, there couldn't be any more gun killings in the country.  Let me remind you that illegal drugs, illegal immigrants... all types of illegal stuff cross our borders every day and there is not a damned thing we can do to stop it. 

Now then, I have left the arguments about the sports of hunting and target shooting aside.  What I am suggesting here is that everyone in the country go and buy a comfortable sidearm and learn how to clean it, take care of it and shoot it.  Consider it not to be a weapon of violence, but a weapon of defense.  You can pick up almost any newspaper in the country on any given day and read about some crime that was thwarted because the intended victim or some good Samaritan in the immediate vicinity had a gun.  

Registering guns, requiring background checks, limiting the number of rounds in a magazine or defining the style of a legal gun are not going to stop the shootings.  We all know fully well that mobsters had fully automatic machine guns and the ownership of those guns was illegal.  Someone bent on killing is not going to have any problem acquiring a gun in this country whether the ownership of the weapon is legal or not.  

We all have the right to self-defense.  We have a Constitutional right to keep and bear arms without infringement.  That right was guaranteed under the Second Amendment at a time when the same types of crimes were being committed.  We have every right to join the NRA and form an association with other like-minded Americans.  The argument that times have changed is as bogus as a three-dollar bill.  The best way to curtail these crimes is to increase gun ownership among law-abiding citizens.  

That's MY AMERICAN OPINION, respectfully submitted.