Simpson Column: No logic to gun fears
Published: July 3, 2009
Tomorrow, Saturday, July 4, we celebrate American independence! During this time I hope that Americans will take a few minutes to reflect on how we gained our independence … while so many, to this
very day, are still unable to achieve liberty.
The fact is, we can thank our success on one thing — the individual right to bear arms. If it were not for the firearms owned by private citizens in the late 1700s, the British would have easily defeated us.
Yet so many today are willing to give up this basic right in the hope that government will be there to protect them and will never become oppressive.
Thomas Jefferson wrote “… that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny …”
A couple weeks ago the issue of limiting private gun ownership reared its ugly head again when a piece of human excrement — who I will not give the honor of mentioning by name — got drunk and killed
a duck next to Tim’s Rivershore Restaurant.
This act elicited an Our View editorial by the News & Messenger that queried: “It makes one wonder why people should be allowed guns in restaurants, period.” With the follow-up rhetorical question “Do
we really want a criminal and a patron exchanging gunfire in a crowded restaurant?”
I have heard many accounts of murders in restaurants — I still remember the incident (late ‘70s I believe) of a massacre that took place inside a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant on Rt. 236 (Duke
Street) next to Interstate-95. Someone walked in and killed many patrons, and no one was armed and able to stop him. Or the event where unarmed people were massacred in a New York subway train,
again where the citizens were unable to defend themselves. So yes … I would rather have a fighting chance than be a helpless victim.
Criminals are going to obtain weapons. If more laws are passed reducing private ownership, crime will increase as evidenced in places like Chicago, New York City and Washington, D.C. Even in
countries where private ownership is outlawed, criminals acquire weapons.
If guns were the problem, then thousands of deaths would be reported at gun shows. Anyone who takes a minute to shrug off the fear indoctrinated into many by the liberal media will rightly conclude that
most gun violence occurs in areas where people have been disarmed — universities, public schools, places of employment, restaurants, etc.
The Our View piece from June 20 also states that “Guns should be banned from restaurants, plain and simple.” It goes on to suggest that if the government won’t ban guns, then restaurant owners should
post signs banning guns as the law provides for establishments to prohibit them if they desire.
This would only serve as an invitation to anyone wanting to rob a restaurant or its patrons.
The fact that we need a “permit” to carry is already a serious infringement of the Second Amendment. We don’t need to ask the permission of government to practice a religion, speak our minds and
peacefully assemble. Every step that is taking to remove our God given right to protect ourselves moves us one step closer to tyranny. Many are fighting very hard to remove the private sale of guns,
requiring the government become involved in every transaction … as well as requiring that all individuals register their guns. The latter has been used numerous times throughout history to confiscate guns
once those governments realized that their tyrannical nature was inciting a citizen revolt.
From a document issued by the Second Continental Congress on July 6th, 1775 titled Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms: “From thence the troops proceeded in warlike array to
the town of Concord, where they set upon another party of the inhabitants of the same province, killing several and wounding more, until compelled to retreat by the country people suddenly assembled to
repel this cruel aggression.”
These people did not reply to tyranny by throwing stones. Our government is currently diving headlong into financial ruin. You can’t just magically produce trillions of dollars and not have significant
repercussions. You can’t have the government take over huge parts of the private sector and not have significant repercussions. It will not be long before our government turns oppressive.
Freedoms, once lost, are very difficult to regain. Please try and remember why we celebrate July 4 as you are watching the fireworks.
James Simpson lives in Lake Ridge.
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Reader Reactions
Why do we have bans/restrictions on fireworks? Guns kill or injure more people than fireworks.
Willow703,
“They have assumed the power, & want more power, to regulate every facet of our lives; for our own good, of course.“
In truth, every civil liberty written into our bill of rights comes with an entire package of laws and regulations defining how, when, and where we can use that civil liberty. Freedom of Speech has Libel laws. Freedom of Assembly has permits to organize protests. Voting rights have voter ID laws, cutoff dates to register, and age restrictions (they once had white male only restrictions). All these laws an regs are done in the name of public safety and “good order and discipline.“
It’s only our “right to bear arms” that people demand to be unchecked and unregulated. Funny thing, it seems it’s always Conservatives pushing for more restrictions on civil liberties - except for gun ownership. Why is that?
Many are willing to give up this basic right, - which I & they have never exercised - hoping that the government will protect them & never become oppressive.
In truth, it is those who want to do away with this right who are the oppressors.
They have assumed the power, & want more power, to regulate every facet of our lives; for our own good, of course.
They want to tell us what to eat, drink, say, & think. There is now legislation in Congress to require every homeowner to make his or her home meet certain, as yet unestablished, standards of energy efficiency.
It’s a nice idea, but should I be required to spend tens of thousands of dollars more than I’ve already spent on a 35-year old building to satisfy some bureaucrat’s idea of energy efficiency?
The purpose of government is to do for the people, as a whole. what they can not, as individuals, do for themselves.
Legislators should always ask: Can individuals do this of, by, & for themselves?
BCPWC; You tell him!!!
The Bush years demonstrated the failure of Republican ideology. Simpson just demonstrates that you can’t confuse a conservative with the facts. Because he has to go back over 200 years to find the one (and only example) American citizens had to take up arms against an oppressive government illustrates how out of date his ideology really is. Based on his analogy the founding fathers got everything right and we should go back to the days where “create equal” only applied to white males. The beauty of the American Constitution is that it adopts to changes, and the world is a very different place than it was 200 years ago. Over 40 years ago conservatives wanted to prohibit any laws from allowing blacks from having equal rights. Today we call these people “bigots” and “racists.“ About 40 years from now we will finally have some sensible laws promoting the safe use of firearms, and people like Simpson will be referred to as “idiots” and “morons.“
In his most recent “Thousand Points of Stupidity,” James Simpson tries to gain our sympathies by describing the armed drunk who shot a defenseless mother duck in the presence of her babies near Tim’s Rivershore Restaurant as a “piece of human excrement.” Then, of course, true-to-form, Simpson goes on to defend the “God-given” right of every turd in our society to own a gun and carry it in public, even into a restaurant… To be the Devil’s Advocate, I might point out that the duck was a wild duck, free in nature, and that the shooter didn’t shoot a person in the process.
Can we say the same for our former Vice President, Dick Cheney? The birds Cheney shot on his canned hunting trip were not wild or free in nature. They were “canned” game, caged up and docile only to be set loose by handlers at the last minute, still disoriented, so that Cheney and his friends could shoot them at will and in great numbers. And, of course, we all know the part when he irresponsibly and ineptly shot his friend in the face thinking he was firing at a clueless, groggy, canned pheasant. Maybe it was a good thing he never served in our military, for we might have had a few more American names on the Vietnam Memorial Wall. But none of this prevented Cheney from sending other mens’ boys off to get themselves killed for their country and to cheerlead the war with the likes of other reactionary Chickenhawks like Limbaugh, DeLay, Rove, Ashcroft, Gingrich, and O’Reilly. Obviously they heeded General Patton’s dictum: “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other b@stard die for his.”
Does James Simpson ever ponder the contradictions and creepy personalities that occupy the pantheon of his thoughts? Does he ever contemplate the consequences of the ideas he loves to defend? Does the total weirdness of his world ever occur to him? Unless you have stepped outside of your own thoughts and have experienced the world as a collective process, I guess one would never know…
“Our government is currently diving headlong into financial ruin. You can’t just magically produce trillions of dollars and not have significant repercussions. You can’t have the government take over huge parts of the private sector and not have significant repercussions. It will not be long before our government turns oppressive.” – James Simpson
James Simpson’s idea of writing is to randomly paste together a series of bumper stickers and call it a column, so it is rather difficult to answer all the assertions in one response. In this week’s “Thousand Points of Stupidity,” he extols the right to live with a lethal weapon as being fundamental to our freedoms. What about our right to vote, to select our leaders, and to have our laws respected? I find it strange that Simpson ends his column with the warning of “significant repercussions” to the policies of our current administration. Pray tell, Mr. Simpson, what might these repercussions be in relation to an article defending the arming of citizens? Funny that you would be so vague…
After the questionable “election” of George W. Bush in 2000, his narrow re-election in 2004, the unprecedented financial collapse due, in large part, to his administration’s policies, the two wars, the domestic spying, the unprecedented use of official torture, the squashing of State’s Rights by the rare use of the Doctrine of Preemption (used against Manassas in the illegal alien question), the expansion of national police power (Homeland Security), and a general atmosphere of incompetence and arrogance, I don’t recall anyone of the opposition suggesting “significant repercussions” in the form of an armed uprising in response to Bush’s policies. We organized ourselves and relied on legal measures to bring about a change in our government. Now that we have a clearly and duly-elected (according to our Constitution) Democratic majority and a Democratic president, whose task it is to clean up the Bush mess, why does Mr. Simpson feel it is proper to suggest an armed uprising against our government just because he doesn’t agree with its policies? There is another word for this: domestic terrorism! It sounds as if Mr. Simpson is advocating armed treason. Please explain, Mr. Simpson, what do guns have to do with the way we govern ourselves, the policies of the current administration, and the way out of the mess Bush got us into?
As usual, it is difficult to say what Mr. Simpson means, as he doesn’t express himself very well and he probably doesn’t know himself. In any event, on this 4th of July weekend, it is sad that we have to take time to respond to and correct such a sad example of American citizenship. If you don’t like the due process of law, then get a gun and shoot a duck, but don’t threaten our country and its institutions.
Al Mostonest
The entire argument about unrestricted ownership of firearms comes down to:
1 - I may need it to shoot someone who wants to shoot me.
2 - I may need it to start a war with the US Government to save us from the tyranny of elected officials.
Seems to me, the answer to #1 is “If guns were banned, no one would have guns.“ Those few mentally unstable people who were able to illegally obtain guns (from people violating gun control laws by selling them illegally) could be dealt with by law enforcement officials. You know, in the same effective manner we control illegal drug use today.
2 - I have yet to see any pro-gun nut provide a scenario where it would be justifiable to rise up and use firearms against government officials (i.e.: The Military, Police, National Guard, Park Service Rangers, etc).
I make an open offer to Mr. Simpson to provide one example from our recent US History (past 50 years) where “the government” acted so improperly that it would have been well within the rights of the common citizens to use firearms against those government officials in self defense.
Meanwhile The CDC provides some interesting firearm-related information based on a 1994 UN Study:
- A firearm was reported to have been involved in the deaths of 1107 children; 957 (86%) of those occurred in the United States.
- The overall firearm-related death rate among U.S. children aged less than 15 years was nearly 12 times higher than among children in the other 25 countries combined (1.66 compared with 0.14)
An independent research project “Firearms Laws and the Reduction of Violence“ found:
- Of 29,573 firearms-related deaths in
2001—an average of 81 per day—16,869 (57.0%) were suicide; 11,671 (39.5%) were homicide or legal intervention
(e.g., homicide by police); 802 (2.7%) were unintentional; and 231 (0.8%) were of undetermined circumstances.
- Although rates of firearms-related injuries in the United States have declined since 1993, they remained
the second leading cause of injury mortality in 2001, the most recent year for which complete data are available.
- It is estimated that 24.3% of
all violent crimes—murder, aggravated assault, rape, and robbery—committed in 1999 (a total of 1,430,693) were committed with a firearm.
I guess it’s a good thing that Conservatives, who so value the life of an unborn fetus, are out there protecting the rights of all Americans to shoot up each other.
Thanks Guys. Have a Happy 4th burning meat and shooting things off.
“The ideas that occupy a man’s mind is a fairly good indicator of his character.” – Balzac
Again, James Simpson is intent on asserting his constitutional right to be a fool. As if the 4th of July were a celebration of guns and not all the wonderful things Americans have accomplished through hard work, sacrifice, rule by law, reason, education, public spirit, our system of government, and, yes, with the help of many levels of government and our government officials… As if the Minutemen and the Continental Army were random geeks with guns running amok in the street and not an organized militia…
We can go around and around the bush about the right to own guns, but what strikes me as weird is someone wanting to live with a gun. What are the possibilities?
1. You may never need it after a lifetime of keeping a loaded weapon under your pillow or constantly at hand. And what if, for one second, you are away from your gun? You might be caught unawares. So always, always, keep that gun in sight!
2. You might become another foolish statistic, the klutz who blows off his foot while cleaning the damn thing, another parent who loses a child to an unsecured household weapon, or another paranoid who gets drunk, goes crazy, or misjudges a situation and takes an innocent life. Has James Simpson given enough evidence of mental stability or good judgment for us to trust him, like the guy who shot the duck, with a lethal firearm?
3. You might actually need to defend yourself with armed force, your moment will arrive, and you can blow away another life and feel morally justified. Will you be fully prepared or will you panic? Will it be everything you hope it will be? Is this what you were put on earth to achieve? Be careful of what you wish for and prepare for…
The weather is beautiful in Manassas, people are looking forward to getting together and watching the fireworks, and I intend to spend my time enjoying the fact that I am an American.
Al Mostonest
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