Freedom is costly in democracy

In the wake of the recent horrific Las Vegas massacre, the leftist anti-gun coven has kicked its hair-on-fire hysteria into overdrive. In the immortal words of former Obama chief of staff and current Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”

Contrary to their hysterical assertions, gun violence and deaths are in fact at historical lows. For the last 30 years, violent crime rates – including murder – have been decreasing at a rate in direct correlation to the easing of restrictive gun laws, particularly for concealed carry, in those jurisdictions that have enacted such policies.

In contrast, where gun laws are the most restrictive, jurisdictions suffer disproportionately high violent crime rates, including murder. Washington, D.C., Chicago and many other urban areas illustrate that fact.

The actions of the Las Vegas shooter are no different from those who have driven their cars into crowds and committed mass murder, including in 2015 on the Las Vegas Strip when one was killed and 35 injured but I don’t see anyone talking about banning cars. Why is that? Cars are at least as “dangerous” as guns, with a higher death toll.

Italicize word unless in this graf I’ll answer my own rhetorical question: it’s because we don’t discuss abridging the rights of the vast mass of law-abiding citizens because of the actions of some lone nut job unless it involves guns.

Is there an unfortunate price to be pai for people to enjoy those rights? Yes, sadl there is. But that’s unavoidable in a free s ciety; the only way to avoid it is to elimina the freedoms themselves.

That’s an unacceptable price. If we’re n willing to do it with cars, why should we d so with guns? Just because leftists don’t us or like them?

But there’s an even more important u derlying issue, too. The Second Amen ment isn’t about hunting. It’s there to assu that citizens have the ability to protect them selves if the government fails to do so, eith by failing to respond in a crisis or by tryin to impose tyranny.

We saw this illustrated most vividly durin the Los Angeles Rodney King riots in 199 when the Korean shop owners protected the businesses, and themselves, with their ow weapons – including semi-automatic “assau rifles” – while chaos reigned for several day on L.A.’s streets. The Koreans were on the own, and if you’re stuck in what is essentiall a war zone, you want to be able to bring th most firepower to bear that you can.

But the Founders’ ultimate purpose in th Second Amendment was to make sure th citizens had the ability to prevent their ow government from trying to impose tyrann The only way to do that was to make su that said government couldn’t outgun them

Italicize word legitimate in this graf. Ne er forget that they’d just fought a succes ful revolt against their own previous legit mate government, and they weren’t foolis enough to think it couldn’t happen agai right here at home.

To realize that potential, it’s importa that citizens have the same firepower as th average grunt they could be facing acro the firing line. And that’s not some scope bolt-action hunting rifle.

The “militia” to which the Secon Amendment refers is not the active-d ty military, which our Founders called th “standing army,” of which they were ver leery. In fact, as defined under 10 U.S. Cod Section 311, (http://policy.defense.gov/po tals/11/Documents/hdasa/references/10_ USC_311.pdf) the “militia” is composed the National Guard (as anti-gunners dutifu ly note) as well as the “unorganized militia which is composed of all law-abiding pe ple of military age “who are, or who hav made a declaration of intention to becom citizens of the United States” (which the a ti-gunners always manage to convenientl forget). That’s all of us, folks: you, me, an Joe Sixpack.

The AR-15s used by the Vegas madman, contrary to the hoplophobes’ characterizations, aren’t “weapons of mass destruction” or any of the other hyperbolic descriptions. In fact, they’re no different from any other semi-automatic firearm, in that they only fire one round per trigger pull. Further, as they’re the most commonly-owned rifle in general circulation, the Supreme Court decision in the landmark case of “D.C. v. Heller” assures their legitimacy.

Calling these guns a “full-on grade military arsenal,” as Gary Horton did earlier this week in his column against guns, is like calling Johnny Depp a real pirate. It makes no sense at all. In fact, if you ever found yourself on an actual battlefield and all you had was an AR-15, your life expectancy could be measured in minutes.

In Vegas, the killer used a “bump stock,” an after-market device that attaches to the rifle to increase the gun’s rate of fire. Frankly, I’d never heard of this device before, and I’m pretty knowledgeable about guns. Whether or not this is an illegal modification of the guns is, I believe, a le gitimate topic for discussion.

But other than that, the jihad again AR-15s is a cynical exploitation of th tragic event to piecemeal advance the an ti-gunners’ ultimate objective of trying t completely outlaw gun ownership in th country. To that end, I want to acknowledg and thank U.S. Rep. Stev Knight for his courage an conviction in standing fir for the rights of gun own ership. It’s thanks to peop like him that we have an rights left at all.

The reality is that ther isn’t any law at all th would have prevented th maniacal Las Vegas shoo er from committing his in sane act. None. We don know why he did it. W probably never will. I don’t think it ma ters. Sometimes crazy is just crazy.

He wanted to kill a bunch of peopl He rented a hotel room and used guns. H could have rented a van and mowed the down. In 2001 Timothy McVeigh rente a van and used fertilizer. The 9/11 jihad ists bought airline tickets and hijacked aircraft.

Sometimes crazy is just crazy.

The jihad against AR-15s is a cynical exploitation of this tragic event to piecemeal advance the anti-gunners’ ultimate objective.