“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.” —Patrick Henry (1788)

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the formidable sociologist-turned-senator from New York, once famously remarked, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” Equally on point was this similar observation by my fellow Reagan administration Patriot, Bill Bennett: “We all have a right to our opinion, but that doesn’t make all opinions right.”

Their observations bring me to a recent newspaper op-ed in which a local columnist exercised her right to publish an above-the-fold opinion arguing that “assault weapons”¹ should only be authorized for military use. (She also objected to handguns² for self-defense.)

Predictably, her column was published in the wake of the attacks in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio.

Like all of us, she was horrified by these high-profile mass murders committed by sociopathic assailants using what she called “military style” rifles. But our emotional response should be tempered and informed by the facts, chief among those being that such attacks are extremely rare in a country of 330 million people, representing only a fraction of 1% of our nation’s homicides.

Put another way, a homicide victim is far more likely to be murdered by an assailant using a knife, blunt object, or fists than by a rifle of any type.

Like me, I’m sure that this columnist considers ALL violence against innocents abhorrent, regardless of what weapon is used, particularly the epidemic of murders occurring in the urban poverty centers institutionalized by failed social policies of her Democrat Party. But like most of her demographic, she is predisposed to think violence is a “gun problem” rather than a complex cultural problem. Just take the guns away — problem solved!

So why am I rebutting a local op-ed columnist? For two reasons.

First, because her views reflect those of many influential women in affluent suburban communities. And second, because she began her column alluding to a conversation she had “sitting at the bar,” where, with the aid expensive wines and boutique whiskeys, most “enlightened” gun-control opinions originate. I could not pass on the irony of discussing gun control over a glass (or more) of alcohol.

Let me start with the sobering CDC statistic that there were more than 88,000 deaths due to alcohol-related causes in 2018 — including 9,967 traffic fatalities. Many women and children are among the victims. There is also a significant increase in alcohol-related deaths among women. As the Journal of the American Medical Association reports, one in eight Americans is an alcoholic according to the clinical definition and the CDC’s latest factsheet.

Alcohol, in fact, is the third leading preventable cause of death in the U.S. after tobacco and heart disease, and just ahead of the 70,000 deaths due to drug overdoses.

By comparison, according to the latest annual FBI crime statistics, 10,982 Americans were killed by assailants using firearms (and I note that many of those likely involved alcohol). Less than 2% of homicides involved rifles and shotguns of any type. There are so few murders with “assault rifles” that the FBI data doesn’t distinguish that type of weapon in its records. Rifles and shotguns are the least likely weapon to be used in a violent crime. To put that into perspective, there have already been more murders in Chicago alone this year, than by assailants using rifles nationwide last year.

On a related note, the deadliest school assault in America did not involve a rifle, but a bomb, detonated by a sociopathic Bath Township, Michigan school board member, who murdered 38 elementary schoolchildren and six adults.

As we have documented consistently, if you don’t have a violent criminal record, and are not associated with the violent sociopathic thug, drug, or gang subcultures that commit the vast majority of crimes in America, your chances of being shot or killed by an assailant are extraordinarily low — as low as in most Western European nations, where handgun ownership is outlawed.

Oh, and in Switzerland, which has a higher concentration of “assault weapons” per capita than any nation in the world, the murder rate is one of the lowest in the world. If you’re a law-abiding citizen, your statistical probability of being killed by a drunk driver is much higher than being murdered by an assailant with a firearm. (Oddly, no one is organizing marches to ban automobiles or ask for a federal background check before purchasing a beer.)

Now, I haven’t used alcohol in any form over my entire adult life. But despite the disproportionate number of those who die from alcohol versus those who die from firearms, I’m not opposed to the legal and responsible sale, possession, and use of alcohol, whether it be beer, wine, or the latest fashionable “hard stuff.” The key words here are “legal and responsible,” and I fully support this columnist’s right to use the hard stuff if she chooses to do so — without an FBI background check.

For the record, what I do not support is prohibition. That didn’t work with alcohol, and it won’t work with firearms. Only law-abiding citizens abide by the law in its finest print, but alcohol prohibition made a nation of otherwise law-abiding citizens lawless. Gun prohibition would do the same.

As for how the columnist’s views reflect those of much of her demographic, she mentioned that her husband likes to hunt and has some rifles and shotguns, which she considers acceptable.

But what she and many likeminded suburbanites refuse to accept is that the Second Amendment’s “right of the people to keep and bear Arms” is not about hunting.

As our Founders intended, the restriction against government usurpation of this right is, first and foremost, about defending Liberty and the inalienable Rights of all people, as defined in our Declaration of Independence and enshrined in our Constitution — defending Liberty from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

As our Constitution’s author, James Madison, wrote, “The ultimate authority … resides in the people alone. … The advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation … forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any…” There was no expiration date on maintaining that barrier.

The notion that there are tens of millions of gun-owning Americans devoted to the defense of Liberty is very discomforting to those who are not engaged in the animating contest to preserve that “barrier against the enterprises of [government] ambition.” All Americans enjoy the protections of that invisible barrier, which generations of military and civilian American Patriots have provided since 1776, though many fail to appreciate it.

While the real purpose and necessity of the Second Amendment may cause some comfortable suburban dwellers heartburn, it absolutely terrifies most Beltway Democrats, who are building their political fortunes on “the enterprises of ambition.”

Fact is, those citizens who choose not to exercise their right to possess a firearm owe a great debt of gratitude – whether they are willing to acknowledge it or not – to the legions of today’s Patriot Minutemen who form that barrier wall.

I should note here that, as an advocate of gun ownership, I have trained a lot of women on the safe handling and use of handguns in preparation for obtaining their “right to carry” permits. Tennessee mandates proper training regarding the safe and legal use of handguns — as I think all states should do before issuing permits.

I’ve also provided many women who had never before fired one of those “assault rifles” the opportunity to do so. While most were apprehensive at first, to a person they were ultimately thrilled to fire these weapons and generally unable to conceal their smiles.

I have extended that invitation to our local columnist, if she’s interested. And, regardless, I’ll support and defend her right to her opinion every day – even though her opinion may not be right.

Update 1: Just to be clear, what Democrats and the mainstream media call “assault weapons” are not that. An assault weapon is a select-fire weapon that can cycle rounds in fully automatic fashion. As for “military style” weapons, Bill Clinton banned the sale of those in 1994, but that ban was not renewed 10 years later when it was determined the ban had no effect on crime reduction. According to Rand Research, “We found no qualifying studies showing that bans on the sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines decreased any of the eight outcomes we investigated.”

Update 2: As for handguns and self-defense, the columnist also enjoys the protection of her neighbors who do own handguns — because criminals don’t know which homeowners have the ability to defend themselves. Convicted violent felons indicate that the number-one deterrent when choosing a victim is that person’s ability to defend himself or herself. However, if she wants criminals to make that distinction, I have offered, free of charge, our “Gun Free Household” sticker, which she can apply to her doors and windows!

Update 3: More than 178,000 people died from alcohol abuse last year – that’s NINE times the number homicides associate with fire arms. Drunk driving is responsible for 37 deaths per day. Drunk driving results in 37 deaths per day. And notably, it is estimated that alcohol is a key factor in at least 30% of homicides where the assailant uses a firearm. (Include drug dealing or use as a factor and that number jumps to about 60%.)

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776

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NOTES:

The First Civil Right is To Keep and Bear Arms. It is, as James Madison’s Supreme Court Justice, Joseph Story, rightly defined it, “the palladium of the liberties of the republic,” the ultimate assurance of all other rights.

What follows are a few key notes that all defenders of American Liberty and its foundational guarantor, the Second Amendment, should be prepared to articulate, in order to refute the rhetorical gun control agenda disinformation propagated by Democrats and their Leftmedia publicists.

While some of this data is based on annual findings, most of that data does not vary significantly year over year.

FOOTNOTE 1: Regarding so-called “gun violence,” there were approximately 19,600 homicides involving firearms in the U.S. in the latest year of record, which you can view state by state. Fortunately, there are indications that homicides may be declining after the significant surge of violence unleashed by Biden and his Democrat agitators in 2020. The 2022 homicide rate was 30% higher than in 2019.

The Demos ubiquitously and falsely label the generational murderous contagion they have seeded as “gun violence,” and they focus exclusively on the infrequent high-profile “mass shootings,” which account for only a tiny fraction of all homicides. More than 99% of murders in the U.S. are not the result of mass attacks. (Notably, guns don’t commit violence, thugs and sociopaths commit violence.) The oft-cited Gun Violence Archive defines a “mass shooting” as any incident that involves a “minimum of four victims shot, either injured or killed.” The vast majority of those violent attacks are the result of drug and gang violence committed in Democrat-controlled urban centers.

In a country and culture that ignores the rising generation of sociopathic murderers — mostly thugs in violent urban centers who are saturated with cultural violence and indoctrinated with mass-media glorification of violence — it is fortunate that the incidence of mass murder is not 10 times higher. Arguably, the only thing keeping that number from being higher is that 125 million Americans are legal and responsible gun owners.

Democrats don’t focus on the vast majority of murders, particularly the epidemic of black-on-black murders on their decaying urban poverty plantations, because they want to avoid the “inconvenient truth” about race and violence, which is the direct result of failed Democrat social programs. In fact, black people (13% of the population), are 12 times more likely to be murdered, per capita, than white people (62% of the population).

That gross racial disparity in murder rates isn’t useful for the gun control narrative Democrats invoke to evoke emotional reaction from mostly wealthy white suburban women, who form the Demos’ largest voter constituency.

FOOTNOTE 2: Regarding so-called “mass shootings,” for the record, murders of multiple people by one assailant are very rare in our nation of 335 million people. Less than 1% of all murders nationwide are classified as “mass shootings” and high-profile attacks, such as the 2017 mass murder in Las Vegas, are extremely rare.

The FBI defines “active shooter incidents” as “one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.” In 2022, the FBI reported 50 incidents resulting in 313 casualties (100 killed and 213 wounded). That number was up significantly from 2020 when the FBI reported 40 incidents resulting in 164 casualties (38 killed and 126 wounded).

A broader record of “mass shooting” data is maintained by the Associated Press and Northeastern University, which uses the Department of Justice definition of mass public shooting: “A multiple homicide incident in which four or more victims are murdered with firearms.” These numbers fluctuate significantly year over year, and they range between 20 and 40 incidents. But notably, over the last 30 years, the number of black mass assailants is almost as high as the number of white assailants.

Democrats focus on these rare instances of multiple murders because these high-profile tragedies are political fodder to foment fear — most notably when they can toss out their oft-repeated but erroneous claim that “gun violence is the leading cause of death for children.” If by “children” they mean gang and drug-associated murders of those primarily between the ages of 16 and 21, then yes. Democrats are experts at fomenting fear and division.

The fear and angst Demos intentionally propagate are taking a toll on Americans’ mental health. Psychological researcher Dr. Riana Elyse Anderson observes: “Watching it time and time again on your phone or on the headlines can really impact you in ways that I don’t think we knew before to be as impactful. It’s so ‘in our face’ all the time and we have access to so much footage, so many pictures, so many videos, so many accounts that we’re ingesting it in ways that’s really unhealthy for us.” The result for many mothers, in particular, is an irrational fear that their children will be shot. That is precisely the fabricated fear Democrats want to perpetuate, especially among their female constituents, in order to advance their gun control agenda.

But here is a fact Democrats and their mainstream media platforms will not tell you about those rare high-profile shootings on school campuses: Young people between the ages of 6 and 22 are far safer on a campus than they are off campus.

(Notably, the deadliest school assault in American history did not involve a firearm. A sociopathic school board member in Bath, Michigan detonated a bomb outside an elementary school, murdering 38 children and six adults.)

FOOTNOTE 3: Regarding what Democrats and their Leftmedia publicists ubiquitously and falsely label “assault weapons,” an actual assault weapon, commonly known as a “machine gun,” is select-fire and can rapidly cycle rounds in fully automatic sequence. Very few select-fire weapons are in civilian hands, and only then subject to stringent licensing requirements.

In fact, civilian firearms in common use, like the AR-15 and other semiautomatic sporting and hunting rifles, are not “assault rifles.”

For much the same reason the Demo/Media talkingheads focus only on rare high-profile “mass shootings” to generate fear and angst, they also call semi-automatic rifles sometimes used in those attacks, “assault weapons.” Predictably, Demos then call for what Hillary Clinton framed decades ago as “common sense gun laws,” inevitably followed by calls for an “assault weapons ban.”

In 1994, Bill Clinton banned the sale of “military-style assault weapons,” but that ban was not renewed 10 years later because it was determined the ban had no effect on crime reduction. According to Rand Research, “We found no qualifying studies showing that bans on the sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines decreased any of the eight outcomes we investigated.”

The fact is, rifles and shotguns combined are used in less than 3% of all homicides, but Democrats never let facts get in the way of their “assault weapon ban” political agenda.

Both the Clintons were prolific prevaricators, masterful obfuscators of the truth. And Joe Biden has followed their template, establishing himself as the standard bearer of the “lying dog-faced pony soldier” cavalry.

FOOTNOTE 4: Regarding firearms and violent crime, researcher John Lott reports, “Over 92% of violent crimes in America do not involve firearms.” Again, the only thing keeping that number from being much higher is that 125 million Americans are legal and responsible gun owners.

FOOTNOTE 5: Regarding firearms and suicide, almost 60% of all deaths involving firearms are suicide, most also involving drug or alcohol abuse. But the big numbers promoted in “gun violence” reports do not distinguish between murder and suicide, thus implying that homicide rates are much higher. And does this mean that Demo support for assisted suicide is in conflict with their support for gun control?

FOOTNOTE 6: Regarding alcohol versus firearm deaths, if Democrats are serious about protecting Americans, they should outlaw alcohol. Alcohol abuse is far more deadly than firearm abuse. More than 178,000 people died from alcohol abuse last year — that’s NINE times the number of homicides associated with firearms. Drunk drivers are responsible for 37 deaths per day. And notably, it is estimated that alcohol is a key factor in at least 30% of homicides where the assailant uses a firearm. (Include drug dealing or use as a factor and that number jumps to about 60%.)

Of course, the vast majority of alcohol users possess and use it legally and responsibly. Likewise, the vast majority of firearm owners possess and use them legally and responsibly. Enacting a prohibition on firearms is tantamount to enacting a prohibition on alcohol. In both cases, only law-abiding users obey the laws.

BOTTOM LINE: Let me restate this point — only law-abiding citizens abide by the law. Only outlaws perpetrate acts of violence. Making good people helpless won’t make bad people harmless.

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776

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