Americans Defend Themselves With Guns
Defensive gun use is much more prevalent — and more effective — than the Left would have us believe.
In a prime-time address to the nation last night, President Joe Biden claimed Americans are begging him to “do something” in the wake of the horrific school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
The sentiment is understandable. But Biden’s plan to increase the age to purchase a gun, to ban so-called assault weapons, and to expand background checks only makes it sound like something’s being done. In reality, Biden doesn’t have enough support across the country or on Capitol Hill — not to mention in the Constitution — to “do something.”
A Gallup poll earlier this year revealed that only 36% of Americans want gun control measures. And despite the Uvalde shooting, nearly 50% of Democrats favor teachers protecting their students with guns, according to a Trafalgar survey.
Nationwide, 23 states have enacted constitutional carry laws since 2010.
Perhaps this groundswell of activity and public sentiment is because Americans know that even if some of the Democrats’ pre-packaged measures were to pass, they wouldn’t have prevented Uvalde or any other mass shootings. All they would do is prevent good, law-abiding Americans from enjoying the same ability to protect themselves that politicians, superstar athletes, and celebrities enjoy.
This includes President Biden, whose Secret Service entourage carries weapons that the president doesn’t think other Americans ought to have.
Some gun grabbers on the Left even say we don’t need handguns because they wouldn’t be able to stop someone with an AR-15. This is the argument made by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who this week celebrated legislation that will stop the sale or purchase of handguns.
Of course, the problem with gun control laws is that they don’t keep guns out of the hands of those who wish to do us harm. In the end, gun control hurts law-abiding citizens.
As columnist Ray Nothstine writes: “Gun control advocates often try to link gun crimes to law-abiding gun owners — as if they are somehow connected or cut from the same cloth. Indeed, they are not morally equivalent. In other words, it’s not the gun. The fact is that 80% of gun crimes are committed with a handgun by somebody who did not acquire the firearm legally.”
On the merit of a handgun for self-defense, just last week, a woman in West Virginia intervened in what would have been a deadly scene by shooting and killing a man who had opened fire into a graduation party crowd with an AR-style rifle. “Instead of running from the threat, she engaged with the threat and saved several lives,” Chief of Detectives Tony Hazelett said.
And she’s not alone. “According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost every major study on defensive gun use has found that Americans use their firearms defensively between 500,000 and 3 million times each year,” The Heritage Foundation reports. “There’s good reason to believe that most defensive gun uses are never reported to law enforcement, much less picked up by local or national media outlets.”
Various other surveys over the years have clearly shown that the number of guns used for defensive purposes far exceeds those used by criminals. But Joe Biden and the Democrats only want you to think of guns as a threat, not a means of protection for you and your family.
As for the Uvalde killer, many questions remain about how the young fast-food worker was able to buy his weapon. Like other mass murderers, though, gun laws wouldn’t have stopped him.
A 2019 survey by the Department of Justice revealed that 43% of criminals bought their weapons on the black market, 11% had someone else buy a gun for them, and less than 1% were purchased from gun shows.
Over the years, Democrats have created a more dangerous American society by easing sentencing guidelines, allowing foreign nationals to surge across the southern border, and pushing to defund the police. All while they’re telling us we don’t have a Second Amendment right to protect ourselves.
For now, it seems like the American people aren’t buying it. And maybe that’s why Biden and the Democrats are so desperate to use the deaths of children to push for more gun control.
