Joe Biden is the President
of the United States. In deference to the Presidency, every effort has been made to show respect to that office here. Like many law-abiding citizens, however, I felt that the president was being disrespectful and divisive when he said, “The idea we still allow semi-automatic weapons
to be purchased is sick … Just sick. It has no, no social redeeming value.
Zero. None. Not a single solitary rationale for it except profit for the gun
manufacturers.” [ It took some time before I
could respond in a civil way.
With all due
respect to the Presidency, some things need to be said in response to President
Biden’s remarks. People are bored by
statistics, but please be patient and consider these few facts.
Currently, the
estimated population of the United States (US) is 333,335,999.
The estimated number of adults, age 18 years and older, in the US is
258,327,312. The data on the number of privately owned guns
in the US, and how many adult Americans own guns, varies from source to
source. Current information from the
BATF&E could not be located on their website in the time available to
research this post. One source [ provided
the following:
·
About
77,490,000 adult Americans own guns.
·
An
estimated 30 percent of the adults in the US own guns.
·
The
average American gun owner owns five guns.
·
In March
2020, it was estimated that 393,437,000 firearms were privately owned in the
US.
The NRA
estimates that 20 percent (about 76,687,400) of privately owned firearms in the
US are semiautomatics. [] There appear to be about 20 million AR-15
type rifles in circulation in America at this writing. ] The reader should be aware that rifles,
pistols, and shotguns all come in semiautomatic models.
When President
Biden said that owning semiautomatic guns was “sick,” he disparaged the character of millions of Americans. That was arbitrary, capricious, and
fundamentally unfair. The remark was
unworthy of a President of the United States.
President Biden has been
clear that he opposes private gun ownership, except in strictly regulated
circumstances. You have to allow him one
point - occasionally he slips the leash held by his “handlers” and says what
he really thinks. However, we
respectfully submit that on this matter he was wrong. Instead of condemning law-abiding Americans
for exercising their constitutional right to keep and bear arms, perhaps it
would help if President Biden asked why so many of his fellow
Americans think they need guns.
There is almost always more
than one reason why people do things, however, the most common reason people
buy handguns is for defense. Could it be that they like the peace of mind
that comes from being able to defend themselves and others from opponents who
are larger, stronger, or more numerous than themselves? Personally, I think one reason people want guns
is because they do not trust the government to do its constitutional duty to
keep them safe.
The Democratic administrations
in our large cities fail to act to stop riots.
They set criminals free without imposing consequences for their
behavior. Criminal gangs commit violent
crimes and push illegal drugs. Gangs
control large sections of our cities.
The police are disparaged, and threatened with punishment for doing
their jobs. Funding is being denied to
our police departments. Large groups of
thieves rush into stores, take what they want, and leave. Nobody tries to stop them. Unrestricted migration is allowed on our
border with Mexico, and criminals and terrorists comingle with the
migrants. The cartels use migrants to
mule drugs, and they subject migrants to sexual exploitation. Cyber criminals steal our money and sell our
personal information. They are seldom caught and punished. People are threatened with violence if they
speak out on social media or on our college campuses.
Still, President Biden saw
fit to condemn American gun owners, saying that there is no redeeming social
value in the legal ownership and use of semiautomatic firearms. Mr.
President, the bad guys are armed to the teeth.
Semiautomatic weapons keep us from being outgunned. What is so hard to understand about that?
In a related matter, yet another “assault
weapons ban” (H.R. 1808) is currently being considered by Congress. President Biden supports it. You may read it at https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1808/text
Congress allowed the last
assault weapons ban (1994-2004) to expire.
Opinions vary about its effectiveness.
The best that can be said is that the data seems to be interpreted
differently, depending on the political position of the interpreter. It is reasonable to say that there was
widespread public opposition to the law, and the evidence of its effectiveness
was not strong enough to overcome it.
People cannot even agree
about what an assault weapon is, and the attempts to do so in H.R 1808 show how difficult it is to reduce a definition to writing. Rather than make it difficult for honest
people to defend themselves, I would like to see our government prosecute and
incarcerate criminals. I want the
government to provide harsh, lengthy prison sentences for criminals who use
guns to commit crimes. Criminals convicted of violent crimes should
be banned from possessing firearms, and given even longer prison terms if they
do. After due process, persons diagnosed
by licensed practitioners with disturbances of thought or feeling that make
them an imminent danger to self or others should be prevented from possessing
firearms. These things are common sense,
and they do not infringe on the rights of those who obey the law.
We are all heartbroken
when people kill other people, regardless of the means by which they do it. We all want the killing to stop. It has been my consistent position that I
will support any law that will reduce the number of violent assaults and
homicides committed with a gun – provided that it does not infringe on the
constitutional rights of law-abiding American citizens to keep and bear arms.
It is an inescapable fact
that guns and ammunition are inert objects.
Although they can make killing more efficient, by themselves they do not
kill anyone. It takes a living,
breathing human being to kill people.
The bottom line is that the problem is with people. We do not need “assault weapons” bans when we
can’t even agree about what an assault weapon is.
Despite all the evidence to the contrary, Liberals insist that
people are basically good, so
they want to ban guns. The Bible says:
“The heart is deceitful above
all things,
And desperately wicked;
Who can know it?
(Jeremiah 17:9 NKJV)
There are six
things that the LORD hates,
seven that are an abomination to him:
haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that make haste to run to evil,
a false witness who breathes out lies,
and one who sows discord among brothers. (emphasis
added)
(Proverbs 6:16-19 ESV)
But realize this, that in the
last days difficult times will come. For
people will be lovers of self, lovers of money,
boastful, arrogant, slanderers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful,
unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips,
without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited,
lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness although
they have denied its power … (emphasis added)
(2Timothy 3:1-5 NASB)
We need gun laws that do not infringe on the 2nd
Amendment rights of all sane, law-abiding Americans. Law-abiding citizens need to be able to
defend themselves on an equal footing with the criminals who want to victimize
them. Our people need leaders who
respect us and our rights.
