My Gun Rights

My Bushmaster AR15  .223 or 5.56mm 

Guns do not kill people, people kill people. I support the right to bear arms because I believe in freedom for law abiding citizens. Honest people with guns can protect other people. Lets examine why a normal honest law abiding person might consider keeping a firearm handy.... 

Gun Rights
As a God fearing, law abiding citizen of the United State and resident of Washington State, I exercise my right to bear arms. I believe that all sane law abiding people should have the right to defend themselves with advanced weapons. The police cannot be there for you in time when seconds make the difference between life and death. 

An Insurance Policy 
I keep a gun on or near me at all times for the same reason that I wear a bicycle helmet when I ride my bicycle, and for the same reason that I have car insurance. The gun is a safety/defense insurance policy against an unforeseeable event. My father and grandfather shared these gun safety ethics with me when I was a little boy. I increasingly came to understand why throughout my life. 


Unforeseen tragedies and events are a fact of life. One might go their who lives without ever being in a car accident, without ever being raped, without ever being robbed or without ever being assaulted. While it is possible for one to have a life without really negative interactions, its not likely. 


Most people encounter an opportunity at some point in their life where they could have mitigated or prevented violence by simply having a firearm handy. When honest normal people carry weapons, the whole world is safer, and we will explore this issue in a moment.


Prudent Choices
I hope to never have to pull the trigger to harm anyone or any living thing with any of my guns. I would never intentionally harm anything except in a case where my actions are in self defense or in the defense of someone else. 


We live in a globally interconnected world with 7+ billion other people and %99 of these people are kind, honest, reasonable people. Unfortunately 1% of this 7 billion is a huge number. It is this one percept of people, the sociopath/ unstable crazy violent criminal people that inspire me to carry a firearm. 

As a student of history, I know that evil dictatorships like the Nazi regime that controlled Germany long ago deprive their people of rights by first taking away guns so that the people cannot defend themselves from the government or each other. 

I honestly do not trust the US government anymore. When I started to study the war on drugs in High School back in 1998 my distrust in the Federal government was first formed. The D.A.R.E program I had been studying was a crock of misinformation and lies. Once I gained access to the internet and started researching about cannabis and other psychoactive compounds and compared this to what I was taught about "drugs" in school, I quickly figured out that there was a political agenda in my education designed foster misunderstanding. 


Why was the state outright lying to me about the supposed dangers of recreation drug use? The facts are that no drugs are totally safe, and many prescription drugs are far more dangerous and far more toxic than the most commonly used recreational drugs; Warfarin for example. Other legal drugs like Alcohol are hundreds of times more toxic than cannabis in terms of alcohols ability to kill a person with alcohol poisoning, but this is not reflected in the law which places cannabis in the same restrictive legally prohibited category as heroin, Another fact, Tobacco is just as addictive as heroin, but not places in the same class. The laws regarding prohibition are not based on science, they are based on corrupt public policy with an origin in the institutionalization of bigotry. These facts did not line up at all with what the state was teaching me. I came to figure out why the Government was misinforming me during my public policy research in college. 

Campaign Bribery : US Congress / Special Interests et. al.

Government Corruption
Having studied a broad range of soft sciences, I began to learn about campaign finance reform in college. Why was finance reform needed? The truth became clear; bribery and special interest greed had become an epidemic problem in our government. Big Oil, Big Defense, Big Chemical, Big Pharmaceutical, Big Agro- huge multinational corporations driven by greed of historically unprecedented levels have their finance rods so far up the GOP's campaign budget, it is hard to figure out where one group ends and where the other one begins. How can I trust a government that claims to a be a democracy, when in reality it is more like a plutocracy that panders to the special interests that bribe our elected officials into office?


Empty Representation

I began to write (email) my elected officials and I noticed something, they wrote back but never actually did anything. Perhaps I needed to attach a big check to my requests for representation since this seems to work really well for the big banks and big oil companies.... 

At age 10, I got my first rifle, a 10 Shot Marlin 22

Avoiding the Trigger
I sincerely hope to God that I never have to use any of my guns for anything other than target practice or self defense. I keep my guns for safety, to protect me and those whom I love from criminals. 


I dont really have any faith in the police since they are busy and distracted waging Nixon's incompetent failure "the war on drugs" to actually protect me or those that I love from dangerous criminals. Furthermore, law enforcement is underfunded because the trillions in revenue the state could be getting for the legal taxed and controlled sale of narcotics through pharmacies is being diverted into the black market violent deadly drug war. 


Law enforcement seems to care more about busting pot farms then they care about stopping identity theft. I think the department of justice has its priorities all backwards in this regard. They focus a tremendous amount of resources fighting victimless drug law violations, whilst crimes that have victimes go largely unpunished. 


I am reminded of how Judges in certain states have no discretion when adjudicating the sentence for a drug law violation. Having a couple of MDMA pills has put high school students in federal prison for 3 years, and the Judges had no ability to wave of modify the sentences. 


Mandatory minimum sentencies rules pushed forward by right wing moral crusaders like that sleazy dishonest Richard Trick dick Nixon, impose completely unreasonably sentences on non-violent drug law violators who commit no other crimes. Most of the people arrested for drug law violations in Washington State, more than 10,000 arrests per year, are charged and convicted for the possession of small amounts of marijuana. I understand that the police are too busy writing traffic tickets and busting people for marijuana to actually be protecting the public. I know I have to be able to protect myself and that is why I roll with my piece off safety!

The 45auto I always have with me

I am thankful to live in a very safe place where crime rates are low, but I know that even in a snobby suburb people still run into dangerous criminals. Having had years of experience with fire-arms as a Boy Scout and as a target practice/ gun range enthusiast, I obtained my first handgun 6 years ago (Thanks Dad) and  I am very glad to have had it too.


Self Protection
After getting my concealed weapon permit, I started carrying my gun with me all of the time. Unfortunately I have had to use my handgun to intimidate people who have threatened my safety when I was out on the open road several different times touring America. I had to use my gun to intimidate a man to get him to stop beating his girlfriend up at a gas station. I had to use my gun to keep my Prius from being stolen by a car jacker on I90. I had use my gun to defend a woman from being robbed by a perverted satanic weirdo who had a pentagram tattooed on his forehead at a gas station. What would I have done if I did not have this weapon to intimidate these criminals? The police were no where to be found when these events happened. In each case I called the police. Calling the police sounds great, but they took more than 15 minutes to actually show up after I called ever single time. Most violent interactions between criminals and innocent people are over with and done in less than 5 minutes as the was the case with my interactions with criminals. 


Only A Warning
Fortunately I have never had to shoot/ fire my gun to protect myself or others as the mere sight of it scared the the criminals I have encountered into disengaging. Like the colorful bands on an insect, the visibility of my gun alerted the criminals that I was not joking when I told them to stop and back down, cocking my piece to chamber a round. I might look nerdy and drive a Prius, but don't make any assumptions about me based on these facts. I will defend my life and the lives of those around me from criminal threats. I will exercise prudent self restraint and wisdom and will never shoot to kill if I have another option. I will only shoot to disable and injure an attacker who is trying to kill me or someone else in my presence: if they happen to die as a result of this self-protection, then the lawyer I have on retainer will get a phone call. 

Criminal assume that everyone else is unarmed... and act

Who Has the Guns
Most violent criminals correctly assume that the vast majority of people they encounter are unarmed. Rapists, Robbers and Murderers assume correctly that most normal people probably do not have a weapon and even if they do they are probably too wimpy and unprepared to pull the trigger: this gives them confidence to boldly violated laws in the commission of violent acts against other people.


Honest People Should Carry
The world would a lot safer if every honest sane law abiding person who was capable carried a firearm and was well trained in how to use it responsibly to intimidate or disable criminals attackers. Not everyone should carry a firearm. Other technologies are a better fit in some cases for certain people. A electric tasser might work just as well to subdue an attacker, as might pepper spray, but the gun has the distinct advantage of possessing the capacity to set off an extremely loud and intimidating warning shot. 


Even if you carry and gun loaded with blanks, that is still safer than not having one at all. Consider loading your clip with hollow points first and then put a blank on the top, so the first shot you fire will be a blank, but no one else will know that. This way you can jump the gun safely and scale the Criminal by letting them know you are not afraid to pull the trigger. The sound of the weapon going off with the blank shell will draw a lot of attention to your situation as well.

Normally the sight of seeing someone cock a gun is enough to scare most criminals into submission. You have to be prepared to fire a warning shot in a safe direction, because some of these people are too loony and limited to get the hint when they see you brandishing and a weapon and chambering a round. In the case where you encounter an armed criminal seeking to assault you, aim for the chest and unload. These kind of criminals do not care about your life and will take your life without thinking. The use of a firearm in the commission of crime is a felony offense in an of itself. If they are using a weapon in the commission of a crime, they are likely violent felony level criminals with a long rap sheet. 


Violent Criminals Roam Freely
Unfortunately our laws do not keep violent or unstable people locked up for long: look at that crazy wack job criminal Jared Laughner that killed those innocent people when he attacked Gabrielle Giffords. If one normal person like me with a gun was there, that person with the gun could have dropped that Mr. Laughner with one shot to his chest or head after they saw him kill the first victim. Actually someone could have shot to disable Mr. Laughner long before he had the chance to unload on all of those people. Unfortunately for those victims that died at his hands not a single responsible person was there with a firearm. In this case, like so many others, only the criminal attacker is armed with a gun. I cant help but shake my head at the absurdity of this and how this could have easily been avoided if the normal sane Adult women and men on the scene of that crime were all packing a piece of their own. 


Prisons are Full
We can't have wacky unsafe people like Mr. Laughner locked up for long because our prisons are filled with non-violent drug offenders who have to serve long unreasonable mandatory minimum sentences for narcotics violations. Thank you war on drugs and you ignorant politicians who don't understand the message from Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. The war on drugs causes more violent crime than any other public policy. Over 45,000 people have recently died in mexico because of the violent drug cartels fighting. If the war on drugs ended, so would all of this violence. Narcotics is one of the primary funding sources for most organized criminal networks. Keeping the drugs illegal with prohibition insures that criminals will distribute and profit from the drugs: using those profits to buy weapons to insure their business model with death and violence.


Funding the Addiction
Many of the violent criminals are out committing crimes to get money to feed an expensive drug habit because the war on drugs has driven the street prices of these substance through the roof. Many of these wacky criminals are messed up on improperly prepared street meth that causes profound psychosis. People started cooking their own meth when the black market price got out of hand. 


If society took the money we are spending on the War on Drugs, and used this money to give drug addicts free access to counseling and drug treatment programs then a lot of the crime associated with drug abuse, drug addiction and criminal drug distribution could be avoided. 


We need to reschedule all drugs as prescription to take the revenue stream away from the criminals and put the control back in the hands of the state. When the state can tax, control and regulate drugs, children will have a harder time accessing narcotics. With taxed, controlled and regulated drug, drug user safety is increased because the drugs are of a uniform and know strength, quality and origin. 


Many of the problems associated with drug abuse are the direct result of the war on drugs. The war on drugs artificially constrains the market for drugs, causing the prices to increase. With higher prices, more women drug addicts have to turn to high value prostitution and pornography to pay for their addiction. 


With the war on drugs, we have violent criminals in charge of drug production, distribution and retail sales. Shady people with questionable ethics, and no one ever really knows what they are getting. A teenager that gets pot from a drug dealer has no idea what kind of pot it is, how strong it is, or what it has or has not been dusted with. When a business man buys cocaine, from a mexican drug cartel distributor, he is indirectly financing the violent border conflicts in Mexico. 


With the war on drugs, we have the department of justice wasting hundreds of billions of dollars, jamming up prisons and wasting court time because of silly unreasonable drug laws. If drug prohibition ended I would feel a lot safer for many reasons. If you want to read more on this, check out my other post "Why Legalize Marijuana".


Common Sense
Rational common sense can go a long way towards protecting a person from challenging events in life. I can just hear my Canadian friends now, "you don't need a gun to protect yourself, guns kill people, America is such a violent country", and in a way they are right. 


We do have a violent country that is far more violent than Canada. The United State is far more like the wild west then the liberal socialist refuges of Canada. In Canada the people  are less pissed off in general because everyone has access to some form of health care. The drugs laws in Canada are not unreasonable like they are in the United States. The Canadians have a far more balanced and reasonable approach to dealing with "soft" crimes, like drug offenses. Violent crimes are also less common in Canada. 


I have to deal with the reality of my situation. I know I live in a broken world with other dangerous violent people. I know that there is a high probability of my encountering more of these people in awkward situations that create danger for me. 


I know that it is better to have a gun to protect myself and others from people like Jared Laughner then to stand around with my thumb in my ear waiting for the police while a murderous rampages or other form of violence unfolds infront of my eyes. 


I know that a lot of rapes, bank robberies, and assaults can be stopped by normal ordinary people if they extended their reach with a gun to intimidate and ultimately stop criminals. If more honest people were carrying guns and that become the social norm, criminals would be much less likely to try anything, knowing that anyone might be carrying protection.


Right now a lot of assaults happen because the honest people are not armed and cant protect themselves, and the police are no where to be found because they are all tied up and distract enforcing the viral permutations of the DOJ's war on drugs. Cui Bono?

Reasonable Gun Control is Ok 

I support reasonable gun control laws. For example I think it would be fine if the states required people to pass a gun safety course, a firearm self defense course, a mental health examination and an extensive background check before they are able to legally buy a gun. I believe that fully automatic weapons should remain difficult to obtain via the tax stamp law in effect for such weapons right now. I think it is fine to heavily restrict consumer access to huge caliber weapons like 20mm sniper rifles, grenade launchers and other destructive devices.

I oppose any efforts to ban or make the AR15 or other semi-automatic rifles illegal. I oppose magazine size restrictions because in the event of a civil war or other major economic collapse, high capacity magines are what make assault rifles an important self defense asset. If a group of criminals attempt a home invasion, a high capacity magazine can give the home owner enough firepower to stop the criminals.

I think that mentally ill people should be prohibited from owning firearms. Anyone that fails a mental health exam, or who has a documented medical history of dangerous psychosis, should not be allowed to own a gun. I think the gun show loop holes should be addressed. I believe that all people should be required to understand basic gun safety. I think schools should have at least 1 armed security member on their staff at school at all times of operation. There are many things we can agree on about reasonable gun control.

There are people calling for lawmakers to ban firearms. These people are not being reasonable, and their request are dangerous to the safety of everyone. When honest sane people are armed and well trained, they make everyone else around them safer. If the psychos and criminals are the only people with firearms, everyone else would be less safe. Outlawing guns is not a solution to the school shootings, and would furthermore prove to be a logistic impossibility because of the pervasive presence of firearms in America.

If we are going to have a debate about gun rights, gun control laws, or anything else related to the second amendment, we need to use facts, reasoning, logic and common sense. The anti-gun people seem to be operating on fear and complete lack of understanding. Many of these people know almost nothing about firearms, and espouse their anti-gun views because they fear what they do not understand. The school shootings will not be addressed with gun control. To address the problem of psychotic people going on rampages, we need to focus on identifying the psychopaths when they are young children, and giving these disturbed children intensive psychological, social and spiritual guidance and support. Children that display symptoms of angry depression, sociopathic behavior, or psychopathic tendances need to be removed from school and enrolled into a special program to help these sick children. That is the solution to the school shooting problems.