For some reason, the Second Amendment is a controversial one. In pretty plain language, it says that the right to keep and bear arms “shall not be infringed”. The Supreme Court has confirmed that it’s an individual right, which never should have been in doubt since there’s no reason for the government to need to protect its right to be armed. But Democrats, the party most often associated with gun control, are completely on the wrong side of the issue.
Democrats usually count three groups in as their bread-and-butter constituency: women, gays, and minorities. These three groups, as a whole and throughout the nation, vote Democrat in huge numbers. They are also far more likely to be targeted for a violent crime at some point in their life than this gun-toting white boy will.
Based on the statistics, if a homicide occurs in this country, the victim has a 47-percent chance of being an African American. This for an ethnicity that only accounts for 12.7 percent of the population as a whole. This is because African Americans often live in some of the highest crime neighborhoods in their communities, often due to economic issues that are beyond the scope of a mere column.
Gays are often targeted for violent crimes out of pure bigotry. Some people are afraid of gays for some reason, though Lord only knows why. They target them, beat them, and far too often, they kill them. From Mathew Sheppard, who was beaten to death, it’s clear that violence against gays is very real.
Women are often prime targets from criminals due to their perceived weakness. Physically, women are generally weaker than men, which makes them prime candidates for robbery. However, it’s their gender specifically that makes them victims of one of the most horrible crimes that can occur: rape.
Gun control advocates have said for some time that guns aren’t effective in preventing horrible crimes like rape, but the numbers just don’t add up. For example, when a woman is unarmed, the crime of rape is completed 32 percent of the time, according to a study by the U.S. Department of Justice. That same study showed that if a woman is armed with a knife or gun, that percentage plummets to just 7 percent. It’s an older study, predating things like stun guns and Tasers, but with the availability of less lethal methods like these and the ubiquitous pepper spray those numbers may well be lower.
It’s a simple fact that resistance is the key to surviving many encounters. Firearms are used an estimated 2.5 million times each year in self defense. That’s almost twice the number of instances of violent crime in this country. Since many violent crimes are committed with other implements, it stands to reason that the violent gun crime rate is even lower.
Advocates say that the police are here to protect us, so why do we need guns? First off, the police have no such ability. They want to. They really and truly do want to protect each and every one of us. However, they’re often realistic enough to tell you that they can’t. The Supreme Court agrees, once stating that even a small child was responsible for protecting himself against the aggressive acts of his father (government officials knew the boy was abused and did nothing. After the boy’s death, the mother sued and lost after the case made it to the Supreme Court). If the Court can expect a small boy to protect himself, what do you think they’d say about you?
No, we have to look to our own defense unfortunately, and yet the groups who most need to defend themselves are the ones who often side with the politicians who would take away their means of resisting the oppression of the criminal set. Women, minorities, and gays all need to be armed. They need to know how to defend themselves with a firearm (it’s not anything like the movies, so get training). They need to be able to protect themselves and their families. And they need to remind the Democratic Party that the least they could do is help their core constituents be able to protect themselves. They’re missing the boat on that bad.
Written by Tom Knighton. Read his blog at TomKnighton.com, as well as SWGAPolitics.com. A lifelong political junkie, Tom started out his adult life as a journalism major at Darton College before leaving school to serve his nation as a U.S. Navy Corpsman. Through the years, he has watched government from outside and inside. A former Reagan supporter, then later a Democrat, Tom now finds himself quite comfortable as a card carrying Libertarian and currently serves as Chairman of the Libertarian Party of Southwest Georgia.