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News from the weekend illustrates futility of gun control schemes

There are a couple of interesting tidbits from the news this past weekend.

On Friday, a power outage near Cincinnati facilitated a burglary at Arcade Antiques & Guns where thieves stole $19,000 worth of firearms. This highlights, once again, that the bad guys don't get their guns through legal means and that one gun a month laws, closing nonexistant gun show "loopholes", fingerprinting, waiting periods, ballistic "fingerprinting", etc. don't stop them from obtaining guns. Similarly, police broke up a burglary ring in Parma Heights where crooks were allegedly targeting guns in homes.

Now, some will argue that if all guns were banned and gun shop weren't in business that this wouldn't happen. Of course, that's like trying to stop drunk driving accidents by banning cars. Not to mention the fact that drugs are illegal, yet criminals have easy access.

Take Antonil Whitaker, for example. He's currently wanted by the U.S. Marshals for armed robbery and home invasion. With an extensive criminal history, including drug trafficking, Whitaker could never pass a background check at a gun shop. He cannot acquire firearms legally, yet he still has them. Gun laws don't disarm the bad guys, just the good guys.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my belief that gun safety training should be taught in schools.

Friday afternoon, an Elyria woman was walking with her kids when she came across what she thought was a toy gun. When she picked it up, it discharged. Fortunately, nobody was injured. Perhaps if she had received firearms safety training, she would have known to keep her finger off the trigger and would not have unintentionally fired the gun.

Also in Elyria, a fight erupted outside a bar Saturday night that ended with shots being fired. Too bad guns aren't banned in bars, or that wouldn't have happened. Oh wait, they are. Huh, it's almost as if laws have no effect on criminals.

Elyria was busy, because there was also an incident with shots fired in front of First Merit bank. First Merit prohibits guns, so it obviosly didn't have anything to do with bank transactions. Police found shell casings, which those in favor of "ballistic fingerprinting" will point to and say if we just enacted their insipid idea that police would be able to find the shooter. Except that this would only lead back to the last legal owner, not the person who stole the gun and subsequently sold it on the black market where it passed through any number of thugs.

Late Thursday night, an attempted car jacking in Akron resulted in the car owner being shot several times in the parking lot of Corky's Thomastown Cafe after he refused to give up his vehicle. Another woman died early Monday morning after an attack in a Columbus Wal-Mart parking lot.

These incidents illustrate why gun owners are so opposed to criminal protections zones. If a victim has a concealed handgun license and is forced to disarm by a business posting a "no guns" sign, that firearm would be unavailable to him or her if confronted to or from the business. Rendering people defenseless does not reduce crime and only leads to tragedy.

The NRA released a statement Friday that rumors of anti-gun provisions being hidden in the federal economic stimulus bill are false. That's good to know.

Once again, the protesters are out in opposition of deer culling, this time in the Cleveland Metroparks. They want non-lethal methods employed to control population levels, even though such methods have failed to be effective in trials. The other option is to let the herds grow unchecked, causing property damage and human deaths due to vehicular collisions. Personally, I'd rather trained and tested hunters were utilized threw a pay-to-enter lottery than professional hunters be employed. Note to the antis: deer are food, not friends.

In New Philadelphia, an enterprising individual used a fake bomb to rob a check cashing store Saturday. If only they had a "no bombs allowed" sign on the door, this wouldn't have happened...

 

 

 

 

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By

Cleveland Gun Rights Examiner

Daniel White graduated from the University of Hartford majoring in Criminal Justice with minors in Sociology and English. He currently serves as...

Comments

  • Melvin 2 years ago
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    The anti-gun lobby has absolutely nothing to do with firearm safety or keeping firearms away from the bad guys.
    What their agenda is basically political. The anti-gun lobby has this fascination that the only Americans that own firearms are bible toting right wing Republicans.
    So it boils down to one group through the police powers of government trying to take something away from another group because they don't agree with political philosophy.
    It is almost child like in a way, "Nannee, nannee noonoo, I can take your gun from you you."

  • straightarrow 2 years ago
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    Gun control isn't about guns, it's about control. Nothing else.

    When combined with the following irrefutable truth something else is revealed. That truth is: No man needs another disarmed and helpless unless he intends harm to that other man.

    When looked at together it becomes obvious to anyone that criminals are unwitting agents of the segments of society that would disarm us. By allowing and in most cases abetting and aiding the criminal they seek to fool the uninformed or just plain stupid to cede to more power to the various levels of government and alphabet agencies to control the rest of us. Therefore it is obvious also that the disarmer alarmers among us intend us harm, but first would prefer that we cannot resist. So, if they can convince us to willingly disarm in the mistaken and obscene prayer that we will somehow be safer, they needn't risk the resistance of disarming us by force.

    Force will be and already has been resorted to when the forces of control have determined that a person or group has been sufficiently marginalized in the public forum as to cause no backlash.

    However, the process of selective targeting is slower than the controllers would like. Hence the propaganda, outright lies, media cooperation and scare tactics designed to get us to voluntarily prostrate ourselves before them.

    Unfortunately for America, there are many people foolish enough to comply. There are others who will not. At the moment all those who will comply, owe their comfort, what little liberty they have left, and their security from
    naked tyranny to those of us who will not comply. The controllers fear those who have determined to live and die free.

    Another extremely unfortunate thing is that the majority instead of realizing just who, at the moment, is providing these blessing by their deterrent value to open and naked tyranny, instead see the purposely free and constitutional rights practitioners as the problem.

    Their perceptions are emotionally driven by the illogical propaganda they have been subjected to for more than 40 years. It is such a shame that "stupid can't be fixed".

  • atilla 2 years ago
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    Hitler, Stalin, Mao, PolPot, Chavez, and now Obama (see HR 45) are all for gun control. My gun control is always being armed, and hitting the target first shot.

  • ???? 2 years ago
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    WHY DO YOU NEED GUNS

  • SaintSinner 2 years ago
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    Ghandi (yes, Mahatma Ghandi) said it best:
    "Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."

  • rainmansweep 2 years ago
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    Soooo.... if we have the most liberal gun ownership laws in the world, and gun control does not deter crime, then can anyone explain why we have the most gun deaths out of any civilized country?

    Not a lot of gun crime in Sweden.

  • SaintSinner 2 years ago
    Report Abuse

    Ghandi (yes, Mahatma Ghandi) said it best:
    "Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."

  • rainmansweep 2 years ago
    Report Abuse

    Soooo.... if we have the most liberal gun ownership laws in the world, and gun control does not deter crime, then can anyone explain why we have the most gun deaths out of any civilized country?

    Not a lot of gun crime in Sweden.

  • SaintSinner 2 years ago
    Report Abuse

    Ghandi (yes, Mahatma Ghandi) said it best:
    "Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."

  • ShadedMagus 2 years ago
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    The mentality behind gun control can also apply to digital rights. When you're penalizing the law abiders and the lawbreakers aren't affected, what kind of message are the law abiders getting?

  • ??? 2 years ago
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    Every point you mention there wouldn't be the case if guns were tightly controlled. The criminals wouldn't be able to steal them as they wouldn't be there in the first place forcing them to go through different channels.
    Those determined enough to go to those lengths are probably only people planning something bigger than a simple mugging meaning it's more likely that one of them will get caught.
    If one of them gets caught it becomes much easier to track all the others as they probably had to go through the same channels to get their weapons.

    With tight gun controls you may still get gangs of people with weapons (I've never had that happen ever in Australia but you Americans always have shootings), but if you did have such gangs then the police would be able to round up the whole lot of them for possessing the guns getting them off the streets entirely.

    Your examples were basically about small time nobody criminals deciding to pull a gun out. If it wasn't so easy for them to get one, there's a good chance they wouldn't bother.

  • undeadbydawn 2 years ago
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    since I'm short on time, I'll be snappy:

    "Of course, that's like trying to stop drunk driving accidents by banning cars."

    Cars are not designed to kill people. Guns are. That is there exclusive purpose. As such your argument is complete arse.

  • Vic 2 years ago
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    Guns are designed to propel a projectile out the barrel. Where that projectile goes is the choice of the person pulling the trigger.

  • RMF 2 years ago
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    To all the commenters saying that tighter gun control laws would fix the problem, look at what that has achieved here in Canada, almost nothing.

  • N 2 years ago
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    Tighter gun control in Canada does make a difference. Just compare the death by firearms statistic for the two countries. cbc.ca/canada/story/2005/06/28/gun-deaths050628.html

    Using the "people do it anyway, so why make it illegal" negates anything built by society. People are going to set fire to buildings. People are going to murder, cheat and steal. That doesn't mean that laws and restrictions are futile: if we trusted everyone to do the right thing, there would be no traffic lights, for example.

  • Otter 2 years ago
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    "Not a lot of gun crime in Sweden". Yea, Hitler found that out when he took over the country. Not much opposition to the invading German army. When guns are outlawed as in Australia, then there shouldn't be ANY deaths by guns or crimes committed with a gun. Sorry, it's just not so.

  • zero 2 years ago
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    Guns are wonderful!!! Every law abiding citizen should have them!!! Why limit their use to military, police, paramilitary, aristocrats & politicians, street thugs and organized criminals???

    GIVE THE GOOD PEOPLE THE GUNS !!!!

    defenseless people are soon slaves, remember that.

    forget the outright lie the govt cares about your safety...they care about their safety!! and hate it that you can defend yourself against their attempts to dominate you.

    wake up america. No one can protect you 24/7 but yourself. So arm yourself.

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