The gun grabbers always try to tag any legislation or policy favoring guns with a scary label. "Assault weapons," "gun show loophole," "hidden guns," and now "shoot first legislation."
What they're referring to with that last one is what we prefer to call Stand Your Ground legislation, and is included in Ohioans For Concealed Carry's list of goals for reforms in 2009. This legislation is the concept that a person attacked in any place he or she has a legal right to be does not have to try to flee before being permitted to use lethal force for self defense. It also requires that those who do use lethal force are to be considered innocent until proven guilty, provided that the defendee was not also committing a crime. It is basically an extension of Castle Doctrine, which was enacted in Ohio last year.
If you frame such legislation as protection for victims and explain about being innocent until proven guilty, most people will realize this is a common sense protection for law abiding citizens. Of course, gun control advocates like the Brady Campaign can't have that, so they instead try to scare people by making it seem like it is a license to kill. After this legislation passed in Florida, the Brady Campaign put up billboards and handed out fliers at the airports with the following message
Anyone who reads the legislation knows that none of those claims are true, but that doesn't stop the Brady Bunch from trying to prey on people's fears in order to further their gun ban agenda. In addition to portraying gun owners as unstable, trigger happy lunatics, another emotional argument that they try to use with that phrase is the mental image of shooting first.
We grow up as kids watching tv and movies where the good guy in the white hat rarely acts first. The bad guy takes a shot, misses, and only then does the good guy return fire. A preemptive strike is seen as cowardly and unfair.
But, the real world is rarely so black & white. If a criminal breaks into your house late at night, you can't wait for him to take the first shot and hope that he misses. This isn't to say that you'd start shooting if someone looks shifty, only that in a fight you have to fight to win and that means taking every advantage. When a person is confronted by a violent criminal threatening great bodily harm or death, your best hope for survival is a quick, decisive response. Your life, and the lives of your family members, aren't something to gamble with. It's not about fair play, it's about survival.
If you would like to see gun rights in Ohio protected and expanded, Ohioans For Concealed Carry needs your help!
On Saturday, May 2nd is the annual fundraiser for the group, dubbed the Fun 'n Gun.
When you take the fight for the Second Amendment beyond just making a few phone calls, you quickly realize it takes money to make a difference. Web servers for the main website and the forums, brochures and other publicity items, newspaper ads, signs, attorney fees for court cases, and more all require cash. With no rich overseas sponsors like the anti-gun groups have, groups like OFCC rely on member dues and donations.
The Fun 'n Gun is OFCC's main fundraiser for the year. Think of it as a $125/plate fundraiser dinner, only instead of sitting in a stuffy banquet hall listening to elevator music, you get to shoot all day! The event is set up in various stages which reenact scenarios you might encounter in a real life self defense situation. You get to practice drawing from your holster to engage the hostile targets (something not very many people get to do at indoor ranges) and many scenerios involve moving to cover, problem solving, and other shooting skills.
Geared for both beginning and advanced shooters, it promises to be a day of fun shooting for all! It is being held this year at the Rochester Rod and Gun Club (near Wellington and Findlay State Park). Visit the Facebook page for the event for pictures.
Included is a one year membership (new or renewal) in OFCC, and all proceeds raised go towards Ohioans For Concealed Carry to help further the fight to protect and expand your gun rights!
Click here for more details, and I hope to see you there!
Check out other Gun Rights Examiners:
- Austin: Gun control is racist
- Charlotte: What is your state's Freedom Index?
- DC: Georgia legislator introduces bill to repeal permit requirement to open carry handguns!
- Denver: Keep them guessing
- Los Angeles: Take Heart, Part IV: Explaining it to the Republicans
- Minneapolis: An open letter to Senator Jim Webb and pro-gun democrats
- National: New Black Panthers demonstrate responsible gun use?
- Seattle: At it again: Anti-gunners trying to demonize yet another class of firearms
- St. Louis: Decorated Marine, disarmed by law
Comments
Citizens are being given no choice but to shoot first. As can be seen in a murder case in Stark County, Ohio. Two guys shoot a citizen walking in his own neighbor hood are allowed to plea bargain to lesser offenses with all firearm specifications being dropped. Citizens will be forced into using "jury nullification" to find honest citizens innocent when charged with defending themselves, until new laws can be legislated. Our court system has totally failed us. We are left with no other option but to use our Constitutional Rights to defend ourselves and our loved ones.
Agree 100%!
In addition, I urge every person interested in survival to learn ALL of the skills necessary for effective self defense. These include constant situational awareness and the many layered safeguards of locks and lights, etc. that may well cause intruders and attackers to leave without a confrontation.
Lethal force must be the last resort.
At the very least, find and attend the NRA Personal Protection series classes.
The Brady Campaign lies. They will twist and torture the truth to any extent necessary to further their goal, which let's be frank is the total and complete disarmament of the American citizen.
Short term their trite sayings and cute phrases fool the uninformed populace, but as more of their dire predictions of blood in the streets fail to occur they are slowly gaining a reputation as a group who's statements simply cannot be trusted. And that is a reputation they richly deserve.
I would also like to take a moment to point out that Han Solo shot first as wel...
I agree that the Brady Campaign is very quick to invoke disingenuous slogans and approaches. But we have come to expect that.
I am pleased that their dishonest arm-waving is having little effect on the majority of rational people in this country, as so-called "Stand Your Ground" and "Castle Doctrine" laws are being passed, literally hand over fist, in many states around the nation.
In fact, only 4 of 50 states lack any such laws, and 6 more have relatively "weak" laws protecting lawful and just defense. That means that 40 of 50 states have strong laws protecting the defense of self, family, and others.
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