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Blocking CCW in national parks helps anti-gunners suppress the truth
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Gun prohibitionists are crowing that a federal judge on March 19 blocked a rule change allowing concealed carry in national parks.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a Bill Clinton appointee, issued a preliminary injunction that the National Rifle Association says it will quickly appeal.
BULLETIN: The NRA on Friday filed an appeal in this case.
An apparently giddy Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, was quoted by the Associated Press noting, “We’re happy that this headlong rush to push more guns into more places has been slowed.”
Darned right he’s happy, but this has nothing to do with public safety or even the lengthy process under which the rule was adopted late last year. Contrary to what the Brady camp and its allies who sued to stop this rule are claiming, this change was not “sudden” or a “last minute bone” thrown to the evil “gun lobby.” This process took a couple of years and went through an extended public comment period last year, and the gun ban lobby knows it. Public comments were being taken as far back as last spring, and everyone had a chance to weigh in, and was even extended an additional 30 days at the request of opponents like Kurt Repanshek.
But, as it has now occurred to 65 Democrat members of the House of Representatives, the gun ban lobby is pretty good at stretching a falsehood (truth has nothing to do with it!). Read this letter in pdf form, courtesy the National Rifle Association.
'The gun control community has intentionally misled many Americans...'
The truth that Helmke and other gun prohibitionists masquerading as supporters of “sensible” gun ownership want suppressed is that concealed carry works. It does not result in mythical Wild West gun battles at every fender-bender, and it also has resulted in lower crime rates.
In Illinois, where concealed carry is being debated by state lawmakers – the state is one of two remaining that do not have a concealed carry statute – county sheriffs support the idea. St. Clair County Sheriff Mearl Justus thinks concealed carry will reduce crime, and he noted that such statutes already work in 48 other states.
The incidence of violent crime in Michigan in the six years since the law went into effect has been, on average, below the rate of the previous six years. The overall incidence of death from firearms, including suicide and accidents, also has declined.
The Akron, Ohio Beacon-Journal reported in 2005 that concealed carry in the Buckeye State was working, and that all the blood-and-gore predictions from anti-gunners (the same thing they predicted in every other state) had not materialized.
When concealed carry was adopted in Nebraska, a sheriff there told WOWT News in Omaha that he anticipated no trouble, as had, of course, been predicted by concealed carry opponents.
In 2007, after ten years of concealed carry in Oklahoma – certainly long enough to establish a pattern of violence if there were going to be such a pattern – the Tulsa World reported that “officials say gun-carrying citizens (are) responsible, (and are) deterring crime” in the sub-head of its story.
Capping it off, the Detroit Free Press in January 2008 also noted that six years of experience in Michigan with a reformed concealed carry statute had not produced the “dire predictions about increased violence and bloodshed” that were pandered by the Brady Campaign, its allies in the numerically-challenged Million Mom March” and other anti-gun groups.
While reporter Dawson Bell’s story is no longer available on the Free Press website, it was saved in a couple of places, including the Michigan State University Libraries website.
So of course Helmke is happy, but perhaps only temporarily. Anti-gunners want to prevent the public from realizing that concealed carry does not bring out the worst in people, except in the imagination of the Brady Campaign. If concealed carry works in 48 states, and lawmen in Illinois are not opposed, what’s Helmke’s problem?
Read what my colleagues are saying about this case:
Randi Minetor, National Parks Examiner
David Codrea, National Gun Rights Examiner
Daniel White, Cleveland Gun Rights Examiner
While you're at it, see what these Gun Rights Examiners are talking about:
And check their links to other Gun Rights Examiners
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