Guns America Digest – by Alan Korwin
For all the gun myths I’ve exposed so far, none have addressed criminality, have you noticed?
There isn’t much attention to actual threats. They have all addressed baseless fears on the part of the anti-gunners making the proposals.
The myths spread from politicians who work that crowd, to frenzied grassroots people living in imagined terror, to tagalongs and the “news” media.
Resistance to arming pilots doesn’t help stop crime, it helps facilitate crime. Impeding the issuance of carry permits, limiting where permitees can go, this is unrelated to addressing criminals, it just forestalls the public. Don’t get me started on needing permits at all, I’m a Constitutional Carry guy—it’s working now in eight states, with 23 more champing at the bit. Plans that go after criminals are not part of the list.
Progressive gun proposals are not just myths, they are irrational psychologically reversed projections of their fears, virtually immune to reason. Look over the myth list so far, linked at the end. The flimsiest of arguments might be made that some of these actually do address criminals in some fashion—but not deeply, and in flawed ways. The ideas and proposals attack the public. This is what liberals and progressives really fear—you.
To the extent liberals control some of the government: “The history of liberty is the history of the limitations placed on the government… Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance.” –Woodrow Wilson
THE TOO-MUCH-AMMO MYTH
When I get to the part that deals with criminals you let me know.
Liberals and their kind what to stop people from having enough ammunition (or basically any). We see more ammo as a safety net, they see it as a scourge, danger, a mindset we’re not likely to change, since their reaction is not based on reason, it is hoplophobic, and needs medical attention, not debate.
They attack personal ammo supplies as private arsenals, as if that’s something bad. No one needs an arsenal, they’ll tell you. If you have that much ammo you need an arsenal license, which they have to issue, and it costs a lot, if issued at all. Anything more than 100 shells is an arsenal, and obviously more than any person needs at one time.
The whole concept is such a display of ignorance, the ignorance itself is of mythical proportions. Hold that plan up to the light of liberty and it darkens the room.
Americans who are into firearms, scores of millions of people, typically own more than one gun, everyone knows that. Gunless people are stunned by this simple fact, but go figure—if all you have is one rifle, one shotgun and one sidearm, that’s three right there. A hundred rounds for each and you need to set aside space for your stash. If you keep some cheap practice ammo for each plus some quality stuff for serious sport or home defense, you’re already at 600 rounds and we haven’t started. Leftists want a special tax and regulations for this constitutionally protected private property, seriously?
A carry gun is different from the one in your nightstand, a .22 for target practice and a serious caliber, each spouse might have different choices, if you burn through 100 rounds at practice then owning 200 is not unreasonable—you can easily get this count well into the thousands before you consider stockpiling for emergencies. It’s not an arsenal, it’s a larder. A candidate for office once told me it’s good practice to keep extra in case your neighbors need some.
It is only to uneducated and fearful, blindly gun-hating people that thousands of rounds of ammo sounds terrifyingly dangerous. A simple brick pack of .22s—which used to go on sale for ten bucks before the early Obama scares doubled and tripled prices—is 500 rounds. It was easy to pick up a few bricks on sale and keep them around, use them as gifts, find a place to put them with all the other ammo that admittedly put weight stress on the floor some apartment dwellers had legit worries about.
The ignorant fears shine in the strangest places. I saw Rachel Maddow grimace on her marginal cable station when she heard a city council member had used a shell as a gavel to call for order. She nearly plotzed, fearing the shell might “go off” from tapping on the table, so tiny was her understanding of how these horrible little things work. Her relief was palpable when she learned it was a spent casing the fellow used. You could almost hear her few viewers breathe a sigh of relief with her. A better argument for abandoning gun-education censorship in the unionized government school system could hardly be invented.
We’re still not up to where the real trouble starts—and we haven’t gotten to where criminals are involved, have we? (Criminals can’t have any ammo under all current law.) The people pushing the arsenals-are-dangerous myth—because they’re afraid of you (not arsenals)—they are, and use, “government” to implement their will.
To the degree government wants to consider taking your powder and ball, under any pretext, it is the identical problem that started this nation’s revolution. The government that doesn’t trust you with your guns, and wants to take them, all at once or incrementally, that is what’s ripe for removal.
If a law gets passed that says you can’t have the ammo you have, or as much as you deem necessary, while the government can have all it desires, well friend, the definition of tyranny is then met and all bets are off. This isn’t a myth. This is a bright red line.
https://www.gunsamerica.com/blog/korwin-home-arsenal-myth-dangerous-myth/
It’s absurd for anyone to think that having a large stash of ammo, or a sizeable gun collection, is a sign that someone is planning to commit a massacre.
How many weapons can a person wield at once? If I own multiple ARs and AKs, how does that make me more of a threat to the public than someone who owns just one rifle? And what’s the maximum amount of ammo (of sufficient power for anti-personnel use) that an individual can carry? If someone is planning a massacre, it makes little difference if he owns 2000 rounds or 50,000. And 2000 rounds isn’t very much at all for a high-volume shooter who goes through a few hundred rounds every time he hits the range.
Besides, it makes perfect sense to stockpile ammo. It’s a safeguard against future regulation, bans, shortages, and price increases. It ensures that you’ll have plenty if the SHTF, and preferably a surplus to share with friends or to trade for other commodities. It’s nice to have multiple guns, too, preferably multiple copies of proven models.
By the way, in response to the author’s mention of “liberals”: the problem isn’t (just) liberals, progressives, or whatever you want to call that crowd. The problem is authoritarianism of all kinds. “Conservatives” who worship the police and military, who care more about “law and order” than about justice, who think “Islamic terrorism” is the principal threat to this country, and who scoff at the Bill of Rights (except for the Second Amendment), are every bit as noxious as the leftists.
“The history of liberty is the history of the limitations placed on the government… Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance.”
–Woodrow Wilson
Wonder if he said that prior to or after signing away the remaining sovereignty of the USA
“If a law gets passed that says you can’t have the ammo you have, or as much as you deem necessary, while the government can have all it desires, well friend, the definition of tyranny is then met and all bets are off. This isn’t a myth. This is a bright red line.’
And you talk about liberals.
That ‘bright red line’ was crossed with the VERY FIRST INFRINGEMENT BACK IN THE ’30s!!!
SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED! PERIOD!!!
WELL SAID
Rather than argue each specific point that gun-grabbers raise, you might settle a lot of debates quickly by reminding them that the American people have a civic duty to defend their country from all enemies, foreign or domestic.
We’re SUPPOSED to have military weapons and tons of ammo. We may have to fight off invading foreign armies, or our own, and it’s always been the duty of an American to be ready for exactly that.
The armed population is part of our system of checks and balances that’s been overlooked, and attacked with propaganda, but I think people are starting to remember it.