Earlier this week, the city of Boulder, Colorado was struck by a heinous shooting which left 10 people dead, with the suspect being shot in the leg and arrested at the scene.
 
Practically as soon as reports of the shooting came out, Leftists dove headfirst into blaming white people and specifically “white supremacy”, even though hardly anything about the shooting had been known. This is likely because just last week, there was a shooting in Atlanta, Georgia which was perpetrated by a sex-addicted white male against Asian people (though the shooter claims he was not setting out to specifically kill Asians). The Left picked up that story and ran with “white supremacy” claims in a desperate and fruitless effort to divorce themselves from their own history of being white supremacists.
 
Similarly, they began making all sorts of assumptions relating to this shooting in Colorado.
 
They especially pushed those assumptions when reports were released that the suspect had been apprehended at the scene, which the Left took to mean was a practical confirmation of the shooter being white because in Leftist looney world, white people get preferential treatment even when committing heinous crimes and that only white people get arrested after performing a shooting, while members of other races get shot at and killed at the scene.
 
But as it turned out, the shooter wasn’t white; he was actually Muslim and born in Syria, though has lived in the United States for most of his life.
 
Law enforcement reportedly told Laura Loomer that the guy had sworn allegiance to ISIS and that the Biden administration reportedly gave “orders to keep it under wraps to avoid conversation in the media about Islamic terrorism and reversal of Trump’s travel ban, which the terrorist was opposed to,” Loomer revealed on her Telegram channel.
 
She is so far the only source to claim this, so it is unknown if it is true, but going by Leftist rules of assigning motive when motive is unknown, why would there be a problem with labeling the guy a terrorist?
 
To begin with, the guy was a Leftist himself and blamed “racism” for Trump’s 2016 election victory. He also reportedly bullied other students while in high school, believing that they had been racist to him and would reportedly threaten them with filing hate crime charges against them to coerce them into silence, according to National File.
 
All the victims of the shooting were also white and there are reports that he was targeting Christians and Trump supporters, so one could just as easily slap him with the label of domestic Islamic terrorist as the Left tried to do with the Atlanta shooter.
 
But as soon as it was revealed that the shooter wasn’t white but was, in fact, a Muslim and possible ISIS-sympathizing terrorist, the Left’s narrative shifted away from “this is a white domestic terrorist” to “this is the fault of white people for wanting to keep their guns” even though law-abiding citizens will, by definition, not do this kind of crap.
 
Republican strategist Caleb Hull had actually compiled a list of statements and claims from Leftists about the identity of the shooter before it was revealed he was Muslim, with all of them going with the assumption that it was just an “angry white man” who “hates women” and whatever else.
 
Once it was revealed that he was Muslim, some shifted to just “mourning” the victims of the shooting whom they had just politically exploited and would have continued to politically exploit had the shooter actually been white.
 
Amy Siskind, far-Left nutjob activist, tweeted before learning the guy was Muslim: “The shooter is was [sic] taken into custody. In other words it was almost certainly a white man (again). If he were Black or Brown he would be dead.”
 
But after learning the guy was Muslim, Siskind tweeted the following: “Let’s mourn the victims, but not glorify the killer with the attention of having his name widely known.”
 
Generally, I would agree with that last statement, which is why I won’t be sharing his name, but let’s not pretend that the ONLY reason she is saying this is because the shooter has an Arab name. She wants people to not blame the death cult of Islam following the revelation that the shooter is a Muslim with an Arab name and was born in Syria, and instead implores that we simply “mourn the victims” whom she was politically exploiting in her previous tweet to attack white people (ironic, given that all of the shooter’s victims were white).
 
Somewhat similar to the Orlando night club shooting perpetrated by a radical Islamic terrorist whom had been confirmed to have sworn allegiance to ISIS, the Left wants to focus not on the identity of the perpetrator but on the method of killing. They want to target and enslave people by taking away their guns, so they pretend as though AR-15s are a massive threat and that people shouldn’t have the right or ability to own such guns.
 
As a result, Occupier Biden and Democrats in Congress are looking to institute more ineffective gun control (but not before eliminating the filibuster first so that they can impose all kinds of far-Left crap to further cement their power) that will only lead to more such shootings, not lessen them, and will only victimize more Americans than save them.
 
Often times, when such a shooting happens, the Left argues “what if gun control saves just one life?” The thing is that gun control ENDS lives and is more likely to do so the heavier it is enforced. Multiple times, I have shared with you the statistics for Defensive Gun Use (DGUs) and how those uses of guns are FAR more prevalent than offensive and criminal use of guns.
 
Hundreds of thousands to millions of people are saved every year because they are able to use their guns in a defensive manner. Gun control doesn’t stop criminals from owning guns or using them, because by definition, criminals don’t follow the law.
 
I would go further into this argument but we all know that the reason the Left is looking for more gun control measures isn’t to stifle gun-related crimes or shootings of this sort. They LOVE it when shootings like this happen because they get the opportunity to talk about how “dangerous” guns are and how people shouldn’t be allowed to have them and institute policy which would further disarm the populace they want to have complete control over.
 
In a recent article, I pointed out how the Second Amendment still serves as some amount of check against tyranny. This is true because the single best way for tyrants to reign is if their populace is completely defenseless and at the mercy of the government. Venezuelans got rid of their guns and are now wishing they still had them; instead, they have to live in destitution which will not end unless their government is unrealistically merciful and undoes the decades of socialism that they have implemented.
 
Germans got rid of their guns during the Nazi regime and we all know what happened then.
 
Tyrants love for nothing more than for their subjects to be at their complete mercy. Leftists are tyrannical by ideological nature and love any and all opportunities to target the biggest check there is against them: people’s right to bear arms.
 
So they implement more and more gun control laws, call them “common sense” and when they don’t deliver the promised results, they claim that it’s because “we haven’t gone far enough” in that direction. And so they brainwash people more and more into believing that “common sense gun laws” include less and less gun rights until no one is allowed to own guns, apart from those at the top, of course, whom are always protected by the very guns they don’t want YOU to be able to own.
 
But in any case, it is interesting seeing the Left with egg on their face when they make wild assumptions and accusations based on political narratives and seeing them having to backtrack on those things (though some still adhere to the idea that white people and white men specifically are all dangerous).
 
Shame on them for using the victims to try to score political points. Heartless monsters, Leftists are.
 
Isaiah 48:22
“’There is no peace,’ says the Lord, ‘for the wicked.’”

Like I said in my first article since the first day of election month (Nov. 3rd), it is pretty obvious that polls are not to be trusted. Granted, I have said this plenty more times before then, really since around 2016 when the polls showed Hillary would win that election but Trump ended up winning, but the point remains that there is no doubt in mind that polls are not in any way accurate.
 
Similarly, I suspect the same of a recent Gallup poll which shows that support for stricter gun laws are at their lowest level since 2016.
 
57% of respondents said that they would prefer stricter gun laws than what we currently have, which like I just said, is a four-year low. The record low was in 2012 when just 43% said they wanted stricter gun control laws, and was actually a point lower than the amount of people who wanted gun laws to remain as they were. It went back up to 58% following the Sandy Hook shooting and the most recent high was of 67% support back in 2018, likely following the Parkland shooting.
 
34% currently support maintaining gun laws as they are and 9% support less strict gun control laws.
 
Gallup reports that they had “been tracking the public’s views on this measure since 1990, when a record-high 78% of Americans supported stricter laws for gun sales as the nation’s crime rate was rising. A majority of Americans held that position until 2008.”
 
Support for handgun bans also remains low, at around 25%. This makes some sense because even liberals who support AR-15 bans and such express support for people owning handguns (largely because they ascertain that “you don’t need an AR-15 to defend yourself or your home,” despite the fact that AR-15s are very efficient at that).
 
However, even despite the numbers that we see throughout the poll, I can’t help but think about how every single other poll about roughly every other topic suffers from the oversampling of Democrats and undersampling of Republicans in order to skew results, and I can’t help but think about how this poll could also be suffering from the same thing.
 
While Gallup included a demographic of gun owners, with 57% saying they wanted gun laws to remain as they are and 17% want less strict gun laws, I doubt they surveyed an equal amount of gun owners and non-gun owners.
 
And I’m not just talking about this recent poll, either. I begin to call into question every other result from this poll beginning from 1990, as well as the results of just about every other poll.
 
A recent NRA-ILA article pointed out the following:
 
“Economist John Lott contends that many Americans refuse to answer or do not answer truthfully when asked about whether they own a firearm… Lott noted ‘current events influence people’s willingness to acknowledge gun ownership. After mass shootings, a sudden drop can be seen in the polling numbers.’ Wake Forest Professor of Sociology David Yamane shares Lott’s belief that inaccurate polling systematically underestimates gun ownership in the U.S. In a 2019 piece… Yamane laid out the case for systematic underreporting and provided a bevy of reasons why gun owners would be reluctant to be truthful with pollsters. The professor noted, ‘My educated guess is that the underestimate is at least 10%, that 25% would not be an unreasonable amount, and more than 25% is likely.”
 
This does not surprise me in the least bit, since I can point to many polls which likely have this happen, where a surveyor refuses to answer a question because they do not wish to receive any backlash or will actually lie for the same reasons.
 
Remember that article about the Oakland residents both exclaiming support for “defund the police” and expressing that they wish for the police force to either remain the same or increase in numbers? That poll, like I talked about in the article, is most easily and perhaps logically explained by the sort of phenomenon that likely plagues a lot of other polls including this one: people lying to pollsters about what they believe.
 
Especially in Oakland, if it’s discovered that one does not support the “defund the police” movement, they are likely to face some sort of retribution from a number of people. Likewise, I suspect plenty of people fear showing themselves to either be gun owners or be in support of gun ownership, so they lie to the pollsters about their true beliefs.
 
Since this can reasonably be expected from these recent polls, it’s hard to tell if all other polls are equally flawed. Who knows, maybe back in 1990, when the high was at 78%, that was not a true result. Maybe a lot of people had fear of retribution back then as well and did not want to express support for gun ownership or for less strict gun laws. And as Lott noted, after a shooting, the amount of people who say they own guns drops dramatically because they do not want to be persecuted against or associated with the shooter(s).
 
It’s hard to tell because the overall American culture back in 1990, as far as I can tell (given the fact that I both had not been in the U.S. yet nor anywhere in the world), was a tad more openly tolerant of right-wing beliefs, even if many did not agree with them. The idea that people could suffer backlash for having a differing opinion was not yet present, as far as I know, since cancel culture was not really around back then, all that much.
 
Again, I could be wrong about that, but the point remains that I really don’t know if any results whatsoever, from just about any time period, could be considered trustworthy. Even if people were more open with their beliefs back then because they did not fear backlash, it could still be that polls were still systematically skewed by the pollsters through oversampling of Democrats or undersampling of Republicans (or both).
 
After all, it’s not like the politics of certain people in the media were hidden even decades ago. For crying out loud, they called Al Gore “President-elect” before the state of Florida had stopped counting, just because he was a Democrat!
 
So I begin to call into question whether or not any survey result from the last few decades is even close to accurate. I wouldn’t be surprised, in the least bit, if the number of people who support less strict gun control laws is considerably higher than even the number of people who support stricter gun control laws. Considering that this year has seen some of the highest gun purchase rates in a long time, I cannot be at all inclined to believe most people support stricter gun control laws than what currently are in the books.

I can buy that Gallup saw a dip in the numbers, but I suspect the dip is far bigger than what is advertised.
 
Psalm 37:2
“For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.”

Something I have noted for a very long time now is that the Left is loud, but in the minority when it comes to almost all of the issues and things that they support. They believe, foolishly, that the vast majority of the country thinks like them and wants what they want, when reality couldn’t be further from that idea.
 
And today, we see more proof of that in a few different ways.
 
Following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, the radical Left has demanded that American cities across the country defund, dismantle and abolish their police departments, with no real replacements for those departments being discussed because it is a monumentally stupid idea and there is no replacing them with anything less deadly.
 
This wildly dangerous idea has led people to fear for their safety, believing the push to abolish police is real (which it is) and people are picturing a world in which there are no police to protect them (and no, most people do not view police as a direct threat to their lives. Most people view police as good with a few bad apples, not as completely bad).
 
So it’s not surprising at all to see the FBI reporting record gun sales and background checks happening.
 
According to the Washington Post: “The new coronavirus pandemic, civil unrest after the killing of George Floyd and the ensuing movement to defund police are bringing in new buyers worried about their personal safety, according to buyers, store owners and gun experts. In June, background checks for firearms were up 136%, compared to a year earlier… background checks in June for civilians seeking a license to carry were the highest since the FBI began conducting checks 20 years ago.”
 
According to the FBI, 3,931,607 background checks were processed last month, beating the previous record of 3,740,688, which was set back in March, when the country largely began to shut down and local governments in many places began to employ draconian measures.
 
The WaPo further reports that dealers estimate roughly 40% of sales being from first-time buyers, which is “an increase over the normal average of about a quarter”, and that many new buyers “are people who say they never thought they would own a firearm and were previously critical of those who did.”
 
A gun buyer told the WaPo: “I don’t want to ever shoot anybody ever. But if I had to duck and shoot back in self-defense, at least I’d have a chance.” This is a good mentality to have surrounding guns, that just about everyone who owns a gun doesn’t ever want to have to actually use it against someone else, but it’s better if we have a gun than if we don’t.
 
For law-abiding citizens who purchase guns, we do so with the hope that we never come across the situation where it becomes necessary to use the guns against an assailant or someone threatening our lives and the lives of our loved ones, but with the understanding that it’s better to prepare for such a situation and having a gun to defend ourselves with than being in such a situation and being totally defenseless.
 
Another first-time gun buyer was a man named John Kingdon, who is a registered Democrat and has advocated for gun control in the past. He told the WaPo he purchased a semi-automatic handgun a couple of months ago, admitting that “if I had a hard time getting police to respond to me when we weren’t in a pandemic, what about now?”
 
And that is another worry for plenty of people: that in the event where one’s life is threatened, police would not show up in time to help. The average response time for a 911 call is 10 minutes. It might not seem like a lot in the grand scheme of things, but when one is faced with an extremely dangerous situation in which calling 911 is necessary, 10 minutes can feel like an absolute eternity, and a LOT of things can happen in such a relatively large amount of time.
 
For most people, it wouldn’t take robbers 10 minutes to go through their house, potentially finding them hiding in the closet or bathroom while on the phone with the police. And if they are found calling someone, the chances of death are considerably increased. Most robbers don’t necessarily intend to kill people, but many are at the very least willing and able to do so if they believe they have to in order to escape safely.
 
Of course, they would eventually be found and charged with murder, but robbers usually aren’t the smartest of individuals.
 
Regardless, the point remains that 10 minutes is far too long of a response time in normal circumstances, let alone during a pandemic and a political climate in which police are demonized and have plenty of reason for morale to be extremely low.
 
At any rate, it’s not just first-time gun buyers and record-setting gun purchases that are pushing back against Leftist narratives.
 
In New York City, members of the African-American community are asking for the NYPD to reinstate the recently-dismantled anti-crime units – units of police officers dressed in plainclothes who deal with getting illegal guns off the streets – following a massive rise in violent crime in the city.
 
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, who is, himself, a former police officer, “became the second member of the African-American community to call on the NYPD to stop the violence by re-instituting the Anti-Crime Unit… This, as shootings for the week went up 277%, 49 compared to 13 in 2019. The number of victims is up 253%, 60 compared to 17 in 2019,” according to CBS New York.
 
Adams said: “I think that a total elimination is something we need to reevaluate. Right now, bad guys are saying if you don’t see a blue and white you can do whatever you want.”
 
Activist Tony Herbert told CBS New York that he agreed with Adams, saying: “we have a 1-year-old and the blood is on the hands of the mayor and the state Legislature.”
 
Violence is up massively in the city, and AOC tried to explain it away saying that it was because people were “scared to pay their rent” or because they just needed some “bread.”
 
That is an extremely asinine response to a very serious situation, though I can’t exactly expect AOC to be the voice of reason anywhere she goes. I doubt there even is a voice of reason inside her head.
 
But despite the extremely stupid “reasoning” from AOC, people want safety to return, not radical communist ideology that threatens their very safety with the abolition of the police.
 
People want to be safe, whether it comes in the form of purchasing a firearm for personal safety, or in the form of reinstating effective police units to battle crime running rampant in the city.
 
Unsurprisingly, Leftists are blaming guns and the 2nd Amendment for the violent crimes, even as the crimes themselves prove not only the value but the NECESSITY of the 2nd Amendment and guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens for the purposes of personal safety (and the crimes are only happening with this frequency due to the anti-cop rhetoric and the Democrat cities slashing cop funding).
 
You cannot have both a defunct police department and extreme gun control to the point of banning firearms completely. In such a city, a crime-lord would have more authority than the mayor himself, and no one would be safe apart from the people with the guns (and in such a city, only the bad guys would have the guns).
 
Everyone wants to be safe. The Left pushing for policies that run directly against people’s safety is not exactly a winning ticket.
 
Psalm 4:8
“In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.”

Over these last few days, many American cities, particularly Democrat-owned cities, have been practical warzones with endless cases of looting, arson, vandalism, assaults and even a few murders here and there.
 
Given all the destruction and chaos we have witnessed over social media, television, etc., I cannot help but thank the Lord for our 2nd Amendment rights. I mean, good grief, if there ever was a better reason to own a gun, it is this insanity.
 
Amidst this chaos, we have seen people looting and burning businesses. But not just any businesses. The businesses that these animals have been looting and destroying all have one thing in common: they were not being protected by armed people.
 
Take for example a place called Corbo’s Italian Bakery, located in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. The rioters very well could have ransacked the place for its food or just burned it to the ground. However, two armed individuals made sure that there would be no looting or pillaging of the store. That place was not ransacked and razed to the ground precisely BECAUSE of armed people protecting it.
 
Those two individuals are doing good work. Better than some police departments, too. I have seen some attempts by law enforcement to quell the riots, but clearly they are being rather ineffective (not everywhere, of course). Matter of fact, Raleigh Police Chief recently said: “I will not put an officer in harms way to protect the property inside of a building.”
 
In other words, you’re on your own. While no one would disagree that a person's life is more valuable than property, it is the job of the police to protect both life AND property. We are not asking her to send "an officer", implying only one. We are asking her to send however many officers it takes to make sure PEOPLE'S BUSINESSES AREN'T RUINED AND THEIR LIVES DESTROYED AS A RESULT! THAT is the job of the police, otherwise they are not worth the tax money we pay them.
 
Your business could be facing a massive threat, be it via people looting it AT BEST or people outright setting it on fire, supposedly as a means to “honor” George Floyd. The police won’t be there to stop them, that much is clear. The police won’t protect your business. You have to do it yourself and you sure as heck are not going to be able to do it with words of “peace” or whatever liberal nonsense one might try. You’re not going to convince rioters not to destroy your business because you are also outraged at Floyd’s death; they don’t care about George Floyd, else they would not be doing this. You’re not going to convince them not to destroy your business if you tell them you are their “ally” or are also “progressive,” as Left-wing news outlets like CNN have also been attacked. Not even a knife or a melee weapon would be enough to stop them, since the rioters are generally equipped with such weapons of their own.
 
The only thing standing in the way of these savages and your business is you and your ability to wield and use, if necessary, a gun. A big one would be preferable, and one that intimidates people. These people are ANTIFA, after all, and they scare easily at the sight of a gun that looks scary. An AR-15 would be pretty ideal.
 
But considering the gun control legislations in place, it can be difficult for one to acquire a gun to protect themselves or their business. Why else do you think that these riots have occurred pretty strictly in Democrat-controlled cities, counties, states, etc.? And why even in red states like Georgia and Texas, these riots have only occurred in blue cities and counties?
 
John Nolte from Breitbart put it best: “Antifa knows Democrats are cucks who will allow them to riot. Antifa knows Democrat-run cities have gun control laws that ensure you remain defenseless… Antifa knows you’re stupid enough to vote for the same Democrats who coddle them, who fund them, who aid and abet them by looking the other way (clearly talking about the Democrat voters who live in the Democrat cities that have riots going on). Antifa knows you’re stupid enough to vote for Democrats who disarm you so you cannot defend your family or business. Antifa knows you’re stupid enough to vote for Democrats who arrest people who go to church in their car but not the predominantly white left-wing Antifa thugs who loot and burn black neighborhoods (because white Democrats have been looting and burning black America since Reconstruction).”
 
In sum, Antifa is rioting in cities that they KNOW won’t put up much resistance. The ONLY reason they were successful in destroying Minneapolis’ 3rd police precinct is because they knew that the city’s limp-stick, Trudeau-Chinese-knockoff mayor would order the police to allow them to do it. When they attack any other police station that is allowed to fight back, they get quickly taken down and they don’t try the same stupidity again.
 
Moral of the story is that when people are allowed to fight back, the insane and violent people in the world tend to screw off. They know perfectly well that if a particular target of theirs is armed and is not afraid to fight back/doesn’t have orders to stand down, that person is not one that they should target or try anything with.
 
Wherever these insane and dangerous people meet resistance, particularly of the lethal weapon variety, they tend to be a bit more cautious. They want to riot, destroy and kill, if they can get away with it, but they won’t risk their lives in the process.

Of course, there are those who are just insane enough to get a gun themselves and open fire on people, such as in Oakland, California, where a BLACK police officer was shot and killed last Friday night (I guess his black life didn’t matter) and a second officer was reportedly wounded as well. But that only further demonstrates We the People’s need to be able to defend ourselves.
 
These people are bad guys and they are particularly threatening and scary when they are the ones with guns. Few of them do, but still, they are too dangerous to be allowed to do this sort of thing. Gun control law doesn’t keep bad guys from getting guns, it only keeps good, law-abiding citizens from getting them.
 
And such gun control laws show some of their horrible effects in these rioting cities, which generally feature gun-control-heavy laws and police officers being told to stand down to one extent or another.
 
These last few days have utterly butchered the Leftist idea that “you don’t need a gun” because “the police will be there to help you.” That was never true before, but that talking point was utterly annihilated these days. The only person you can ever trust with your life and your safety is yourself, and that comes through the means of arming oneself.
 
Even assuming that there aren’t a LOT of bad apples in police departments (and I’m not just talking about racist cops, since a WaPo database shows that, out of 41 unarmed people who were shot and killed by police, 19 were white, 9 were black, 6 were Hispanic, 4 were other and 3 were unknown, so police brutality extends past race), the idea that calling the police is all you need to protect yourself would be laughable if the subject matter weren’t so serious. Often times, the cops aren’t there on time.
 
Sometimes they might be, sometimes they might be nearby or inside a store being robbed, or something, but the average police response time in the U.S. is TEN MINUTES, according to American Police Beat (ignore the unfortunate name). Police can’t realistically be everywhere and help everyone. In the case of an emergency, where you need prompt action, you simply CANNOT rely on the police to handle everything for you.
 
For example, if your home were to be intruded and you weren’t armed, you stand the risk of losing your life. Most people would seek some sort of hiding place, like a bedroom closet or a bathroom, etc. However, unless you are living by yourself in a massive mansion (and such places are usually well-guarded by people with GUNS), it’s only a matter of time before you’re found out, at which point you are at the mercy of less-than-reputable individuals.
 
In high-stress situations, ten minutes feel like an eternity and a lot can happen. Only the fortunate ones live through such experiences without being discovered.
 
The police simply cannot be one’s lone lifeline in case of an emergency. There is a reason it is a RIGHT for people to protect themselves and their property. When someone kills another person, if it is proven that it was in self-defense, the “killer” is allowed to walk because they were being attacked and they have the right to defend themselves.
 
Guns are the means through which millions of Americans rightfully and justly defend themselves and their families and property. I can guarantee that if each of the places that were looted and/or burned had armed guards posted on them, be it a small mom-and-pop shop or even Target itself, rioters would think twice about causing mayhem there.
 
The police, even when allowed to work uninhibited, can only do so much to help even when they want to.
 
So I don’t want to hear anyone on the Left tell me that I don’t “need” guns because this past weekend has PROVEN otherwise. I need any and all kinds of guns. I need as much ammo as I possibly can have for them. I need to be able to defend myself from clearly disturbed individuals who have little to lose other than their lives and would love nothing more than to see my own end in an instant.
 
The gun control debate is over. Forever.
 
Psalm 144:1
“Of David. Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle.”

Many, many times throughout these years writing articles, I have alluded to the idea that the Left often lives in a bubble of their own, where they reject objective reality and substitute it with their own subjective version of it as they deem fit. However, never has that been more clear (apart from the times when people actually think Trump is like Hitler) than recently, as the Wuhan virus has driven many people to purchase guns for their own safety should things go south (which I doubt will happen at all).
 
Interestingly enough, the socialist “nation-state” of California is where we are seeing a massive rise in gun sales.
 
A good chunk of those people are first-time gun buyers and many of them are liberals. How can one tell? Well, according to RedState, the recent gun buyers are “shocked to discover they can’t just walk out of the store with a gun.”
 
Why are they shocked? Because the Left indoctrinates people into believing it is easier to purchase a gun than it is to, say, buy a car, or own a dog or get a house, etc. Liberals believe it when their favorite Hollywood actor/actress or favorite Twitter celebrity tells the lie about how easy it is to buy a gun. They believe that people can just walk into a gun store, take some money out, tell the retailer what gun they want and how much ammo they want, and can walk out of there, gun in hand, loaded and with extra clips or magazines in their pockets.
 
They believe it when Leftists say that America has extremely lax gun control laws and that that is the reason for having so many shootings and gun deaths. But reality is far different and, as I have said plenty of times in the past, one cannot live in constant relativism when it comes to truth. The reality of gun laws was going to hit these liberals at one point or another if they ever sought to buy a gun. They would realize what lengths people have to go (depending on the state, of course) to buy guns.
 
In California, the state with some of the strictest gun control laws in the country, it takes 10 days at a minimum to get a gun after having filled a lot of paperwork, and can only buy one handgun every 30 days.
 
RedState had an interview with a California gun retailer noting these situations. The retailer noted that the first-time buyers did not seem to have much of a grasp on gun safety, seemingly having only taken queues from television about guns:
 
“We tried to look at just who the new firearm purchasers were and we believe that more than 60% of these individuals were first time buyers. I can’t describe the amount of fear in my staff as we had the buyers show proof of safe handling as part of the purchase as required by law. You have never seen so many barrels pointed at sales staff and other customers. It was truly frightening. We had to keep stopping the process to give quick safety lessons. We are adding many more basic classes in the coming weeks and encouraged these buyers to please attend. We hope they do.”
 
Can’t say that I’m particularly surprised that they do not know how to handle guns safely, nor seem to have much problem pointing guns at staff and customers. It reminds me of an idiot journalist who playfully aimed a gun at his cameraman just to mess with him or “look cool” or something. They honestly do believe gun owners have guns not to protect themselves but to look cool in front of our friends or to “substitute masculinity” or to just shoot at anything or anyone they see at any point. Anti-gun liberals have no respect for guns or gun owners, so they do not realize the importance of gun safety. They do really think it’s basically just a toy, even if it can be deadly, and treat it as such.
 
But at any rate, for the gun retailer, he saw a slew of these liberal, first-time gun buyers being shocked and angered at the rules they had to follow.
 
“More than a dozen of these buyers (men and women) actually thought that since they filled out and signed everything, they could just walk out and go home with the firearm. Several actually said they saw how easy it was to buy a gun on TV and why did they have to fill out all these forms.”
 
“The majority of these first timers lost their minds when we went through the Ammo Law requirements. Most used language not normally heard, even in a gun range. We pointed out that since no one working here voted for these laws, then maybe they might know someone who did. And, maybe they should go back and talk to those people and tell them to re-think their position on firearms – we were trying to be nice.”
 
“Most were VERY vocal about why it takes 10 days minimum (sometimes longer if the DOJ is backed up) to take their property home with them. They ask why do I need to wait 10 days if I need the protection today or tomorrow? We pointed out again that no one working here voted in support of that law.”
 
“They really went crazy when we told them that for each firearm they had to do the same amount of paperwork and they could only purchase ONE handgun every 30 days…”
 
“We had people cuss at us and stomp out when we explained that secondary identification had to be part of the paperwork, as they felt insulted that what they had wasn’t good enough. We have a number of Yelp reviews calling us names and other things about how bad we are because of this whole new buyer rush.”
 
Again, the Left indoctrinates people into believing a narrative that suits them. The narrative here is that we have lax gun control laws and they are to blame for gun deaths and shootings, so we need more and stricter gun control laws. Those who do not own guns or even hate them agree with implementing these laws (not knowing we already have them) until they themselves feel the need to buy a gun, at which point they are faced with the reality they had previously advocated for: heavy gun regulations impeding their ability to buy a gun quickly and easily. All of a sudden, it becomes a problem that it’s not easy to get a gun.
 
I hope many of these people who were advocates of “common sense” gun control realize how little sense it makes for someone to have to wait 10 or more days to take their own gun home, or how little sense it makes to limit the amount of ammo one can have or limit the amount of guns one could purchase at any one time.
 
Because the reality is that places like California have extremely strict gun control laws. Most liberals will never know because they don’t care to go buy a gun so they don’t know how hard it is to get one. So when we see a surge like this, it’s not surprising to see many of these people shocked that the fantasy of being able to walk into a gun store and buy a gun with little to no paperwork filled or background checks done is just that, a fantasy.
 
How many times have we seen an idiotic “journalist” try to “make a point” about how “easy” it is to buy a gun by going into a gun store only to then find out that they can’t actually just take a gun home with them immediately?
 
These liberals believed for a long time that the entire country’s gun laws were pretty much strictly placed by Congress, believed that such laws are few and far between and that people can get a gun any time and anywhere. I mean, people honestly believe that one can buy a gun online and have it delivered to their home like it’s an Amazon package!
 
The narrative from the Left has long been that guns are easy to get and that, as a result, we need extremely strict gun control laws. I believe this is the reason so many liberals say “no one’s coming to take your guns”. They don’t know the gun laws that currently exist and don’t know that much more gun control in the books and we basically don’t have a Second Amendment anymore.
 
If these liberal, first-time gun buyers want to be angry at anyone, it should be at the California lawmakers for passing these strict gun control laws in the first place. Unfortunately, it seems some did not get the message, if those Yelp reviews are any indication. If anyone is to blame for people not being able to get guns so easily, potentially leaving some of these people in danger (waiting periods are extremely stressful and dangerous for plenty of people, as they might need a gun but gun laws prevented them from getting one on time), it’s the Democrats in California who can pass pretty much whatever gun control legislation they want.
 
I hope and pray that the vast majority of these first-time gun buyers realize that the reason they couldn’t get a gun quicker or more easily is because of the insane gun control laws in place and because of the insane Democrats who specifically do not want an armed populace to threaten their rule.
 
Proverbs 14:18
“The simple inherit folly, but the prudent are crowned with knowledge.”

Liberty is once again the victor against tyranny, as Virginia senators voted against instituting an “assault weapons” ban that Gov. “Coonman” had been clamoring for for a while now.
 
The AP reports: “Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s push to ban the sale of assault weapons has failed after members of his own party balked at the proposal. Senators voted to shelve the bill for the year and ask the state crime commission to study the issue, an outcome that drew cheers from a committee room packed with gun advocates. Four moderate Democrats joined Republicans in Monday’s committee vote, rejecting legislation that would have prohibited the sale of certain semiautomatic firearms, including popular AR-15 style rifles, and banned the possession of magazines that hold more than 12 rounds. The bill was a top priority for Northam, a Democrat who has campaigned heavily for a broad package of gun-control measures.”
 
A few things to say about this.
 
First, the bill technically is not completely dead. Like the report said, the senators voted to shelve it for the year, deciding to run a study to determine whether or not such a ban would be beneficial to the state (it wouldn’t be, at all, but we shall see what the study decides to say). So this is, by no means, the end of the story. Virginia Democrats will be irate at this (as will other Democrats in general) and will seek to bring this sort of thing back if they have the chance to do so.
 
Which brings me to the second thing: this particular bill, as it is currently put together, is more than likely dead for good. I know that sounds contradictory to what I just said, particularly in saying that it’s technically not completely dead, but I have good reason to say this. While Democrats are, obviously, vowing that they will try again in 2021, Sheriff Scott Jenkins believes the bill “will die”, largely because 2021 is an election year for Virginia, one of only two states in the country (the other being New Jersey) where state elections happen in off years.
 
If you remember, I covered the latest Virginia state elections to some extent (alongside Kentucky and Mississippi). It was in the 2019 state elections when Democrats took complete, though fairly narrow, control over the state legislature, with Democrats having won 21 out of 40 total seats in the House of Delegates and 53 out of 100 seats in the Senate. Again, narrow, but a majority nonetheless.
 
So when this “assault weapons” ban began to be brewed up, we honestly expected it to go through with little problem. After all, Democrats tend to be unified, right? They never stray from the collective, never dissent and never disagree, right? Well, the Democrats don’t seem to be as perfectly unified as the mainstream media would have us believe, and this clearly goes well beyond the circus that is the Democrat Primary process.
 
The idea behind the bill is still alive, as Democrats will always attempt to take away our rights, especially as it pertains to our right to self defense and gun ownership, but the particular bill will not likely be passed in a year, regardless of what the study will indicate.
 
Which brings me to my third point, the four “moderate” Democrats that voted against the “assault weapons” ban. I will give them credit for having voted this way, as I will give credit wherever it’s due. But they are not “moderates” by far. According to Hot Air: “These ‘moderate’ Democrats all voted for the ‘Virginia Values Act,” a bill which “will give Virginia some of the nation’s most left-wing employment laws, and the $15 minimum wage, which will wipe out 100,000 plus jobs.”
 
What’s more, the “assault weapons” ban is not the only gun control bill being discussed in the state legislature. There is a bill that would limit handgun purchases to only one a month and there is a proposed “red-flag” law being considered. I don’t exactly expect Virginia Democrats to be divided on these things.
 
But there is definitely cause for celebration considering the “assault weapons” ban is pretty much dead and “Coonman” doesn’t get to play communist dictator in the state of Virginia. This is a major blow to the communists and the gun control lobby (but I repeat myself), considering the major headlines that came out of this bill.
 
Many people went out into the streets to protest this bill, voicing their desire and commitment to protect their Second Amendment rights. Even multiple counties and county sheriffs voiced their displeasure with the bill, saying that they would refuse to enforce that law and many counties outright stated they would become “sanctuary” counties for the Second Amendment, refusing to follow the state’s radical gun control laws should they pass.
 
And while the media, unsurprisingly, tried to characterize the people that attended that march as “racists” and that it had the potential to become “violent”, given the open carrying of guns in that march, nothing of the sort happened or even really had the potential for happening (point to me someone who would be willing to fire at a crowd of armed people and I will point you to the dumbest person in the world) and I believe some people took notice. This bill had the potential to be an absolute killer for the Democrat Party in Virginia.
 
The ONLY reason they won as many seats as they did in 2019 is because many of those seats were utterly uncontested. There were no Republican candidates to run against the Democrats, so naturally, the winners were the unopposed Democrats. If the Virginia GOP had any sort of spine, they wouldn’t have allowed any race to simply go to the Democrat and the state likely wouldn’t be where it is now. “Coonman” may still be governor (again, if the Virginia GOP had a spine, they would’ve destroyed Northam on his blatant racism and hypocrisy but never ran on this), but the legislature would most likely still be in Republican hands, even if it is a fairly slim majority like what the Democrats have now.
 
There isn’t much room for error in that legislature and if the people of Virginia are irate at them, they will voice that irritation both in the streets (as they clearly showed) and at the ballot box.
 
But for now, let us celebrate the victory of liberty over tyranny, knowing that the Second Amendment won’t take a massive blow in Virginia (for now). Let us also remain wary at the desires of the communist Democrats. They will not rest until the people of Virginia (and the people of this country) cannot protect themselves with guns. They won’t rest until the people are incapable of fighting against the authoritarianism these people wish to bring about.
 
Celebrate this victory but be ready to continue this fight.
 
Proverbs 16:12
“It is an abomination to kings to do evil, for the throne is established by righteousness.”

To no one’s surprise, Democrat presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg, who is, himself, protected 24/7 by an armed security detail, does not want you, the ordinary citizen, to be able to protect yourself. The privileged, old, rich, white male (as the Left would usually call someone like him) ran an ad during Super Bowl LIV making wild claims regarding “gun violence” while the ad does not even explain how any of Bloomberg’s policies would help the case at all. His sole aim was to demonize guns, the second amendment and, by proxy, anyone who supports it and owns guns themselves.
 
The one-minute ad exploits the tragedy of a woman who lost her son in a shooting in 2013 and makes the claim that “2,900 CHILDREN DIE FROM GUN VIOLENCE EVERY YEAR,” and, as you all know, yelling something immediately makes it true.
 
But despite the clear attempts at demonizing the second amendment and trying to scare people into giving up their rights (or the rights of their fellow Americans who own guns), reality is far different from what Bloomberg tried to make it out to be, as Fox News explained:
 
“However, a recent report from the Bloomberg-founded group Everytown for Gun Safety came up with that same number – but only when it included teenagers ages 18 and 19 in the calculation. Bloomberg’s advertisement makes no mention of older teenagers and suggests that the statistic is referring to younger children only. Washington Free Beacon reporter Stephen Gutowski found that once adults were removed from the calculation, the number dropped by nearly half.”
 
“Additionally, court documents from a Texas state appellate court reviewed by Fox News show that the victim referenced in the advertisement, George Kemp, was 20 years old at the time of his death.”
 
So that statistic of 2,900 children dying from gun violence every year is extremely misleading and not at all correct. Half of those “children” would usually otherwise be considered young adults. What’s more, Fox News also reported that “the court said the case arose from a ‘gang-related shooting,’ writing that ‘two groups of young men’ had met that night ‘for a fight,’ including a group led by ‘B. Dilworth, which included… Kemp.’”
 
So the 20-year-old “child” was not simply the victim of a random shooting. He was involved with a violent gang and died as a result of it. That is still absolutely tragic and devastating for his family, do not misunderstand. But it’s already illegal to commit gang-related activity and the guy was involved in a gang. Not to take away from the tragedy of his death, but I can’t imagine he didn’t expect that to at least be a possibility.
 
Regardless, returning to Bloomberg, it is extremely misleading because the victim his ad focused on wasn’t some random kid who was the victim of a random shooting by some psycho. He was in a gang and that, in and of itself, is illegal. The guy was going down the path of a criminal, if he wasn’t already on it.
 
Amy Hunter, director of media relations for the NRA, told the Daily Wire that she wasn’t surprised that Bloomberg “exploited the emotional story of a mother losing her son to push his gun control agenda without addressing whether his policies would have prevented the crime in the first place.” They definitely wouldn’t have, which is why Bloomberg didn’t mention that part, as he does not have any viable solution to that problem.
 
But what’s more, Reason Magazine reported: “According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, FactCheck.org notes, the average number of firearm-related deaths involving Americans 17 or younger from 2013 through 2017 (the period used by Everytown for Gun Safety) was about 1,500, roughly half the number cited by Bloomberg. Furthermore, nearly two-fifths of those deaths were suicides, meaning the number of minors killed each year by ‘gun violence’, as that term is usually understood, is about 73% smaller than the figure cited in Bloomberg’s ad.”
 
That part is also something the gun-grabbing Leftists tend to ignore: the fact that most gun deaths in America are suicides, not homicides. The number of shootings, as we come to know them, is miniscule compared to the number of suicides by gun. Of course, that is still a problem, but not something that extreme gun control could possibly hope to fix.
 
The reality simply is that Bloomberg is a massive liar, exploiting the death of a young man by claiming he was a victim of gun violence, and that he was a kid, when in actuality, he was involved in gang activity which also involved guns and he was 20 years old. A tragedy, undoubtedly, which makes it all the more disgusting that someone would choose to politicize it and use it to scare people into giving up their guns.
 
2,900 children don’t die every year by gun violence. Half that number are legal adults and two-fifths of those were by suicide. To claim that guns are the culprit in any of those deaths is extremely disgusting and wrong.
 
As we have said time and time again when the topic arose, guns are merely tools. They can be used to cause harm, to oneself or another, but they can also help save lives. A school shooter uses his or her gun to cause harm. A law-abiding citizen prays they don’t find themselves in a situation where they have to use their gun, but will be willing to protect themselves and those they hold dear should such a situation arise. Those are called defensive gun uses, which the Left ignores like Joe is trying to ignore Hunter, because there are FAR more defensive gun uses every year than offensive gun uses, to the point where DGUs DWARF any other kind of gun use.
 
But as I said in the beginning, I am not surprised that the Leftist billionaire who is protected literally all the time by armed security would want to take away your guns and your rights. He doesn’t see you as a person seeking to protect yourself and your family. He sees you as, at best, an idiot and at worst, a massive danger to society as a whole.
 
But then again, the other candidates aren’t much different, are they? All of them, given the opportunity, would also seek to strip you of your rights, freedoms and ability to defend yourself. All of them are the very authoritarians they accuse Trump of being, if not more so.
 
Exodus 23:1
“You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness.”

People have the right to defend themselves. This much is factual and you would think there’d be no one who would disagree, but the Left, in all their inglorious stupidity (or evil), disagrees with this notion, choosing to live in a world of fairy tales where violence doesn’t occur and people are naturally good. That simply is not the reality we live in and as a result, people have to be able to defend themselves if and when the unimaginable does happen.
 
I say this largely because of the rather bloody and strange weekend we recently had. Let’s begin with the earliest story of the weekend, which is of an anti-Semitic attack by two women in New York (which ended an entire week of roughly 10 anti-Semitic attacks in the Democrat-owned state).
 
While this one did not really result in anyone’s death (thankfully), it showcases the need for people to be able to defend themselves regardless. A woman, Tiffany Harris, was arrested after having assaulted three Jewish women and shouting anti-Semitic slurs at them. She was then released by the NYPD without bail and was arrested once again in another assault against another woman (though it’s unclear if the woman was Jewish too).
 
Again, this one is not outright deadly, but it easily could be, particularly since the hateful bigot will not face any charges or punishment for her actions due to Bill de Blasio’s irrational “bail reform” laws that allow for the bad guys to be released extremely easily.
 
It’s not even as if the hateful bigot denied that she did it. She flat out admitted to the police upon her arrest: “Yes, I slapped them. I cursed them out. I said ‘F-U, Jews.’” She ADMITTED to the assault but the police could do nothing about it because of the idiot mayor’s pandering to criminals for votes.
 
While this case has a little less to do with the kind of self-defense I will be talking about in this article, it does relate to the sort of idiocy (at best) that fills the Democrat Party’s minds when it comes to legislation. Criminals and anti-Semites get to run amok in New York and de Blasio even has the nerve to try and blame this on Trump and on Rudy Giuliani (these things didn’t happen, particularly to this extent, when Giuliani was mayor of NYC). He’s a fraud and a danger to the people of New York City.
 
Regardless, let’s move on to another anti-Semitic attack that happened in New York, where a machete-wielding man attacked Jews in a Hanukkah party, wounding five people. The man was arrested and according to Rockland County Assistant DA Michael Dugandzic, he “was found with blood all over his clothing and a strong smell of bleach in the car, like he was trying to destroy evidence.”
 
Anti-Semitism has been on the rise in Democrat-owned New York, while the Democrats have tried to place the blame squarely on the shoulders of the President and his “inflammatory rhetoric” despite the fact that it’s the Democrats in the House who failed to pass a resolution condemning anti-Semitism because their openly anti-Semitic party members didn’t want to be singled out and Pelosi caved to their demands, switching from condemning anti-Semitism to condemning all hatred in general.
 
Again, the Democrat Party owns New York, where the bulk of this anti-Semitism is occurring. I don’t care whether or not you think Trump’s rhetoric is “inflammatory” (it isn’t), one cannot realistically blame Trump for anti-Semitic attacks when he has been the most pro-Jewish president in recent history. And for all the “anti-Muslim hatred” that he is accused of pushing, how come we don’t hear of stories where Muslims are targeted in anti-Muslim attacks? Not that I would want them to be, but the charge of Islamophobia is placed on Trump far more often than anti-Semitism, but we never hear of Muslims being targeted like this.
 
For all the charges of racism against Trump, we never really hear of anti-black attacks (unless they are made up stories like Jussie Smollett) or anti-Hispanic attacks as a result of Trump’s rhetoric. Granted, we also don’t often hear of anti-Semitic attacks largely because the media doesn’t care about them unless they are either fairly major (like the ones discussed) or can be blamed on Trump in some form or fashion. Again, the stories I talked about mark two of TEN anti-Semitic attacks in New York this week alone, but we have hardly heard anything about those other eight.
 
Now, moving on to the final act of violence that occurred this weekend, and what really drives the point of this article, let’s talk about the White Settlement church shooting that happened on Sunday.
 
During a Sunday service, a bad guy with a gun (who was a felon and wasn't legally allowed to own guns but still had them, further destroying any argument for gun control that clearly doesn't work) went into the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas, and opened fire on churchgoers. According to The Dallas Morning News, “one person died at the scene of the shooting, one person died en route to a hospital, and another person was transported to a hospital in critical condition. The shooter is believed to be one of those three people, said Fort Worth Fire Department spokesman Mike Drivdahl.”
 
The shooter was neutralized by an armed churchgoer, preventing the shooter from taking more lives than he did. This is thanks in large part to a bill signed into law by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott last September that allowed for lawful gun owners to carry guns in places of worship. This law, by the way, was maligned by Democrats like Joe Biden, who said it was “totally irrational” to do that. It, in fact, is completely rational, as bad guys with guns will shoot wherever there are people to kill and will target people without guns (or people who worship God, if they hate Jews or Christians) no matter what the law says. This kind of law gives law-abiding citizens the ability to fight back should such a horrendous situation ever occur.
 
It’s for these kinds of situations that people have the right to defend themselves. Now, Leftists will still argue “if the bad guy with a gun didn’t have a gun in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened”. True, but there are more guns in the U.S. than there are people. There will always be bad guys with guns, so no legislation in the world will get guns out of the hands of bad guys.
 
New Zealand implemented a “mandatory” gun buy-back program and it’s a complete and utter failure. California, the state with some of the strictest gun control laws, had EIGHT mass slayings in 2019, according to The Associated Press. The AP reports that a total of 41 mass slayings occurred nationally in 2019 (The AP defines mass slayings as killings were four or more people are killed excluding the perpetrator). 33 out of those 41 mass slayings were firearm-related and, again, California was responsible for eight of them, the most out of any other state.
 
Despite the heavy gun control laws in places like California, Chicago, New York, Detroit, etc., we see some of the most bloodshed in such places. Now, Leftists could argue that if guns simply were not there, these things wouldn’t happen, which is altogether wrong. No shootings would happen, but killings would still occur. Just look at London and other places in the U.K. being ravaged by stabbing attacks day in and day out to find my words ring true.
 
Bad people will look for ways to hurt and kill others. Restricting good people from being able to defend themselves only worsens the problem and makes easy targets out of the innocent.
 
Had Texas not had the law that allowed for gun owners to carry inside places of worship, far more people would’ve died. The perpetrator had a gun and little was going to keep him from committing an act of violence. The little that keeps him from doing it is a good guy with a gun ready and able to fight back.
 
And returning to the anti-Semitic attacks in New York, do you think they would be anywhere near as bad if people were allowed to arm themselves? Recently, I had seen a picture on Twitter of Orthodox Jews openly carrying rifles in Rockland County (as seen above), the same county where the machete attack occurred. They have to protect themselves and have every right to do so, but New York laws restrict them. Of course, the particular Jews that were in those pictures do not have to worry too much about the existing gun control laws, but there’s no doubt that de Blasio and Gov. Cuomo want stricter laws which will only hurt the citizens of New York looking to arm themselves to protect themselves.
 
While the 2nd Amendment exists to protect people from a tyrannical government, a secondary benefit is that it allows for people to protect themselves against anyone who might wish to cause them harm, whether or not they are from the government.
 
The Framers of the Constitution knew perfectly well what tyranny looked like and wanted to prevent that from happening in the new country they had created. The 2nd Amendment was written and passed for the very purpose of keeping the government in check by We the People. The only reason this country isn’t far more authoritarian than it is is because of the 2nd Amendment, which is why it’s so heavily targeted by the authoritarian Left.
 
But the right to self-defense has existed long before guns were even a thing, as Jesus Christ Himself has advised His followers to arm themselves with a sword, even if it means selling the very clothes on your back.
 
We the People have the right to defend ourselves because the government cannot do a better job of it than we can.
 
Luke 11:21
“When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are safe.”

With Robert Francis O’Rourke and other Democrats desperately showing just how “woke” they are by sharing their totalitarian intentions surrounding gun ownership, it is important to understand just how much of a non-issue homicide by firearm is, at least on average. Of course, every shooting and every death is a tragedy, don’t misunderstand, but rifles are far from the most common means of murder in America, despite how many there are in the country.
 
The FBI’s 2018 report on crime in the United States shows us clearly the number of reported murders per weapon type.
 
In 2018, firearms killed over 10,000 people. However, over 6,000 of those deaths came from handguns, with nearly 3,000 deaths coming from non-stated firearms, 297 from rifles and 235 from shotguns.
 
Keep in mind also that these numbers are completely dwarfed by the Defensive Gun Use statistics from Florida State University criminology professor Gary Kleck, who reported that there are at least 760,000 defensive gun use cases every year. So in contrast, taking the specific number of 10,265 total firearm murders in 2018, dividing that by 760,000 DGUs (again, that is the minimum amount Kleck showed and it’s theorized most people tend not to report these types of things anyway because they don’t want to reveal they’ve used a gun to defend themselves out of legal fears), and you get 0.01%. Meaning that the total number of firearm deaths every year is 0.01% in contrast to the total number of defensive gun uses every year (minimum). In other words, guns are used for defensive purposes 99.99% of the time, at least in contrast to murders.
 
And take note that only 297 deaths came from the use of rifles, which includes all rifles, not just semi-automatic ones. 0.03% (rounding up) of firearm deaths came from all types of rifles in 2018.
 
Out of the total 14,123 murders reported in 2018, 1,515 came from knives or other cutting instruments. 443 reported deaths from blunt objects such as clubs or hammers, 672 total reported deaths from personal weapons such as hands, fists and feet, and 900 other weapons not specified.
 
There were far more deaths from objects like knives, hammers or even fists than there were from the ever-so-scary rifles. And these are completely overshadowed by vehicular deaths, which the NSC estimates were over 40,000 deaths related to vehicles in 2018.
 
And it’s not like this is all specific to 2018. The FBI’s page on 2018 deaths by weapons also includes 2014, ’15, ’16 and ‘17.
 
In every single year, there were far more deaths by all of the other weapons previously mentioned than by all types of rifles combined. In 2014, of only 7,803 total firearm deaths, only 235 came from rifles. In 2015, only 215 deaths came from rifles despite the fact that there were more total firearm deaths that year, at 9,103. In 2016, it ticked up a bit, with 300 rifle deaths, but still nowhere close to the total 10,372 firearm deaths that year and in 2017, there were 390 rifle deaths out of a total of 11,006 firearm deaths.
 
Every single year for the past 4 (recorded) years, there were far more deaths by handgun than any other type of gun, with rifles always competing with shotguns for the least amount of recorded deaths. And in every single one of those years, knives or other weapons in general were more used than rifles.
 
In 2014, 1,545 deaths came from knives or other bladed weapons. 431 came from blunted weapons and 668 came from personal (hands, feet, etc.) weapons. In 2015, 1,525 deaths came from bladed weapons, 436 from blunt weapons, and 647 from personal weapons.
 
In 2016, 1,558 deaths came from bladed weapons, 464 from blunt weapons and 664 from personal weapons. And finally, in 2017, 1,609 deaths came from bladed weapons, 472 from blunt weapons and 710 from personal weapons.
 
And yet, despite these numbers, rifles are the Left’s biggest target. Statistically speaking, it makes no sense. There are fare more dangerous and deadly weapons out there than rifles. But the Left’s objective isn’t to protect the people. It’s only to empower, enrich and protect themselves.
 
Like I’ve said in the past, the Left can only grow the government as far as the 2nd amendment will allow them. They can’t achieve the communist level of power they desire without first disarming the population. Every communist, socialist totalitarian in world history has understood their need to disarm the people. For a government to be totally unopposed, it cannot allow the risk of a revolution. The people can only be pushed so far before they rebel.
 
The people of Venezuela currently wish they hadn’t given up their guns to the government. An armed revolution is likely the only thing that can help the people of Venezuela to be free from the socialist regime of Nicolas Maduro.
 
And as I’ve said before, what is happening in Venezuela is what the American Left wants in the States, even if they don’t necessarily broadcast that to the people. The kind of power Maduro has is the kind of power the American Left salivates and strives for. This is the reason for their targeting of rifles, and it definitely wouldn’t end with just that.
 
So long as the people can defend themselves, the government’s ability to retain power is in some level of jeopardy. The Framers of the Constitution knew this and wrote the 2nd amendment knowing full-well what tyranny was like and what the threat of government on the God-given freedoms of mankind were.
 
Gun control advocacy, much like climate change alarmism, is not rooted in facts. Guns are heavily demonized when they shouldn’t be. Even taking the fact that most murders came from guns, 61% of all firearm related deaths in America came from suicide, with the rest being homicide, death by law enforcement (1.4%) or unintentional shootings (1.3%), according to the Giffords Law Center.
 
So the maligning that guns get is totally unjustified and the real target should be mental health and what people believe in.
 
Because let me tell you something: no Christian would ever even consider doing something like this – killing another person – unless it came in self-defense.
 
1 John 4:8
“Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
 
And please make sure to check out our free weekly newsletter. As the name suggests, it is a newsletter that comes completely free of charge. What you get is a compilation of the week’s articles sent right into your inbox. So make sure to check it out today!

Gun ownership has been under attack quite a lot as of late, with 2020 Democrat candidates like Robert Francis O’Rourke promising to violate the 2nd Amendment and eliminate legal gun ownership of rifles (and he would move on to other things too) and other Democrats supporting ever stricter and more radical gun control policies.
 
But one of the arrows in the Left’s quiver to attack gun ownership is to insinuate that gun owners are simply “cowards” who are afraid of the real world or own guns as a means of “replacing” missing male genitalia. People like Geraldo Rivera and other Leftists have made this sort of “argument” in the past as a means of mocking gun owners.
 
However, a study from Florida State University finds that gun owners have LESS FEAR than non-gun owners.
 
Benjamin Dowd-Arrow, a sociology doctoral student, co-authored the study and said: “There’s a lot of popular rhetoric in the media and among politicians as to why people own guns. The biggest claim is that they’re cowards. So, we wanted to see if owning guns was truly a symptom of fear.”
 
The research focused on how fearful gun owners were in comparison to non-gun owners, and further investigated phobias and victim mentalities between the two groups.
 
Regarding fear, the study did not find that there was much relation between a person’s fear and the possibility of that person owning a gun as a consequence of having that fear, but there were exceptions. For example, those who reported having a phobia of animals or being afraid of getting mugged were found to be LESS likely to own a gun as a result of that fear. However, those who reported a fear of being a victim of a mass or random shooting said they were more likely to get a gun as a result.
 
This makes a good deal of sense to me.
 
If you’re afraid of, say, dogs, it makes little sense to purchase a gun because of that. Dogs, while they can be deadly, can be fought off against (in the case where it is necessary, as one also has the option of running away). As far as a mugging goes, considering the objective of the mugger will usually be to simply take your stuff and not to murder you in cold blood, it makes more sense to comply and give up your material possessions rather than fight and risk your life. And if one wishes to get something for self-defense due to these reasons, blades and tasers will usually be considered the cheaper and more logical approach.
 
But for people who fear being caught in the middle of a shooting, it makes more sense to wish to be armed so that they can protect themselves. Not everyone who is armed will be a hero and take on the shooter, but those seeking to protect themselves will fight for their lives.
 
So the findings from this study make perfect sense to me.
 
But moving on, the study, as mentioned previously, also focused on particular phobias and fears of gun owners in comparison to non-gun owners. The study suggests that gun owners report suffering from fewer phobias and fear of being a victim than non-gun owners do. The findings, according to the study, were consistent across multiple fears and phobias, such as fear of animals, being mugged or a fear of heights.
 
Dowd-Arrow further stated: “There’s little evidence to suggest that gun ownership is an effect of fear. However, gun ownership may be associated with less fear because firearms help their owners to feel safe, secure and protected in a world they perceive to be uncertain and potentially dangerous.”
 
I would like to say that it’s not simply a “perception” that the world is uncertain and potentially dangerous. The proof is in the pudding. No one is omniscient, so there is bound to be uncertainty about many things, until more information is known.
 
I have never set foot in New York City (and don’t intend to), so there is a lot of uncertainty with the idea of me going there – what would happen, where I would go, how I would fare, etc. And while the city’s crime rates have actually been statistically dropping since the 90s, there certainly is still potential for mugging and going to the wrong neighborhoods on accident.
 
The fact that murder exists at all is a sign that the world is potentially dangerous, so it’s not merely a “perception” that the world is “uncertain and potentially dangerous.” It IS uncertain and potentially dangerous.
 
And those who try and “prove” that it isn’t tend to find themselves being proven wrong the hard way, such as the couple who went on an expedition around the world to “prove” that evil wasn’t real and merely a perception of humanity as a result of being afraid of the unknown and the different and ended up being killed by ISIS terrorists.
 
So the world most certainly is uncertain, due to humanity simply not being omniscient, and the world most certainly is potentially dangerous, due to humanity’s very own nature of evil.
 
And one way for people to be able to protect themselves from this uncertainty and potential danger is to arm themselves and gaining knowledge as to how to safely wield guns.
 
People own guns not because they are afraid but because they don’t WANT to be afraid. They arm themselves so that they can protect themselves and their family from potential danger, whether that danger be a robber, a killer, a shooter, or an authoritarian government openly promising to take people’s guns.
 
Guns help people feel safer, and understanding how to use guns safely helps people to feel even safer than before.
 
One reason for people to not get a gun is because they think it is dangerous and they could hurt themselves. And while they’re not entirely wrong, learning how to use guns takes away the uncertainty and the unknown behind said guns.
 
When I watch action movies, I can tell who has held a real gun before and who hasn’t. Those who follow the typical safety instructions surrounding weapons (i.e., finger off the trigger, pointing away from people you don’t want to be hurt, etc.) in the movies have clearly held a gun before and would know how to use one. Those people fear guns less than those who do not know anything about guns.
 
That’s why we always stress that it’s not simply the owning of a gun that makes people safer, but the understanding of how to safely wield one that gives people more safety and confidence.
 
For those of you who are gun owners, think back to when you got your first weapon, whatever age it might’ve been. At first, you must’ve felt insecure, maybe a bit afraid, and had next to no confidence, right? If you were being taught by someone else, or were looking up YouTube videos on gun safety, you paid a lot of attention to the instructions they were sharing.
 
In the beginning, a gun owner will feel anxiety and a bit of fear. But once he or she learns how to use the gun and actually uses it for themselves at a shooting range – once someone gets used to the feeling of firing a gun – they feel far more confident and like they hold a lot more power than ever before.
 
It’s that precise confidence that I believe is the main reason for the study to have found what it found. People who feel confident in their own safety will undoubtedly report feeling less afraid about certain things than people who are not gun owners or who are not quite so experienced with guns just yet and have not attained that level of confidence (which honestly comes rather early in a person’s gun ownership).
 
The purpose of owning a gun isn’t to replace male genitalia (otherwise, why would women get a gun?), it’s not to mask insecurity and fear, it’s not because we are cowardly. We own guns to protect ourselves and our families from the dangers we KNOW are present and we do it so that we might not have to be afraid of the dangerous world.
 
It’s better to own a gun, praying you never have to use it and being ready in the case you must use it than to not own a gun and finding yourself in a situation where you wish you had one.
 
1 John 5:19
“We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.”
 
And please make sure to check out our free weekly newsletter. As the name suggests, it is a newsletter that comes completely free of charge. What you get is a compilation of the week’s articles sent right into your inbox. So make sure to check it out today!