Despite constant calls in recent weeks by liberal politicians for more restrictions on guns, everyday people during the same time period bought guns in droves.
All of which begs the question: When are the naysayers going to learn that Americans value their liberty and the right to protect themselves?
The desire of people to seek the “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” dream can be tied to everyone’s individual right to protect themselves, using deadly force if necessary. The number of National Criminal Instant Background Check System (NICS) checks historically shows that after highly publicized shootings, more Americans express an interest in buying a gun.
Freedom-loving Americans want to be able to protect themselves and their loved ones should the need arise. Among those seeking firearms to better protect themselves are increasing numbers of women.
The owner of gun store, that provides free concealed-carry training in Denver, said he has seen a 30% rise recently in the popularity of women-only concealed-carry classes.
More women in Montana also have been looking to carry guns for self-defense. In Gallatin County, new concealed-carry permits were issued to only 67 women in 2015. However, last year that number jumped to 285 new concealed-carry permits for women.
“The crux of our business is women,” noted the manager of a Montana Firearms Instruction business. “We have a lot of ladies coming. We’ll have to offer classes sometimes four times a month in order to accommodate them.”
Several news reports in recent weeks have featured articles about rising gun sales. One such example appeared in a Washington, D.C., newspaper article titled: “Petrified by shooting sprees, shoppers turn to handguns and concealed-carry permits.”
“Some states where hunting and gun ownership is popular saw huge spikes. Alabama, where gun ownership is common, and Minnesota, where hunting is a state pastime, both saw increases over 50% as Democrats ramped up their anti-gun rhetoric.”
Elsewhere in the country, one gun store in Midland, Texas, experienced a 20% increase in overal gun sales during August.
Liberal politicians, who talk ofthings such as AR-15 “buybacks”—a misnomer, as the government never owned the guns in the first place—and other restrictions look to leave us defenseless in the face of danger. These Pollyannas operate under the misguided idea that to stop crime, all they have to do is ask would-be felons to simply turn in their guns. All such talk really does is give thugs a clearer opportunity to commit mayhem because they know there is less likelihood of someone stopping them in their tracks.
Those who buy guns in response to the latest tragic crime aren’t doing so willy-nilly. They are enrolling in firearm-training courses and learning how to handle their firearm effectively and responsibly. That’s because doing so is part of being a law-abiding citizen—who wants to carry a handgun for defense, use an AR-15 for 3-Gun competition, or buy a hunting rifle to provide meat for the family.
These law-abiding gun owners also are highly unlikely to go on a crime spree. The general trend lines indicate that as more Americans have been buying guns, the crime rate has gone down. The National Crime Victimization Survey shows that violent crime has been declining steadily since the early 1990s. As a matter of fact, the opposite is easy to prove, in that guns are more often used to deter crime. The CDC reports looking into the defensive uses of guns have found “consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”
That’s why these self-important blowhards who push for confiscation and other forms of gun control don’t deserve to get anyone’s vote. They spout off things that they call “facts” that have no basis in reality. What we really need is a crop of elected officials who are willing to take a good, hard look at the underlying cause of why bad guys are committing crimes (usually in “gun-free” zones).
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