THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA ATTACKS GUNS AS HOLIDAY GIFTS; SUGGESTS INSTEAD GIFTING OR SELLING A FIREARM TO THE POLICE: FINE IN AUSTRALIA, BUT NOT IN AMERICA.

TRUCKS AND TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES; GUNS AND KNIVES AND SISSORS; BOMBS AND FIREWORKS AND OTHER EXPLOSIVE DEVICES; HAMMERS AND AXES AND SAWS: WHERE DOES EVIL LIE? SURELY, NOT IN THE THING ITSELF BUT IN THE SENTIENT BEING THAT CONTROLS IT.

“A gun is a tool, Marian; no better or no worse than any other tool: an axe, a shovel or anything. A gun is as good or as bad as the man using it. Remember that.” The Gunfighter Shane’s mild rebuke to Marian Starrett, wife of the rancher, Joe Starrett, head of the Starrett household, whom Shane protects from a ruthless cattle baron and from the cattle baron’s hired henchmen. ~ From the 1953 American Western Classic, “Shane.” Periodically, the mainstream media refocuses its attention on the Second Amendment and on firearms in its single-minded, obsession with—and goal to rid society of, as it sees it—the scourge of guns. Even during the Holiday season, the American public is not spared the mainstream media’s spewing of venomous and nonsensical vitriol toward an inanimate object.Notwithstanding the absence of its favorite pretext for attacking civilian ownership and possession of firearms—namely, a psychotic lunatic, or psychopathic criminal, or rabid terrorist, committing a reprehensible act of violence with a firearm or with some other implement—the mainstream media’s attack on civilian ownership and possession of firearms continues unabated. And, even when the psychotic lunatic or psychopathic criminal or rabid terrorist does violence by means other than with a firearm—say, through use of a truck barreling down on innocent individuals, or through use of a knife, or by setting off a bomb—still, it is the “gun” that is invariably singled out for denunciation; for it is the “gun” that the mainstream media, on behalf of its shadowy internationalist, trans-nationalist, globalist benefactors, vilifies as the worst of the “demon-kind.” The “gun” is forever perceived by the mainstream media as the convenient scapegoat even if the sentient miscreant happened to utilize another implement in attacking the innocent.Recall that, on October 31, 2017, an Islamic terrorist, Saifullo Saipov, an immigrant from Uzbekistan, proclaiming allegiance to Islamic State, committed murder. Saipov isn’t a citizen of the U.S. He arrived here through the Diversity Visa Program, which President Trump has said he will shut down. At some moment in time, Saipov decided how nice it would be to kill Americans. Apparently, murdering Americans is how Saipov shows his appreciation of having been given the opportunity to reside in our Country. This is how he repays America.Renting a pickup truck, Saipov hopped a curb in New York City, and, careening down a bike path at great speed, mowed down several people, killing eight and seriously injuring eleven others before crashing the vehicle into a school bus. Many of the dead and injured weren’t even Americans. They were citizens of Belgium and Argentina. They were dead all the same.The New York City Mayor, Bill de Blasio, speaking at a news conference, after the incident, expressed regret at the incident. How nice of the Mayor to do so. Bill de Blasio referred to Saipov’s crime as an act of terrorism but avoided use of the prefix, ‘Islamic,’ when referring to this species of terrorism. That he failed to tie the word, ‘Islamic,’ with the word, ‘terrorist,’ in his remarks about the incident, was deliberate, not accidental. Governor Andrew Cuomo, for his part, also weighed in at the news conference. Taking the podium, Cuomo—expressing his regret at the loss of innocent lives and extending his condolences to the families of those whose lives were so rudely and violently and suddenly taken—swerved inexplicably, incongruously, and discordantly, into a polemic on the need for the Nation to rid itself of guns. Did we miss something, here? Saipov didn’t use a firearm in his attack on innocent souls. He used a truck. Didn’t Cuomo know that? How could he not know that? Why did Cuomo suddenly bring up the subject of “guns”?Saipov, using a rented pick-up truck like a bowling ball, attempted to knock over—like so many “ten pins”—as many people as he could, and he succeeded in doing so—murdering eight, and severely injuring twelve others. Since Saipov used a truck to murder innocent people, why did Cuomo mention guns at all, during the news conference? Perhaps, Cuomo didn’t wish to waste an opportunity to mention his abhorrence toward firearms. So, then, he would he would blame the firearm for the violence that Saipov inflicted on hapless individuals. Perhaps, Cuomo thought, that, with time, the public would connect Saipov’s violent act with gun use, even though it was with a truck, not a firearm, that this demented individual violently attacked innocent people.But, Cuomo’s remarks about guns at the news conference is noteworthy for another reason. Consider: it would be odd to equate a truck with violence. After all, a truck is an inanimate object. It is the person behind the wheel who bears responsibility for harm done through use of a truck. Similarly, a gun is simply an inanimate object. It is the intent of the person who wields the firearm that is responsible if harm be done with it. Yet, being constantly, incessantly, bombarded with remarks about the “evil” of guns, the American public is blinded to the fact that guns are not “evil” at all. Just as there is nothing innately dangerous about trucks or cars, or knives or hammers, or axes or saws, there is nothing innately evil about guns. We do not hear news reports about “evil automobiles,” or “evil knives,” or even “evil explosives.”In and of themselves objects are not evil. It is the intent behind the use of the object where lurks evil. Yet, when Saipov committed a truly horrific act of murder and attempted murder behind the wheel of a rented pickup truck, we did not hear either de Blasio or Cuomo describe the resulting horror as due to the machinations of the truck itself. Yet, whenever a person commits a horrific act with a firearm, the public is instantly and incessantly bombarded with sensational headlines about the “evil gun” and the need to curb civilian access to guns. Often, the killer himself, plays second fiddle as airtime is given over to discussion about the guns utilized, in a crime, as if the true killer were the gun itself, and the sentient killer merely the abettor of the crime, committed directly by the “gun.” We rarely hear of the mainstream media referring to an instance where an individual defends him or herself with a firearm or defends the lives of other innocent individuals with a firearm. When an individual does defend self or innocent others with a firearm, the mainstream media downplays the significance of it, lest that fact undermine and weaken the narrative, namely that the gun creates violence; the gun does not guard against it.More recently, another Islamic terrorist, Akayed Ullah—this one who happened to be a citizen of Bangladesh—but apparently residing in this Country legally—attempted, unsuccessfully, to set off a homemade pipe bomb in a New York City subway. The bomb did detonate but not with the impact Ullah expected, intended, wished for. The botched detonation merely wounded the terrorist, but injured a few innocent New York residents as well. Once again, Mayor de Blasio, when speaking to the public, refrained from referring to the attack as an act of Islamic terrorism, even though Ullah had pledged allegiance to Islamic State, as did Saipov. In fact, de Blasio even refrained from applying the appellation, ‘terrorist,’ to the word, ‘attack,’ in order to deny that a ‘terrorist attack’ had even taken place. Rather, the Mayor referred to Ullah’s actions as an “attempted terrorist attack” even though the act of terror did, in fact, take place.  There is, in fact, nothing to suggest the attack was merely “attempted.” Ullah intended to set off an explosive device and he did set off an explosive device, and he did harm innocent subway riders waiting for a train, as well as himself, through his actions in setting of an explosive device that he had constructed for the specific purpose of murdering innocent people. The fact that Ullah’s explosive device didn’t do as much damage as he had hoped, as he had intended, still, Ullah did carry out his action. Ullah did set off the device and the device did harm innocent NYC residents. Yet, the Mayor shrugged off the attack, asserting, “The choice of New York is always for a reason, because we are a beacon to the world. And we actually show that a society of many faiths and many backgrounds can work. . . . The terrorists want to undermine that. They yearn to attack New York City.” The mayor’s feel good pronouncement is ridiculous. The point is irrelevant. You would think de Blasio would have concluded his remarks by offering support to Donald Trump’s attempt to curtail migration of refugees from Islamic Countries in view of the threats posed to this Country by practitioners of radical Islam. Yet, Bill de Blasio seems blasé over threats to our Nation’s citizenry posed by these denizens of Islam.We see this dismissive, callous, cavalier attitude to threats posed by Islamic terrorists toward citizens of other Western Nations echoed in the remarks of leaders of the EU as well. Yet, Islamic terrorism is real; it is virulent; it is constant. Either we get a handle on it or we can expect ever more frequent attacks, as in the Nations comprising the EU.It is odd that local, State, and National Democratic Party leaders expect the American public to shrug off the danger of Islamic terrorism as leaders expect the same of the citizens of the EU, even though federal, State and local Government in the U.S. can and do pinpoint and have pinpointed danger to specific types and categories of people, whom this Country can and should rid itself of, but doesn’t. We could take concrete steps to remove riffraff from society. This riffraff includes members of drug cartels and other criminal gangs—many of whom reside in this Country illegally—and anyone espousing loyalty to our sworn enemies, namely those who espouse murder in the name of Islam.Congress and the mainstream media and many others with a “liberal” bent go easy on the very creatures that would destroy us all. Yet, on the issue of firearms—a fundamental, natural right of American citizens, codified in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution—these same Party leaders along with the mainstream media and many others of a similar vein, demonstrate intolerance and disdain toward—in fact, they exhibit a virulent, vile wrath toward firearms. They condemn a firearm in the hands of a law-abiding, rational, responsible citizen, even though, strong statistical evidence supports a finding that a firearm, in the hands of responsible citizens, remains the single best defense against threats to individual American citizen and remains, too, as the best means available for the citizen to protect the body politic. So it is that, with a disturbing lengthy lull in mass gun violence and, lest the American public forget who “Public Enemy Number One” is, the mainstream media feels the need to remind the American public of that enemy.We are told, by these leaders of Democratic values that the greatest threat to “Liberal Democracy”—an expression used often by the “elites” in the EU—exists not in the wave of illegal immigrants, nor in the wave of refugees from Islamic Countries, but, rather, due to the American citizen’s “obsession” with firearms and concern over the continued viability of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.In two opinion pieces, appearing back-to-back in the New York Times, one published on December 15, 2017, titled, “How to Get Rid of a Gun,” by Carol J. Adams, an author and feminist, and the other, published on December 16, 2017, by the editorial Board, titled, “Melting Guns Into Tools as Sales Boom,” the reader is led, once again, to believe that the best thing one can do for him or herself, this Christmas, is to trade in a gun for cash—receive pennies on the dollar for a firearm—that, one can rest assured, the police will destroy for the good of society. Both articles hark back to the Newtown, Connecticut tragedy.

THE GUN “BUYBACK”: SILLY IN THE CONCEPTION; CONDESCENDING TO AMERICANS IN THE APPLICATION

Of course, “gun buyback” programs on the local governmental level do not work if the purpose is to remove guns from society. It is akin to a Bank teller, taking upon himself, the task of removing from circulation a few worn federal reserve notes he comes across, to be wrapped up and sent to the mint for incineration, to be replaced with fresh, crisp, new federal reserve notes, believing that removing a few worn bills, among millions in circulation, will accomplish anything productive. It is ludicrous to contemplate. The same is true with gun buyback programs. So, why have them?Carol Adams asserts, in her op-ed, in response to her own question— “what does a gun buyback accomplish” — “Some studies claim that it reduces gun violence; others disagree.” She continues, “nevertheless it gives peace of mind to people who don’t want their guns anymore—and who don’t want their guns to be used in a crime.” Really? Contrary to Carol Adams’ supposition, gun buyback programs don’t reduce gun violence. Those who orchestrate these gun buyback programs promote them as something positive for society; but, these gun buyback programs are subversive to American values and demeaning to the gun owner as well.Consider Carol Adams' declaration that gun buybacks "give peace of mind to people to people who don’t want guns anymore." Is that so? The truth of the proposition is doubtful. The fact of the matter is that gun buyback programs are suffused with condescension toward the American public. Consider: a lunatic commits heinous acts with a firearm—or with any other implement for that matter—and, somehow, that taint of horror rubs off on the ordinary American. Gun buybacks—so saccharine sweet tasting on the surface—leave a sour aftertaste. Gun buyback programs destroy one’s own sense of self-worth and one’s own sense of self-esteem and one’s own sense of personal responsibility. Gun buybacks cause one to doubt one’s ability to trust one’s self. Indeed, those who design gun buybacks do so with the intent to sow seeds of doubt in one’s own ability to control his or her emotions. Having a gun in one’s possession is deemed retrograde, evil. One is deemed a reprobate who would dare keep one. Those who possess guns are made to feel guilty for having them in their possession.In the second article, published December 16, 2017, the Editorial Board of the NY Times, declaring its antipathy toward those Americans who have purchased firearms as Christmas gifts, wrote:“Not to crimp such holiday cheer, but the police department in New Haven, Conn., plans a small biblical twist to America’s avid gun culture: a gun buyback on Saturday in which prison inmate volunteers will transform surrendered weapons into gardening tools to be provided to schools so students can plant and harvest vegetables for soup kitchens.This takes the swords-into-plowshares dictum to a creative new level. The police running the buyback promise to ask no questions of anyone turning in a weapon. In return, they offer gift cards worth $25 per small, Derringer-like handgun. Rifles and shotguns come in at $50 each, pistols and revolvers at $100, and high-powered assault weapons are the most prized here, too, at $200.The police worked out the buyback in cooperation with RAWtools Inc., a gun safety program that specializes in breaking apart firearms and reforging gun barrels into safer things, and the Newtown Foundation, created after the massacre of 20 schoolchildren and six staff members five years ago at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.No one expects drastic results in crime statistics. But buybacks are considered important by police officials in various cities for getting some guns off the streets and out of owners’ badly secured homes. They are a tangible commitment to gun safety, particularly as elected politicians prove largely useless on the subject. Over the past six years, the New Haven police have collected nearly 700 guns in buybacks, run at government expense, in which the firearms were broken apart and discarded."This article by the New York Times Editorial Board is absurd on multiple levels. First,  as alluded to, supra, voluntary gun buybacks are inane if the idea is to reduce guns in the hands of millions of law-abiding, responsible American citizens who are not under disability, who choose to exercise their right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment, or if one is talking about guns in the hands of criminals. In order for a gun buyback program to be effective in reducing the number of guns in circulation, gun buyback programs would have to be compulsory, applied against individuals on a national level. This occurred in Australia, during implementation of the Country’s infamous, National Firearms Act.  “The buyback program's effect was to reduce Australia's firearms stock by around one-fifth, or more than 650,000 firearms, which amounts to the government buying back 3,500 guns per 100,000 people. If these numbers were applied in the United States, the buyback program would equal the destruction of 40,000,000 firearms. Australia's gun buyback ranks as the largest destruction of civilian firearms in any country over the period of 1991-2006. . . . Another gun buyback was enacted in 2003 through the National Handgun Buyback Act, resulting in the surrender of about 70,000 handguns and more than 278,000 parts and accessories that did not comply with the new restrictions.” Note: "We Don't Come From A Land Down Under: How Adopting Australia's Gun Laws Would Violate The Second Amendment Of The U.S. Constitution," 24 Cardozo J. Int'l & Comp. L. 657 (Spring 2016) by Jonathan Weg, candidate for Juris Doctor, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, May 2016, and Staff Editor for the Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law.Removing guns from the hands of millions of law-abiding Americans would do nothing, concomitantly, to reduce gun violence since criminals would continue to obtain guns. National gun confiscations schemes would simply leave millions of law-abiding American citizens defenseless. Antigun groups and antigun legislators would have no quarrel with this. Neither would criminals. The overt reason for Governmental gun buyback programs, whether compulsory or voluntary—at least the reason usually if not invariably given—is to reduce gun violence. However, the tacit, and real reason for Governmental gun buyback reasons is to constrain ownership and possession of firearms by ordinary citizens. Second, if the purpose of gun buybacks is to reduce the number of guns in circulation among millions of law-abiding American citizens, then, to be effective, gun buyback programs would have to be compulsory. The problem is that a national gun confiscation scheme is patently illegal in this Country. Apart from the fact that compulsory gun buyback programs clash with the right of the people to keep and bear arms as codified in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which is obvious, compulsory gun buyback programs also clash with the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and with the due process clauses in both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution—clashes that may not seem as intuitively true, but that amount to Governmental actions at odds with the fundamental rights of American citizens nonetheless.Governments around the world—regardless of the nature of political rule over the citizenry—that attempt mass firearms confiscations do so to preclude Government accountability. Guns in the hands of citizens keeps Government honest. It is the only effective safeguard against tyranny and, at bottom, this is the salient reason the framers of the U.S. Constitution codified the right of the people to keep and bear arms in the U.S. Constitution. This is clear and irrefutable and the main obstacle for antigun groups and antigun legislators who seek to reduce firearms’ ownership and possession among the American citizenry.Spokespeople for the antigun groups have argued that law-abiding American citizens would surrender their firearms en masse if the Federal Government so ordered a nation-wide confiscation of firearms—be such confiscation ordained through Congressional Statute or Executive edict. After all, mass gun confiscation worked in Australia. It would not, however, work here. Likely, the attempt would bring about a call-to-arms among the citizenry. The American citizenry would revolt. And that revolt would be with the blessing of the founders of our Republic._________________________________________________Copyright © 2017 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.