I AM A GUN AND THIS IS WHAT I HAVE TO SAY

I am a Gun. I am not a person. I, myself, am incapable of harming anyone. Only a person is capable of harming another person. I cannot, myself, harm a person. And I cannot force a person to use me for an evil purpose. In the hands of a rational, competent, law-abiding person, I serve a greater good. In the hands of an irrational, incompetent, lawless individual, I serve a dark end. But, I, myself, must be held blameless because I am not a person.Many ill-informed individuals are quick to cast aspersions on me. They will say or suggest that I am evil incarnate. I am not. I do not have the power of choice. I do not have “free will.” Only a human being has the power of choice; only a human being has free will. I do not. Only a human being can choose to do good or ill, in accordance with that person’s “will.” I cannot. Still, there are those who believe, falsely, that I am evil, and strenuously make that claim. That truly puzzles me; for, only a person who misuses me can be deemed evil.Those who denigrate and demean me fail to realize the enormous positive benefit that I have brought and continue to bring to this Nation. The United States could not exist but for me. The founders of this free Republic used my great great grandfather, the flintlock, to forge a mighty Nation. During the Second World War, my cousins—including, among others, the M1 Garand Rifle, the Thompson submachine gun, and the Browning Automatic Rifle—in the competent hands of our Nation’s troops, helped to defeat two of our most powerful and intractable foes: Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. I have also assisted and continue to assist our police officers in helping protect our communities from lawless elements.AND, I AM, TO THE COUNTLESS AVERAGE, LAW-ABIDING, RATIONAL, RESPONSIBLE AMERICAN CITIZENS--AS THE FRAMERS OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION INTENDED--THE MOST EFFECTIVE MEANS AVAILABLE THROUGH WHICH THESE CITIZENS ARE ABLE TO PRESERVE AND DEFEND THEIR LIFE, SAFETY, AND WELL-BEING AND THE LIFE, SAFETY, AND WELL-BEING OF THEIR FAMILIES—FROM THOSE RUTHLESS, TERRIBLE, EVIL ELEMENTS IN SOCIETY WHO SEEK TO DO HARM.Going back far earlier in time, my ancestors, the matchlock and wheel lock firearms, gave to the common man the ability to grapple effectively with powerful nobility, who wore formidable suits of armor, wielding massive lances and swords, sitting atop powerful steeds.There is much to commend me. Unfortunately, history’s revisionists dismiss me out-of-hand, selectively  focusing only on those who have misused me. In recent months, young men who gained access to me, and who should never have gained access to me, have committed monstrous acts. Those monstrous acts have been wrongly ascribed principally to me, rather than to the individuals who have misused me. I am well aware of the horrific acts that deranged young people have done. Their monstrous acts should not have occurred and would not have occurred but for crucial missteps by irresponsible people who failed to properly secure me.In 2012, a severely mentally unstable young man, Adam Lanza, gained access to his mother’s firearms. Had I been able, I would have warned Nancy Lanza, Adam’s mother, to properly secure me so that her mentally disturbed son could not gain access to me. She failed to do so. Her irresponsible act in failing to properly secure me led directly to her death at her son’s hands. This sad, deranged young man, Adam Lanza, then carried me to a public school, Sandy Hook Elementary School, located in Newtown, Connecticut. In his hands, Adam Lanza used me to kill innocent children and teachers. But for Nancy Lanza’s irresponsible actions, this horrific incident would never have happened and could never have happened. Major media organizations wrongly blamed me for the tragedy.A similar horrific event occurred, in February of 2018. Another deranged young man, Nikolas Cruz, wrongfully gained access to me, and used me to murder or seriously injure many innocent students and teachers—this time at another public school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, located in Parkland, Florida. Once again media people, reporting on this event, at the urging of those individuals who profess a pathological hatred toward me, blame me for the senseless tragedy, claiming that it is I, rather than this young man, Nikolas Cruz, who is the principal cause of the tragedy.Legislators, members of the mass media, and members of groups who call for my eradication, fail to realize that it is not I that cause violence. To cause violence I must have the desire to do violence, and once having the desire to do violence, I must then act on that desire. But, I am incapable of desire, and I am incapable of action. People, alone, are capable of desire and people alone are capable of acting on their desires. People are causal agents of harm. I am not a causal agent, but merely an object, a tool. Yet, I am blamed for the evil actions of those who misuse me. On careful reflection, though, it is clear that it is the killer, Nikolas Cruz, 19 years old, and it is those agents of Government who knew or should have known of the danger Nikolas Cruz posed to the community, who are the principal causes for harm done to others.There were multiple warnings and warning signs of the danger Nikolas Cruz posed to the community, but Governmental authorities failed to heed those warnings and those signs. Had I been able to, I would have spoken up, alerting the School Board, alerting the FBI, and alerting the County Sheriff’s Office, of the imminent danger posed by Nikolas Cruz. The tragedy that occurred was easily preventable. Yet, local, County, State, and Federal authorities are not held to account. I, however, am held to account. I, the Gun, am deemed responsible for the myriad failings of people.Irresponsible, lawless acts, uncorrected, tend to repeat themselves—an endless loop of tragedy occurring ever again. So it is that yet another severely disturbed young man, Dimitrios Pagourtzis, went on a shooting rampage at a high school, in Santa Fe, Texas. That tragedy unfolded recently. How did this happen? Quite simply, the young man’s father failed to properly secure me. The father breached a duty of care owed to the community to prevent his son from gaining access to me. That failure led to horrific tragedy.The pattern is disturbingly familiar, replaying itself over and over again, and each time, the tragedy was preventable, and would have been prevented but for the failure of adults residing in the community, and but for the failure of Governmental authorities to act to thwart the tragedy. And, once again, the blame for the tragedy is laid at my feet. I, who cannot do any act, good or ill, but for an agent who wields me, is ever the scapegoat.Of course, the vast majority of gun owners are responsible. They treat me with respect. They handle me competently; and they properly secure me, preventing those who must not gain access to me, from doing so. Yet, there are individuals in Government, in industry, and even foreigners who bear a personal grudge against me and who hold me in contempt. And there are groups, comprising individuals whose sole purpose for existence is to eradicate me. These individuals think that by dispossessing millions of average, law-abiding, rational, responsible American citizens of me, the Gun, that violence will stop. It will not stop.A person need merely consider that, in many Western nations where Government has essentially banned me, violence continues unabated. Sociopathic and criminal elements in society still obtain possession of me and use me to seriously injure or kill innocent people. And, even if horrible, evil people do not have immediate access to me, that does not prevent them from causing horrific violence just the same. Those people who desire to harm others will always find a way and means to do so. And, they have done so, repeatedly, constantly, using knives, and bombs, and even cars and trucks to murder and maim innocent people.Still, the drumbeat continues for my banishment from so-called “civilized” society. Those individuals who detest me argue that violence can be stemmed simply by outlawing me. But, arbitrarily denying the average responsible citizen from owning and possessing me will do nothing to prevent lawless and deranged individuals from doing harm, whether by wielding me, or by wielding or utilizing another object. And, when all is said and done, I am just that—an object, a tool, nothing more. Those who seek to blame me, profane me, debase me, denigrate me, castigate me, would do well to recall a quotation from the classic 1953 Western film, “Shane,” where the protagonist offered this sage advice concerning me, as he addressed the wife of a rancher:“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.”Those who desire to ban me outright would do well to remember that banning me will do nothing to prevent the occurrence of and recurrence of evil acts. Evil cannot be legislated away, even as some people seem to believe that it can be legislated away or would like to believe that evil can be legislated away through the simplistic, implausible, unconscionable, and constitutionally impermissible, unlawful expedient of denying to the average, rational, responsible, law-abiding American citizen the fundamental right to own and possess me. At the end of the day, evil remains, and monstrous acts of violence will, unfortunately, continue to occur because evil exists in the heart of those people who seek to do evil, and there are, lamentably, all too many of those in the world. Evil does not and never did exist in me, “The Gun.”_________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

THE ANTIGUN MESSAGE OF TEACHERS’ UNIONS MISSES THE MARK ON GUN VIOLENCE.

Antigun activists must take Americans for fools. When a terrorist, gangbanger, lunatic, or your garden variety criminal seriously injures or murders innocent citizens, be it with a knife, a bomb, a car or truck, a baseball bat, or a firearm—no matter the object—the answer to stemming violence of all kinds is ever the same: “Get rid of the Guns!” That’s the long and short of it. Many members of the American public feed on such misguided, imperious and impertinent anti-Second Amendment slogans, manufactured by and pressed into service by the destroyers of our sacred rights and liberties, taking them to heart. The mainstream Press obliges, churning these slogans out regularly, incessantly. The verbiage may change a bit, but the message does not.Members of the public, who succumb to the antigun rhetoric and propaganda, espouse enactment of ever more restrictive firearms legislation—firearms legislation targeting the law-abiding American civilian population. Individuals who buy into the rhetoric and propaganda believe strongly, although wrongly, that the solution to societal violence is as simple to understand and to effectuate as recitation of the antigun slogans themselves. It isn’t. Contrary to the implication behind these anti-American slogans, no simple cause exists for today’s endemic violence. Accordingly, no simple solution exists for curbing it.But, one point is poignantly clear if a person would just stop to consider it. It is a point antigun advocates won’t mention. It is one antigun advocates would never countenance; and it is a point the mainstream Press—the willing bullhorn of the antigun establishment—would not so much as intimate. Societal violence is a manifestation of human conduct, not inanimate, non-sentient objects.Guns do not go on shooting sprees on their own volition. Knives do not stab individuals on a personal whim. Cars and trucks do not, themselves, ponder jumping curbs to run down bystanders. Yet antigun advocates convey the impression that inanimate objects, firearms, especially, are the innate causal agents of violence—that they “work” a sort of sorcery on individuals who, themselves, become merely the vessels for carrying out acts of violence. So, it is guns—those in the hands of law-abiding, rational American citizens and civilians—that are targeted for unceremonious eradication.“Get rid of guns!” That is the battle cry. And, the antigun advocates count on the public’s wholesale acceptance of their agenda, shaping and molding opinion to their cause; playing on emotion; stoking fear and anger. There is no reflection; no consideration; no debate. Antigun propagandists, activists, and zealots want none of it, believing that serious reflection, consideration, debate to be unnecessary, irrelevant or, more to the point, dangerous, as even a modicum of thoughtful reflection would bring immediately to light, the legal and logical weaknesses of their position.Americans who fall prey to and buy into simplistic antigun messaging and proselytizing operate unthinkingly, mindlessly, reflexively, like a village mob, brandishing pitchforks and torches, hell-bent on destroying Dr. Frankenstein’s monster—believing that ridding the Nation of firearms will in fact stem gun violence and curb most societal violence. They fail to realize that the “monster” they seek to destroy will not be destroyed—cannot be destroyed—because it is no more than a creation of the antigun propagandists. It is a shadowy figment, existing not in the “gun” at all, but in themselves. The monster manifests in and takes on form and substance, and life, as they wish it to—in their own weak, benighted natures.Of course, some Americans, certainly the antigun perpetrator activists who seek public acceptance of their antigun agenda, would like to see civilian gun ownership and possession substantially curtailed and eventually eliminated from American society, even though realization of their goal wouldn’t reduce societal violence one iota. They know this. Indeed, if pressed, they would likely acknowledge this. Antigun activists’ abhorrence of guns rests as much on aesthetic grounds as on social and political ones. They simply do not like guns; see no benefit to having them in “civilized society;” and, so, do not accept that American people have a fundamental, natural right to keep and bear arms. For antigun activists, zealots and those members of the public that fall prey to the messaging, the idea that Americans have a natural fundamental right to keep and bear arms is repugnant; an anathema; not simply arguably wrong, but heretical, even nonsensical.Yet, many more Americans—most Americans—believe fervently in the right of the people to keep and bear arms, as did the founders of our free Republic, the framers of our Constitution, who sensibly realized the importance of codifying that sacred right in the Second Amendment. This is an article of faith. The antithesis of which—that no American has an unalienable right to keep and bear arms—is truly heretical. So long as the concept of natural rights remains a bedrock principle of our Nation, all the chanting, ranting, and prattling, for yet more restrictive gun laws, will be rendered moot, as well such sanctimonious posturing should.On April 5, 2018, the United Federation of Teachers (“UFT”)—a teacher’s union that represents New York City Schools—posted two articles in its publication, in support of the antigun “March for our Lives” demonstration that took place in Washington, D.C. Similar antigun protest marches took place in New York City, and elsewhere around the Country, drawing hundreds of thousands of high school and middle school students, as well as public school educators and administrators. The mass shooting incident at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on February 14, served as the impetus and pretext for the marches. Michael Bloomberg’s antigun advocacy group, “Everytown for Gun Safety,” and other groups, sympathetic to the goals of Bloomberg’s group, provided funding, organization, and logistical support for the students.UFT President Michael Mulgrew, who authored one of the articles appearing in the Union’s publication, titled, “Time for common sense on guns,” says that the protestors “demand sensible gun laws to keep weapons out of our communities,” and that students “don’t want to live with fear and [that] they are tired of waiting for Washington, D.C. to stand up to the National Rifle Association.” To emphasize his own abhorrence of firearms, the UFT President added this weak attempt at a play on words: “teachers should be marking papers, not being trained in marksmanship.” Rachel Nobel, UFT Staff Reporter, who authored a second article, that appeared in the same April 15 publication, titled, “Taking a stand against gun violence,” reiterated the UFT President’s comment that arming teachers was a bad idea. She asserted: “Many teachers had come to protest President Donald Trump’s proposal for licensing teachers to carry weapons in schools.” In her article Rachel Nobel quotes Larry Sachs, a teacher at PS 57, who asserted, “If taking one gun off the street saves your child from being shot, then it’s worth it.” As can be seen, a cascade of antigun slogans tumbles through these UFT articles.The overuse of slogans, in support of the position for further gun restrictions against the civilian populace of this Country, is aptly and abundantly illustrated in the titles of the two UFT articles and in the articles’ content. Slogans invariably fill mainstream news and opinion articles as well. Slogans serve, at best, as a feeble substitute for vigorous, sustained argument. At worse, they are inane, doing the American citizenry a disservice, playing simply to one's emotion, rather than to one's intellect. Use of slogans rather than cogent argument promotes intellectual laziness--both in the author of an article and in the reader. Author and reader are encouraged--nay, expected--to suspend critical judgment.The principal, albeit tacit, point of the two UFT articles is that popular support exists for yet further gun restrictions. Apparently, the UFT President and UFT Staff Reporter, and, evidently, many teachers and school administrators across the Country, believe that, although this Nation suffers from hundreds of Federal, State, and local restrictive firearms’ statutes, codes, regulations, and rules, many more are needed. Obviously, those who espouse further restrictive gun measures won't be satisfied until civilian possession of firearms in this Country is ended.Of course, tens of millions of American citizens do not support further gun restrictions. But, even if we assume, for purpose of argument, that more Americans than not, do support ever more gun control, does popular support, in and of itself, constitute a sound argument for it? No, it doesn’t!Among the informal fallacies known to antiquity, argumentum ad populum, is a common one. The argument, “appeal to popularity,”—also referred to in common parlance as “appeal to the people”—rests on the fallacious claim that, because a significant number of people believe a proposition to be true, the proposition is true.In the present case, the idea conveyed is that, because hundreds of thousands of people, taking part in the recent antigun protest demonstrations, believe that further restrictive firearms’ measures will reduce gun violence, it follows that further restrictive firearms’ measures will, in fact, reduce gun violence, and that further restrictions on civilian ownership and possession of firearms will reduce all forms of societal violence. These notions are false, blatantly so. No matter. Yet, the mainstream media insists on presenting these false notions as fact; as self-evident truth.This is a prime example of the argumentum ad populum fallacy. The fallacy proceeds from the idea that popular opinion constitutes good and sufficient evidence to support a claim. Consensus, among the masses, though, does not, in and of itself, provide evidence in support of the truth of a proposition. Shouting loud and long does not make a claim true, or “truer,” contrary to what many Americans —including all too many young people, who are particularly sensitive to emotional messaging—may happen to think.Apparently, many young Americans, as well as all too many older ones, feel that whoever shouts the longest and the loudest is one whose judgment is correct, and who, therefore, is to be believed over someone—anyone—who operates through calm reflection, who articulates a point clearly, cogently, softly, rather than through bombast.The American public should not, in any event, be subsidizing, with its tax dollars, student protests during school days and hours. Better it would be if high school students debated the issue of societal violence, calmly and intelligently, in the classroom, not in the public forum. Doing so would allow for more sensible and productive use of time.Yet, rather than seeing teachers and school administrators beseeching students to operate through restraint, we see all too many of them taking part in group excesses, along with these students. We see teachers and administrators, at the behest of the leadership of antigun groups, indulging students’ baser instincts; unconscionably encouraging, abetting, and exploiting raw emotion in young people, rather than encouraging restraint on emotions.Teachers should be cultivating each student’s critical faculties, cautioning each of them of the dangers in allowing emotions to hold sway over rational intellect, especially in moments when the rational mind is overwhelmed by senseless tragedy. But, that is where personal strength, fortitude, and indomitability of spirit come into play—where a person checks his or her emotions at the door, preventing those who hide an ulterior motive from making use of a student’s understandable anger and fear, to promote an insidious and deceptive agenda—one detrimental to the preservation of our Nation’s sacred rights and liberties. Oh, but wouldn’t that be a shame!_________________________________________________Copyright © 2018 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.