Jesse Jackson Is ''Gunning For Guns''

By Chris Chumita & Chad D. Baus

Having experienced humiliation by supporting the false accuser of the Duke lacrosse players, the Reverend Jesse Jackson's latest race-baiting initiative (read: his latest attempt to get his face in front of the media) involves taking up the mantle of gun control. The fruit of his labor was an article called "Gunning For Guns", published, among other places, in the Xenia (OH) Gazette.

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Commentary by Buckeye Firearms Association editors, Chris Chumita or Chad Baus is in crimson.

Gunning For Guns

Jesse Jackson
Syndicated Columnist

We mourned the murder of Blair Holt at the House of Hope in Chicago. The 16-year-old died a hero, using his body to shield a friend as his crowded bus was shot up by what was apparently an enraged gang member.

Chris: I never thought that I would be able able to say this, but I actually agree with Jackson on one thing. The 16-year-old was a true hero and a true warrior. However, that appears to be all we agree on.

What this incident really proves is that the gun banners' utopia of Chicago's strict gun control laws fail to prevent violent crime and only disarm the innocent. The gang banger committed this violent crime with a gun despite Chicago's strict gun control laws.

Americans saw the horror at Virginia Tech, the worst mass murder in U.S. history, where 32 students died. But this country experiences a Virginia Tech every day, as an average of 32 people are murdered by gunfire.

Chris: Once again, Jackson points to a tragedy as proof for the need for more gun control, and once again it actually proves the opposite. Cho massacred 32 people in a "gun free zone" and that anti-gun policy did not stop his rampage. The one thing that Virginia Tech's 'no-guns' policy did was ensure that all of Cho's victims were unarmed and incapable of adequately defending themselves.

What Jackson does not mention is research that shows that guns are used approximately 2 million times a year for protection or to prevent crime. That works out to be approximately 5,479 defensive gun uses per day!

Our cities don't manufacture guns. Most don't allow gun dealers to operate inside the city limits. Just outside Chicago, as outside many large cities, the dealers set up shop. There is no limit on the number of guns an individual can buy. And George Bush allowed the assault weapons ban to expire, so there is virtually no limit on the kind of guns that can be purchased. Assault weapons are terrorist guns; they are not made for hunting deer, not for sport, but to kill people.

Chad: Of course, the incident Jackson is attempting to exploit didn't happen in the suburbs where guns can be easily purchased, did it? It happened in the city, where gun ban extremists have failed to keep their promises of making things safer. As for Jackson's characterization of semi-automatic rifles as "terrorist guns" - I wonder if he thought of that on his own or had to borrow it from Jim Zumbo, the outdoors writer who has since changed his opinion and devoted himself to educating others about the many positive uses for these rifles.

Any big-city police chief will tell you that the easy access to guns contributes directly to the death toll in our cities -- and endangers the lives of the men and women who serve on the thin blue line of police.

Chad: Most would also be forced to admit that their city's many gun control laws have done nothing to control criminals' "easy access" to illegal guns on the urban street.

Metropolitan areas have no use for gun peddlers or people packing concealed weapons. If given their choice, most citizens in cities and suburbs would simply ban handguns, ban assault weapons, and ban gun dealers. Hunters could buy their guns in the rural areas where they hunt their quarry.

Chad: Ah, yes...every good political insider knows that when you want to get a pulse on the opinion of mainstream America, you should ask Jesse Jackson, right? And everyone knows the Second Amendment guarantees the right of the people to keep and bear arms while hunting, right? The bans Jesse proposes sure sound like they'll work, so while we're at it, shouldn't we also ban gun crime, gun theft, gun violence, drug use, drug pushing, and drug smuggling? Oh, wait, we already did that. Sorry Jesse.

Why don't metropolitan areas have these bans in force? Why does America let the ban on the sale assault weapons expire -- after Sept. 11, in the face of the terrorist threat?

Chris: Someone should tell Jackson that the terrorists used box cutters on September 11th, not guns. Violent people, like terrorists, can kill thousands of people without even touching a firearm. Banning so-called assault rifles would not prevent terrorism. It would only ensure that American citizens would be disarmed and incapable of adequately defending themselves if we experience guerilla-style terrorism in the United States.

The answer is that the gun lobby, led by the National Rifle Association, has been taken over by zealots and promises to punish politicians who want to get guns off our streets.

Politicians quake before the NRA's muscle. In 2000, they organized big time against Al Gore. But Gore won the popular vote. Gun-control initiatives passed in Colorado and Oregon, both hunters' states. The NRA lost the great bulk of the House and Senate races that it pumped the most money in. The NRA has a lot of money and makes a lot of noise, but its members have other concerns: Iraq, health care, the economy.

But the NRA is mobilized. The victims of gun violence are not. The gun dealers sell the guns; innocent people get shot; we mourn. This will only change if the victims organize. Change occurs when the victims rise up and demand change.

Chad: I've got news for Mr. Jackson. The victims HAVE organized. Grassroots Americans tired of people like Jesse forcing them to be disarmed when attacked have formed into groups like Buckeye Firearms Association, the Second Amendment Foundation, and yes, the National Rifle Association.

The NRA wants guns on our streets. The gun dealers profit from the sale. Guns are becoming a statement of manhood. The victims -- and their friends and relatives and neighbors and police and firefighters -- must demand real gun control.

Gun control won't end violence, but it will lower the casualties and help protect the innocent. It will make it harder for terrorists to buy guns in America. It will strengthen the porous borders of metropolitan areas against the gun peddlers who profit from selling guns to gangs. It might even allow us to celebrate the life of the next Blair Holt rather than mourn his death.

Chad: If Jackson's promises about gun control were true, shouldn't we be seeing the proof in Chicago, or Washington D.C., or Cleveland, or Toledo? No, the truth is exactly the opposite - gun control is an abject failure, and it is time to end America's grand social experiment of disarming the innocent.