Owning weapon ensures safety

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in The Lima News. Republished with permission.

by Thomas J. Lucente Jr.
Columnist for The Lima News

On July 16, a pizza delivery driver in Columbus was delivering a pizza when two men armed with shotguns approached him.

The deliveryman, who has a license to carry a concealed handgun, warned the men off. When they ignored his warnings, the pizza driver opened fire, injuring one of the robbers.

On July 22, John Mutter, who was asleep in his Johnstown home, was awakened by Brian Dyer, who poked Mutter in the head with one of his own shotguns. Dyer was reportedly looking for more weapons. Mutter directed him to another part of the room.

When Dyer turned, Mutter, who is a paraplegic, grabbed a .357 revolver he kept nearby and killed Dyer.

These are merely two recent examples of people legally protecting themselves with a firearm. This happens every day in the United States. According to Dr. John R. Lott Jr., an economist who has written extensively on gun issues in the United States, someone legally uses a firearm to stop a crime some 2 million times a year. Other studies show that number as low as 100,000 times a year.

Regardless, it happens multiple times a day across the nation. That can't be disputed. The number of justifiable homicide cases are on the rise prompting some 30 states to pass so-called "stand your ground" and Castle Doctrine laws.

Still, the liberal gun-grabbers turn a blind eye to the obvious truism that if you outlaw guns, only the outlaws will have guns. The other truism liberals ignore is the fact that a person who is willing to murder will not obey other laws, such as those against possessing a firearm or carrying a firearm into a theater that has a sign prohibiting such behavior.

The reality is that gun-free zones, such as schools and the Century 16 movie theater in Aurora, Colo., are simply advertisements for those looking for victims. If you are looking to kill people, of course you will choose a location where people are less likely able to defend themselves.

That is probably what a shooter was thinking Feb. 27 when he walked into a Chardon school and opened fire killing three students. A 17-year-old boy, T.J. Lane, was charged in that crime.

It is probably what the shooter in Aurora, Colo., who police said was James Eagan Holmes, 24, was thinking when he walked into the theater that July 20 morning.

Seung Hui Cho also benefited from a gun-free zone when he killed 33 people, including himself, at Virginia Tech in 2007.

That is why the answer to airline safety is not more intrusive searches, but more weapons, either through marshals, armed flight staff, or armed passengers. One gun on any of the four planes involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks could have saved thousands of lives.

It is possible that someone with a weapon in that dark theater would have made no difference. Then again, it could have saved lives. We will never know.

Liberals, when trying to take our guns, show their ignorance. While advocating for a ban on so-called "assault weapons" (all weapons are assault weapons) they talk about not needing an AR-15 or AK-47 for "hunting."

Hunting? I don't hunt.

The right to keep and bear arms, which is both a God-given natural right as well as a constitutional one, is not about "hunting." It is only nominally about self-defense. The real reason the Founders wanted an armed populace was because they knew it was better for government to fear the people than for the people to fear the government.

That is, the gun was meant for self-defense from not only common criminals, but also from government oppression; street thugs as well as government thugs.

As Thomas Jefferson put it: "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

As tragic as the shooting in Aurora, Colo., was, allowing the government and the gun-grabbers to use the tragedy as an excuse to deprive the people of their last defense against a totalitarian state would be even more tragic.

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