In America Today, a Gun Saved a Life

Editor's Note: This commentary was also published recently at TheLandoftheFree.net.

by Gerard Valentino

Statistics tell us that today, somewhere in America, a gun saved someone's life. The person alive because they chose to own a gun and use it for self-defense might be a teacher, or a factory worker, or a computer programmer.

Unlike the mainstream media portrayal of gun owners, they are not all toothless, hillbilly vigilante wannabes. So a son, father, wife, daughter or mother might be going home to an average American family because a gun was used to ward of a violent attacker. Instead of being free to attack again, the criminal in question is also going somewhere: to jail, or the morgue.

But, if you believe the anti-gun crowd, guns are a blight on society and an evil that needs to be eradicated.

Try telling that to a woman who woke up to the proverbial "thump in the night" and the only thing standing between her and a violent criminal is a .45 caliber handgun, or 12 gauge shotgun. The same holds true for a man who is attacked by a hammer-wielding crack addict after getting cash from the local ATM.

To believe in gun control, you have to believe that society is better off if the woman doesn't have a gun to defend herself and the violent criminal is free to act without fear.

Gun control advocates also have to believe that society wins if the crack addict gets the man's hard-earned cash after beating him to death, instead of getting three .40 caliber bullets to the chest, which is what such a criminal truly deserves.

When all the spin and media-created fluff is cleared away, the gun issue comes down to whether society benefits if the woman attacked in her home, or the man withdrawing money from his bank account are left to become victims, or empowered to become survivors.

At that point, anyone looking at the gun issue logically has the answer because guns are used far more often to save innocent people each year than die in accidents or through malicious gun related acts. But the gun-control movement, combined with a complicit mainstream media, has taken logic out of the gun debate.

Even my own sister, who is an intelligent woman, can't get past the emotional aversion to keeping a gun at home for self defense. Her viewpoint is a byproduct of growing up in suburban Chicago and living with the constant media message that a gun in the home is a guarantee of a dead child.

Someday, she might be home alone when a home invader enters and not have the means to fight back.

If that happens, who is to blame?

The truth is that she is to blame for not looking past the rhetoric and seeing that a gun is much more likely to save her life, and the lives of her children, than hurt any of them. But, the anti-gun establishment media and the anti-gun leadership bear a great deal of responsibility for using false statistics, outright lies and emotional blackmail to push their immoral agenda.

There is no doubt that any political agenda that demands law-abiding citizens go unarmed while criminals remain armed to the teeth is inherently immoral. Especially when there is overwhelming evidence that gun control doesn't work.

During the fight to end the total gun bans in Chicago and Washington D.C. the anti-gun leadership and establishment media predicted gun related mayhem if law-abiding citizens were allowed to own guns for self-defense. Where is all the media coverage now that the murder and violent crime rate in Chicago and Washington D.C. has dropped since the gun bans ended?

The lack of truthful reporting on the issue is proof, yet again, that there is bias in how the establishment media covers the gun issue; a bias that continues to sensationalize every gun crime, or gun accident while largely ignoring when guns are used in self–defense.

There is a chance the woman who fought off the home invader lived in Chicago and was victimized prior to the gun ban being struck down. Since the only item added to the equation was the law-abiding citizen's gun, it clearly shows how gun bans benefit violent criminals.

Nobody would send an honest, law-abiding person into a situation that guarantees that they will become a victim of violent crime. But, by taking away the right to bear arms, the anti-gun community is coming awfully close to doing just that. Criminals prey on the weak and weak-willed. So when the anti-gun community disarms honest people they are helping common thugs become better at their cowardly job.

Empowering criminals is the end result of gun control schemes and the anti-gun movement still pushes their agenda. The fact that they know the truth and cling to the thought of disarming honest people defies logic and puts their morality in question.

The word immoral is defined as an action that conflicts with broadly held societal principles - clearly the act of disarming the law abiding while doing nothing to disarm criminals meets that standard.

Sadly, the enemies of gun rights couldn't care less.

Gerard Valentino is a member of the Buckeye Firearms Foundation Board of Directors and the author of "The Valentino Chronicles – Observations of a Middle Class Conservative," available through the Buckeye Firearms Association store.