Here’s kind of a general post on guns with a lot of links.

This column has made the rounds on Facebook from someone who knows guns but connects them directly with hunting and hates the NRA. His premise is flawed and he apparently has not read Feinstein’s proposal . The first step to outlawing guns is to get them registered. Call me paranoid if you must, but it’s not like this has never happened in the history of the world.

I don’t buy into the conspiracy theories that Barack Obama and his henchmen are coming for my guns. Or the UN. These are lizard-brained ideas; Taliban-level thought process; the words of paranoid schizophrenics.

and his statistics are bizarro [see bold]

Could a hunter—or some other armed citizen—have prevented the Sandy Hook shootings? Such a thing has not happened in at least three decades, according to a recent study by Mother Jones which looked at 62 mass shootings in the last 30 years. “In not a single case was the killing stopped by a civilian using a gun….in recent rampages in which armed civilians attempted to intervene, they not only failed to stop the shooter but also were gravely wounded or killed.”

Meanwhile, a growing body of evidence supports the observation that gun owners and their families are more likely to be shot by their own guns than to successfully repel attackers with them. In pretending otherwise, the NRA is selling the myth of security while it sells public safety down the river. It’s time to hang the NRA out to dry.

If it were a “mass shooting”, by definition that means that there was no armed person there to stop the shooting hence, correct, not a single case could be found where the shooter was stopped by an armed civilian.

As a matter of fact let’s take a look see at the famous San Antonio mass shooting: Oh – you don’t remember that one? That’s because it was stopped by an armed off duty officer 2 days after Sandy Hook occurred. (yes there are other examples if you care to look)

Let’s look at something less “mass” in the name of shooting and more singular. The first video on the link is the most frightening thing and still has my heart rate racing just thinking about what the poor woman went through. And she had dogs. Lots of them. The 2nd was also scary – but even though the woman was frightened….it had a a different feel. She had a gun. [ht maggie's farm]

Forbes writes on the “assault weapon” ban and whatever good it does.

Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) has announced that she will be introducing legislation to reenact the ban on so-called assault weapons that she authored in 1994. The evidence is in on the effect of her previous assault weapons ban: zero, zilch, nada, as the saying goes. The ban made no perceptible difference in the gun violence statistics when it went into effect, and no perceptible difference when it was allowed to expire 10 years later, in 2003.

That is because the term “assault weapon” is just a PR stunt that fools the gullible and easily deluded.

Oh – you know what is meant by assault weapon. Really? Then write it out.

In the meantime a US Marine writes to Senator Feinstein about her bill.
It’s gone viral so you’ve probably read it, but it deserves full press.

Senator Dianne Feinstein,

I will not register my weapons should this bill be passed, as I do not believe it is the government’s right to know what I own. Nor do I think it prudent to tell you what I own so that it may be taken from me by a group of people who enjoy armed protection yet decry me having the same a crime. You ma’am have overstepped a line that is not your domain. I am a Marine Corps Veteran of 8 years, and I will not have some woman who proclaims the evil of an inanimate object, yet carries one, tell me I may not have one.

I am not your subject. I am the man who keeps you free. I am not your servant. I am the person whom you serve. I am not your peasant. I am the flesh and blood of America.
I am the man who fought for my country. I am the man who learned. I am an American. You will not tell me that I must register my semi-automatic AR-15 because of the actions of some evil man.

I will not be disarmed to suit the fear that has been established by the media and your misinformation campaign against the American public.

We, the people, deserve better than you.

Respectfully Submitted,
Joshua Boston
Cpl, United States Marine Corps
2004-2012

That facebook columns ends like this:

Meanwhile, a growing body of evidence supports the observation that gun owners and their families are more likely to be shot by their own guns than to successfully repel attackers with them. In pretending otherwise, the NRA is selling the myth of security while it sells public safety down the river. It’s time to hang the NRA out to dry.

The NRA needs hunters a lot more than hunters need the NRA. And the nation needs the opinions of hunters more than it needs the opinion of the National Association of paranoid gun owners.

Hunters are intermediaries between government armed forces and private citizens. We are armed citizens, who know what guns can do, what can go wrong, and what it’s like to kill. If sensible gun-control policy is ever to be pursued, hunters should be a part of the conversation.

And we can start by saying “Fuck the NRA.” It’s time for the bully to go home.

So apparently all the rest of us who choose not to hunt are to sit back and let hunters determine a) whether our households are safe enough for guns, and b) whether our government deserves it’s position. Should hunters be in on the conversation? You bet. Along with everyone else who enjoys living under our constitution.