“We do know that once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun,” Obama said at the White House. “At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this kind of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries. It doesn’t happen in other places with this kind of frequency. It is in our power to do something about it.”
Obama also said he’s had to “make statements like this too many times,” a reference to some of the rampages that have occurred during his presidency. Since Obama took office in 2009, the U.S. has been shaken by multiple high-profile mass killings involving guns, including shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado and two separate incidents at Fort Hood.
“Communities like (Charleston) have had to endure tragedies like this too many times,” he said. [CNN.com 6-18-15]
Psychological abusers exploit their victims by fostering unearned guilt, and encouraging emotion over reason and facts.
That’s precisely what Obama is doing here.
He’s exploiting a tragic occurrence in South Carolina as an opportunity to outlaw guns, or at least move us further towards outlawing guns.
Whether you choose to own a gun or not, owning a weapon of self-protection is (along with free speech) one of the most fundamental and inalienable rights you have.
You don’t need to know all — or even any — of the facts of some awful shooting in South Carolina, or anywhere else, to understand this fact.
Your right to own a gun is your right to self-protection — in the most literal, life-or-death of circumstances. Common sense is enough proof that police are not always available, and not always reliable, or even always rational and fair.
For a government to take away your right to possess a gun is no different, in principle, than a government taking away your right to life. Rest assured that once this right goes, the rest will follow. Why? Because once people have surrendered their right to life, they have already implied a surrender of everything else. Once you concede the government’s ability to keep you from defending your life, you have conceded the government’s ability to do anything it wishes.
Supporters of anti-gun laws imply that by your owning a gun, you’re partly to blame for some tragic crime that some terrorist or criminal chooses to instigate or perpetrate. Talk about unearned guilt. Talk about exploitation of sad situations. Obama and Biden are disgusting men for taking advantage of this tragedy in this way, and nobody should pretend otherwise. The bodies are not even cold, and they carry their lust for even more government power straight to their bully pulpit of righteous, arrogant indignation.
The vast majority of people who own guns for their own self-protection are in no way responsible for a criminal, terrorizing person’s choice to harm others. Racism has nothing to do with it, either. Mixing all these issues together makes no logical or rational sense. Nor is that their intention. Their intention is to “make” you feel guilty. “If I don’t support gun control, that makes me a racist, insensitive monster who implicitly wants shootings like this to take place.”
Nobody can “make” you feel guilty without your consent. Stop doubting yourself, those of you who own guns, and those of you who cherish the right and the choice to own a gun, for your own protection, should you ever need or choose to do so in the future. Don’t let these manipulative men, just because they hold power in government, intimidate you for not sharing their beliefs.
The onus is on the government to do a better job of protecting us from criminals and terrorists who shoot up churches, movie theaters, or anything else. It’s not on those of us who are peaceful, and who choose to own guns for self-protection.
Outlawing guns will erode the liberty of peaceful, innocent citizens and make the world safer for criminals. It’s ignorant and arrogant for Obama and Biden to imply that such a policy is self-evidently needed. Killing people is already against the law, and it doesn’t stop criminals from doing horrible things. Why will outlawing guns stop criminals from buying weapons on the illegal market, to use them on a population now completely disarmed by gun laws?
Abusers never tell you what they’re really after. Obama has failed to make the case for gun control in other situations, so he waits for a tragic event to exploit it now. “Never waste a good crisis,” is not just the policy of politicians, but anyone with the desire to wear down their victims.
The right to your mind and your body are the two most basic rights you have — and two of the last ones left, in any principled sense.
Weapons allow you to defend your body; thoughts and ideas allow you to defend and fortify your mind. With one gone, the other won’t be long for this world, either. Think hard before you swallow Obama’s quest to punish the innocent for the crimes of the guilty.
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