The Price Of Freedom - And Response (2)

  • Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Automatic weapons of war need to be in the hands of our military and police, not every potential person who may want to own one in the name of personal freedom and then one day decide to shoot up a concert venue, church, elementary school or walk down the streets as a gang member with their converted assault rifles slung over their shoulder.  

Bill O'Rielly said in a recent blog post that the Nevada mass murder "was the price of freedom." 

I completely disagree. We as a civilized society should never accept or normalize mass murder with assault weapons as the periodic and increasing price of freedom. We should never accept the sacrifice of our children, friends, loved ones or our own lives at a peaceful concert or similar event for those who want to possess mass killing machines in the name of their own personal freedom.  It is not freedom when a person can no longer go to a concert, mall, elementary school, high school, workplace, church, birthday party, movie theater, sporting event, festival or anywhere else without having to consider the real concern that some nut case can easily grab their personal mass killing machine or other weapon of war and spray the place with bullets and kill scores of innocents in minutes.  

True freedom would be having the knowledge and reasonable assurance that we are reasonably  safe from such people with such weapons. 

The latest validated research confirms that more guns equal more gun violence, not more guns equal less gun violence.  If more guns equaled less overall gun violence, it stands to reason that America would be one of the safest countries in the world since we have so many guns here. Instead, we are the exact opposite with one of the highest rates of gun violence in the world. We are the unquestioned leader of the world in mass murder shootings by huge margins. The list of them is long. Google it.  

I am and always have been a supporter of the 2nd Amendment right for law abiding citizens to own guns for personal protection and sport. To be absolutely clear. I remain supportive of law abiding citizens right to own, revolvers,  low magazine capacity semi-automatic handguns, shotguns, sporting rifles and semi-automatic rifles that cannot be easily converted to full automatic and have low capacity magazines. However, there is no legitimate personal safety or sporting reason for automatic weapons or semi-automatic weapons with high capacity magazines that are easily converted to full automatic weapons to be sold to the general public and carried around all over the place.  

Today, for whatever reason, there are simply too many people prone to mass killings to continue to allow such easy access to these mass killing machines in the name of personal freedom. 

As a country, we can help ensure people's true personal  freedom of movement, safety and travel and the safety of our police and first responders by working hard to keep the mass killing machines I described out of the hands of everyone, but the police and military, who by the way are not the people's enemy that we somehow need to protect ourselves from. 

Laws matter and their strong enforcement will make a big difference in helping ensure true personal freedom, the freedom from mass killings in this country.  

Tim Gobble 

* * * 

Mr. Gobble has made the same mistake most people with his mind set makes, that common, legal to own, Modern Sporting Rifles are “weapons of war”. 

No modern military in the world uses these rifles as general issue battle rifles, certainly not the Armed Forces of the United States. 

Unfortunately, this is already the overheated rhetoric and tortured reasoning we are hearing about the tragedy in Las Vegas. 

From what I’ve been able to glean from the news media so far, the killer used legally purchased semi-auto rifles to perpetrate his killing. 

It’s been said that he “may” have had one fully automatic rifle that he used but no one, including Mr. Gobble, in the civilian world knows for sure what he used. 

What will the MSM and Mr. Gobble make of all this if it’s found that the killer used a legally purchased Class III full auto rifle that he passed the very rigorous FBI background checks to purchase? 

He certainly seems to have had the considerable amount of money it takes to purchase a legal full auto rifle ie: $12,000 to $15,000 or more and the $200 tax stamp. 

He certainly, if the media can be believed about the number and manufacturers of the rifles in question, had enough money to afford to buy very expensive semi- auto MSR’s. 

But, as has happened so much in the past in these incidents, it appears he bought his rifles legally after a FBI background check into his past life. 

Like many, many legal firearms owners in the country, I have gone through the same checks to purchase the rifles and handguns I have and like all these many people, I enjoy shooting this style of rifle. 

It doesn’t matter to the Second Amendment whether they are for hunting, competition, self-defense or just fun, they are part of our rights as Americans to own.   

As a gun owner who has used rifles of this type many times in my life, I abhor the senseless killing in Las Vegas as much as anyone does. 

No caring, thinking person, whether a gun owner or not, can feel any other way about this great national tragedy. 

That said, it’s reprehensible to begin the drumbeat for more “common sense” gun control before the bodies are cold. 

That man’s weapons would not have killed those people except for the fact that a sick, twisted individual chose to use them in such a manner. 

If gun control was the answer that Mr. Gobble and the people who think like he does worked, Chicago, Washington DC, Baltimore or any other major city you care to name that restricts firearms from its citizens would be paradise compared to the rest of fly over country. 

Ain’t it funny how they’re not? 

Mr. Gobble, I have to really question your belief in the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution when you make inane statements about guns that qualify what a legal citizen may own with statements like “low capacity magazines” and “weapons of war”. 

As for your “statistics” about the number of guns per level of crime, might I suggest reading the FBI stats that are on the ‘net and easy to find (except for the media, for some reason) and then read anything written by John Lott on the subject, even you might become “enlightened to the truth”. 

John T. Sanders

* * * 

I can understand the comments by Mr Gobble except: 

1. If a person has the resources, they can purchase any gun they want under the table

2. Parts for lethal guns can be ordered from multiple sources and assembled by the buyer. Yes, I personally know an individual who owns a very deadly gun which was obtained this way. 

3. Remove guns and those who desire to kill will simply resort to low tech bombs and other methods. 

4. Shall we stop renting vehicles that can be driven into crowds? 

5. How many are aware that you can rent/lease heavy equipment (bulldozers, dump trucks, etc). Drive or take them to a location on a trailer and then wreck deadly havoc. 

6. Never forget the Oklahoma Bombing. 

7. One of the deadliest mass killings in the U.S. involved an individual who bombed a school. Then he waited on scene until responders arrived and detonated his car filled with explosives, killing responders. 

8. Shall we outlaw pressure cookers, propane, gasoline, fertilizer, and hundreds of other deadly chemicals? 

If an individual is determined to kill, they will find a method and a weapon.

Guns may be more or less convenient, but they are the tip of the iceberg to a determined, twisted individual or group with some knowledge and dedication to a sick agenda. 

Ted Ladd
Ooltewah



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