The Conservative Edge

The city of Chicago recently passed what many people are calling the strictest handgun laws in the nation. Mayor Richard Daley clearly wanted to show that the Supreme Court ruling which upheld citizens’ rights to own firearms would hold no sway in his fair city. He claimed that he “wanted to give police a law they could begin enforcing as quickly as possible,” according to the Associated Press, but he obviously shows his anti-gun mentality by supporting the new legislation.

Here are the highlights of the new gun laws, from the AP report:

• They limit the number of handguns residents can register to one per month and prohibits residents from having more than one handgun in operating order at any given time.

• They require residents in homes with children to keep handguns in lock boxes or equipped with trigger locks and requires residents convicted of a gun offense to register with the police department, much as sex offenders are now required to do.

• They prohibit people from owning a gun if they were convicted of a violent crime, domestic violence or two or more convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

• They require prospective gun owners to be fingerprinted, take a four-hour class and one-hour training at a gun range (despite the fact such training isn’t available in Chicago).

• They require the police department to maintain a registry of every registered handgun owner in the city, with the names and addresses to be made available to police officers, firefighters and other emergency responders.

But notice carefully who these new laws target. No mention was made of tougher sentencing for convicted criminals, or defending neighborhoods against gang-related activities. These new laws seem to exclusively restrict the legal ownership of handguns by law-abiding citizens. In other words, Chicago is inventing a new class of outlaws: the people who merely want to defend their homes and families against the real criminals. The new ordinances go so far as to prohibit gun owners from stepping outside their homes, even onto their porches or in their garages, with a handgun. All of this, in a misguided effort to reduce crime.

The idea of self-defense is not a theory, but is instead a harsh reality for many Americans. Otis McDonald, a man involved in the federal lawsuit challenging Chicago’s previous handgun ban, said he needed a gun to protect himself from gangs that terrorized his South Side neighborhood. In addition, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas noted that “the use of firearms for self-defense was often the only way black citizens could protect themselves” from violent groups such as the Ku Klux Klan in the Deep South.

But for some reason, the anti-gun groups won’t heed such simple logic. Instead, they believe in the fallacy that because a few (the criminals) misuse firearms, then everyone is capable of misusing them. This is simply not true—it couldn’t be true, because it hasn’t actually happened. The liberals and other anti-gun organizations are guilty of fear-mongering by trying to convince us that the most dangerous people in America are the Otis McDonalds and Clarence Thomases who seek to defend life and home.

Finally, think of it this way: if the Chicago police force is now going to busy itself making sure nobody steps on their front porch with a handgun, there is going to be less time to track down the real criminals who have no regard for any law. That might be the biggest crime of all.

Unbelievable. That’s the word that kept coming to mind.

I visited three different sporting goods stores this weekend looking for some .40 caliber pistol ammunition. I have never before seen such prices and restrictions on ammunition. One store clerk told me that he only had some .38 Special and .45 ammo. He didn’t expect any new deliveries of the other semi-auto products. Another store had restrictions on .40 caliber, 9mm, .380 auto, and .45 auto—3 boxes per customer, if the product was in stock. The third store I went to was selling a 50-round box of .40 caliber for $44.95 AND restricting purchases to 2 boxes per customer. Unbelievable! Just a few months ago, I purchased a box for less than 20 bucks.

The reason ammo costs are sky-high is due to extreme demand. There is a shortage of the materials that go into making ammunition, which can increase the cost of the final product. But with such a demand by the retail customer, prices have gone through the proverbial roof. It makes sense, in a way. After Barack Obama was elected President, there was a marked surge in gun purchases across the country. One store here in Ohio has a picture of Obama displayed, with the phrase “The best gun salesman ever” or something to that effect. So, it stands to reason that if gun sales go up, ammo sales will follow.

My concern is that ammo prices will remain high for some time. Meanwhile, the liberals are working on legislation to add taxes on ammunition, intending to make it so expensive that we can’t afford to use it. Hey, that sounds familiar—that’s what they are doing with tobacco, and planning to do with gasoline and oil products. So, we need to keep pressure on our elected officials to prevent the anti-gunners from taxing us into submission.

In the meantime, buy your ammo when you get a good deal. Keep the shotgun handy. Or, you might start practicing with a slingshot and a longbow. Until you can’t afford them, that is.

I’ve been working on an argument essay for my English class at college. Everyone in the class was free to choose a topic. I decided to write my essay about the Ohio smoking ban. This ban, known as state Issue 5, was approved by a majority of Ohio voters and prohibits smoking in all public buildings and all workplaces. Someone asked me why I chose this subject, since I don’t smoke. My reason is that there are too many American citizens who don’t realize they are being targeted for a great social re-engineering.

People don’t realize that, before they actually lose a particular freedom, they are first stigmatized by the movements who want to take the freedom away. Tobacco users, for example, are (and have been since the 1970s) labeled pathetic and helpless “addicts” who really want to quit smoking but can’t. Smokers are also accused of making non-smokers suffer from secondhand smoke. Once this negative association with tobacco use is made, it becomes easier to eliminate tobacco from society. The same is true with gun ownership. Honest, law-abiding American citizens are stigmatized as ignorant, uneducated, irresponsible threats to American society. As a result, they pay heavy taxes on ammunition, and must meet endless purchasing and licensing requirements just to be able to own a gun. Once the idea is accepted that a vast number of armed citizens is actually a threat to society, it becomes easier to outlaw gun ownership.

And so I am writing about the smoking ban because I feel that everyday Americans should stand up for their freedoms, liberties, and pursuits of happiness. Here is some of my essay:

“The anti-smoking establishment maintains that no one has the right to subject others to secondhand smoke. This idea gained traction in the 1970s, when the more politically savvy members of the anti-smoking movement realized a need to show that tobacco smoke was harmful. At a World Health Organization conference in 1975, former British Chief Medical Officer Sir George Godber stated, ‘It would be essential to foster an atmosphere where it was perceived that active smokers would injure those around them.’ But two significant studies on the risk of secondhand smoke failed to find any real danger. The World Health Organization, after conducting a 10-year European test, admitted in 1998 that it found no significant statistical proof of risk. The British Medical Journal, in 2003, published the results of a 39-year study done in California, which concluded that any risk was essentially too small to measure.

“Most studies of secondhand smoke influence are conducted by groups with clear anti-smoking agendas. These studies are usually financed by pharmaceutical companies which make money selling nicotine patches and gum. But the real intent of the anti-smoking movement is to stigmatize smokers, not to protect the public. This leads to the enactment of intrusive and unreasonable laws that restrict the freedom of American citizens. For example, the mayor of Los Angeles signed a law, effective in September of 2007, that banned smoking in all city parks and beaches, and also prohibited even the carrying, lighting, or discarding of tobacco products. Imagine being fined or arrested for carrying a product that was legally purchased at a gas station or convenience store!

“The anti-smokers have morphed into a powerful prohibitionist movement. They promote intolerance and social tension, and wield too much control over the lives of many Americans who use tobacco. Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent.’ If American people consent to the bully tactics of the anti-smoking movement, many other freedoms could be sacrificed in the name of social engineering.”

So, what do you think? Just replace tobacco use with gun ownership, freedom of religion, conservative news media, or other American interests. You’ll likely find that some liberal organization is targeting you, and preparing to take away whatever freedom you enjoy. Write your Representatives and Senators; write letters to the editors of your newspaper; join conservative organizations; give yourself a voice. If we don’t stick together, we will surely lose this America we love.