**This is a post I started before the attack in Las Vegas. I have made some edits to it since then and present it here* By default, what follows is political in nature in the U.S. The issue of firearms and gun control has been so distorted by politicians that well-meaning and intelligent people are prone to regurgitating the lies which they have been spoon-fed by their ill-intentioned ruling class. I mean no insult to people who have been deceived, it is not their fault. However, I see a need for people to speak the truth whenever possible because education is the only answer to misinformation. If you know the truth and continue to spread the lies, then you are a liar like them. 

The political left in America has a fetish for disarming law-abiding citizens. They tend to disguise their intentions behind phrases such as common-sense gun laws to paint anyone opposed to their argument as somehow lacking common sense. I have friends on the political left, and they are well-educated and well-intentioned people. I have no doubt that they mean well, but there are some canned arguments that get on my nerves because they are based on lies told by politicians and newspeople with an agenda. Before I begin, for those new here, I was raised to be afraid of guns and was in my 40s before I fired a gun for the first time. I know both sides of the debate well – dating back to a time when there was an actual debate, as opposed to the shouting of falsehoods and regurgitated misinformation. I am not passing myself off as a spokesman for the NRA, just a law-abiding gun owner who is sick of the lies people tell in this argument. Here are some of the worst I hear and see frequently.

Lie: Gun Show Loophole

The tale of the gun show loophole is that if you go to a gun show, you can walk in and buy a gun without a background check. There is no such loophole. Where this one started was that there is, in some States, no requirement for a gun owner to put a buyer through a background check before he or she can sell their gun to a buyer from the same State, provided he has no reasonable suspicion that the buyer would be unable to pass a background check. These laws vary throughout the Country, so be sure you check the regulations where you live before buying a gun from your Uncle Fred. But the fact of the matter regarding the Gun Show Loophole is that there isn’t one. If you purchase a gun at a gun show, you will still need to fill out the NICS form before the FFL (Federal Firearms Licensee) can allow you to assume possession of the firearm. No loophole.

Lie: Buying a Gun on the Internet Requires NO Background Check

In this lie, the idea is that I can go to Buds Gunshop (or any other online firearms seller) and order a gun without the background check. And they get away with this lie because the first part of the transaction has no background check – the part where you place your order and pay the company. But when you actually do this, the gun is not shipped to you. Write that down, it’s important. The gun you just bought will be shipped to someone who is a FFL. When they receive the shipment, they will contact you, you will go to them and da-da-dadaaa, fill out the NICS paperwork for the background check.

Lie: Restricting Access to Firearms Reduces Crime

Look at the prohibitive nature of the gun laws in Chicago and Baltimore (just for a quick example), and see that this is an intentional lie. I wrote about the misleading nature of the reported “Gun Violence” numbers before, and this falls into the same category. People such as me, who follow the law, will do what we need to do to stay legal. If they tell me I cannot have “high-capacity magazines”, even when the politicians mistakenly call them “clips”, I will follow the law as will those other law-abiding gun owners. But criminals have no such code. The criminals carry firearms as much for self-preservation as for tilting the odds in their favor when committing a crime. Look at who they spend their time with – other criminals! Of course they feel the need for self-preservation. The difference is that they see no need to follow the rule of law. Restricting access to firearms and sufficient ammunition only affects those who actually follow the law.

Lie: No one needs an Assault Rifle

To start addressing this lie, people need to understand that the oh so dreaded AR-15 is not Assault Rifle 15. The AR stands for Armalite Rifle. Armalite is the company that manufactures this particular firearm. It also is distorted by some as meaning automatic rifle.

Quick lesson for those (there are some) who do not know: automatic means you squeeze the trigger and the gun will fire and cycle a new round and fire that one over and over until you release the trigger or run out of ammo. Whereas, semi-auto means you will have to squeeze the trigger each time you want to fire a round. AR-15s are semi-auto.

Now, this lie begins from a false premise. “Needs” was never a part of the equation. In life we have needs – shelter, water, food.

In the U.S.A. the 2nd Amendment protects what is classified as inalienable rights. Not inalienable needs. This is where people tend to be really misled. The Bill of Rights, which is the first ten amendments to the Constitution are those rights that belong to a free people which are to be protected by the government which derives its power from the consent of the governed. The government does not grant these rights, they are there without government. I do not want to turn this into a history lesson, and in order to stay within the scope of our intended subject, understand that in the manner in which the U.S. Constitution is written, the restrictions are on the government, not the people. The government has a specific role, and the people limit the government.

In speaking of needs, on that same topic – when I am told that no one needs an AR-15, I respond that no one needs to be vegan, drive a Prius, Vape, or watch MSNBC. But this does not mean that people cannot do these things. Most people who would purchase an AR-15 have no intention whatsoever of ever pointing at a human. And while people freak over the way it looks so tactical, it is a military style weapon in use by no military that I am aware of. The tacti-cool look is what makes it so marketable. But it is a lot less powerful than many of the other available rifles on the market.

Lie: Australia had no mass shootings after their gun confiscation

I find seven separate mass shootings in Australia in less than four minutes into a quick google search since the gun confiscation. It only managed to disarm those who wanted to stay legal. Although Australia is pointed to by the political left in America as a shining example of the success of gun control, they leave out the facts. One important fact is that there have been mass shootings since the confiscation.

Lie: The United States is the only industrialized nation with our level of gun violence

I wrote about the lie of U.S. gun violence. Click the link or understand the short form – this one is a bald-faced lie. This is the typical slight-of-hand that people with no basis for their argument will use.

 

In closing, I want to make clear that those of us who like owning guns understand the feeling of wanting to do something about acts of terror such as the Las Vegas attack. But we see that emotion-based decision making is bad policy. You will never stop crime by disarming the good people. The terrible truth is that we can never prevent every bad person intent on murder. But until the dialogue is honest and in good faith, no progress at all will be made.