Friday, March 8, 2013

THE SELF-DELUSION OF SELF-DEFENSE


The Second Amendment:  'A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.'

Recently, I have read a lot of references to the protection that guns provide Americans in their homes.

America has twenty times the amount of gun violence of other industrialized nations. If you look at the actual data, all this gun ownership in America does is increase our rates of gun violence.

Statistics show that having a gun in the home actually raises the chances that someone in that home will be killed by gun violence 3-fold, and the numbers are even worse for women. (NEJM 10/93).

The second amendment was written at a time when the U.S. had no standing army and muskets were the norm. In today’s environment of assault rifles, extended clips, and hand-guns, the idea that there should be free-access to these ‘weapons of mass destruction’ is ridiculous.

If people are so vehement about protecting their civil liberties, perhaps they should be less accepting of the erosion of our civil rights encompassed in the ironically-named Patriot Act (and it’s extensions) or the use of drones to target and kill U.S. citizens.

I applaud the Maryland Senate for passing gun legislation that will reasonably:

Require buyers to provide fingerprints, complete safety training, obtain a license, and undergo background checks before purchasing guns;
Restrict purchases of military style semi automatic weapons and limit the capacity of ammunition magazines to 10 rounds;
Give state police the authority to suspend and revokes the license of gun dealers who sell guns to criminals or otherwise violate Maryland law;
Prevent individuals who suffer from mental illness and are a danger to themselves or others from having access to firearms.

It is disappointing to say the least, that two of our local delegates don’t support such common-sense rules for gun ownership.

Kent Ozkum
Emmitsburg

NB: I should note that we do own one rifle on Whitmore Farm which we use for killing groundhogs and to euthanize sick animals.

5 comments:

  1. What a show of common sense! Nice to read!

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  2. Not sure where you got your "data" points from...I'm guessing the same far left crack pots that are pushing this country off a cliff...and when it goes, your going to have more than woodchucks to deal with. Maybe you can train the "sheep" to save you! But given that MD already makes the "Top 10" worst states for taxes (uh...based on real facts not the fiction above) and people are voting with their feet...only thing keeping to going so far is the "DC effect"....good luck when that ends.
    This was always a great FARM blog...but you turned it into a pulpit. Lost me....goodbye and good luck in your SELF-DELUSION!

    http://money.msn.com/taxes/c_galleryregular.aspx?cp-documentid=250574718

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  3. Dear Farmer Shawn,

    Perhaps you are one of the cadre of right-wingers who actually think they can "protect themselves" from "the government" with all these guns when the proverbial cliff is gone over. Where were you when WACO went down? Do you actually think you or any other militia can stand against our government? They can send a drone to smoke you, or put you in jail with the other 5% of our populace, most of whom are there for non-violent drug crimes. Many things are wrong with our beloved country, but the wonderful flood of new gun laws is not among them. And Will's crackpot stas come from FAct Check. or Snopes, or one of the other actual factual non-partison sites to which honest, upright men such as Will would refer.

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  4. My purpose in writing this post was to point out that not all farmers are fanatical about their guns, like many would assume.

    We have a legitimate need to own our gun and it serves its purpose but I certainly don't feel 'safer' having a gun on the premises.

    As far as the statistics go... well they speak for themselves.

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