Not long ago, I purchased two
10-round magazines for my little Ruger 10/22 rifle. The rifle, you likely know,
is chambered in .22 LR. It is my go-to gun for squirrel hunting and plinking
tin cans. You may or may not know that this little rifle will also accept
25-round magazines. I didn’t elect to purchase the mislabeled ‘high-capacity’
magazines because they aren’t conducive to shooting from the prone position or
from what is known as a ‘hasty-sling’.
Today, I returned both of those
magazines to Dick’s Sporting Goods. It wasn’t that I didn’t need them, or that
I needed the money. It was because Dick’s has elected to remove all AR-15
rifles from its shelves in response to the tragic Sandy Hook Elementary
Shooting. By doing this, Dick’s has implicitly stated that these guns are to
blame in some way for the shooting—that by their very nature they are complicit
in the evils done by those who use firearms to commit violent crime. This
supposition is, of course, flawed. Conservatives and firearms enthusiasts say
it ad nauseum: things have no innate
ethical predisposition.
Dick’s removal of AR-15’s from
their shelves was a corporate decision that will have serious implications for
themselves and for American society at large. At a minimum, this choice will
cost Dick’s thousands of dollars in lost revenue from the shooting industry.
Potentially, Dick’s decision could have a profound effect on the willingness of
Congress and the public to support restrictions on ‘high-capacity’ magazines
and semi-automatic rifles. If this sounds like exaggeration, consider the case
of the 1996 Dunblane School Shooting in the United Kingdom.
The
Dunblane shooting was conducted by 43-year old man named Thomas Hamilton.
Hamilton was a former scout leader and suspected pedophile. After his shop
business failed in 1993, he blamed the accusations of pedophilia for his
demise. Enraged and at the end of his rope, Hamilton took two Browning
Hi-Power pistols (9mm Parabellum) and two Smith & Wesson Model 19 revolvers
(.357 Magnum) and murdered 17 people at Dunblane Primary School in central
Scotland. The rest, they say, is history. The grieving parents began a petition
to ban all handguns, known as the Snowdrop Petition. Later, an official inquiry
known as the Cullen Report was conducted. All of this political activism
ultimately manifested itself into the Firearms (Amendment) Act of 1997 and the
Firearms (Amendment No. 2) Act of 1997, which completely banned private
ownership of handguns in the United Kingdom.
It is easy to scoff at such an occurrence
in the United States. After all, we have a pervasive firearms and
individualistic culture that was never so entrenched in the United Kingdom.
But, history has also shown us that good-intentioned dullards have the ability
to write, garner support for, and pass legislation that cripples the
fundamental rights of firearms ownership and self-defense. I refer, of course,
to the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act (more
commonly known as the 1994 assault weapons ban). Numerous post-policy studies
of the assault weapons ban revealed that it had no positive affect on crime
rates.
Fast forward to today. We now sit
on the threshold of a new assault weapons ban. President Obama has tasked
Vice-President Joe Biden with finding a solution to violence in schools (and at
large). We all know what that solution will be. Biden, an architect of the
original assault weapons ban, has stated that he is “absolutely committed” to
fighting gun violence and that there is “no reason” why Congress shouldn’t pass
another ban.
With this in mind, we need to make
it crystal clear that we as American gun owners and citizens (not serfs, not
subjects) will fight tooth and nail to ensure that we have the maximum ability
to protect our lives, liberty and property. That means that we require the
ability to purchase and use semi-automatic firearms like the AR-15 and AK-47
derivatives. If that means that I never go back into Dick’s Sporting Goods,
then so be it. My liberty is worth more than convenience or cost-savings.
For the victims of Sandy Hook, I give my deepest condolences and most sincere prayers. We stand with you, united as a country. We hurt with you. Yet, we also realize that our policies must not be driven by raw emotion—but by the cynical and steadfast logic that ensures the continuance of our way of life.
Yours
in Liberty,
Cody
