I keep seeing posts about people hiding guns in fear of what if. Let me be very clear here. The only way anyone of us loses our rights is if we stand back and do nothing. No I don’t mean commit violence.
There are close to 100 million firearm owners in the United States. It will never matter who is elected or who proposes what bill if you are ready to take real action. This is really simple; you can keep all your right by simply sending out an email.
In the digital age, we have the power to stop any bill from moving forward if we choose to join together. The email must state facts. Simple go here Representatives | house.gov and U.S. Senate: and email representatives from your state. Our power goes way beyond a vote and does not end when someone is elected. Both parties have conveniently voted against firearm rights after every shock and awe of crime. Let them know we are not going to sit back and see more laws that don’t work.
For example
Dear Representative
I have noticed that it is congress’s goal to ban what you call assault weapons, the ArmaLite Rifle AR-15. The democratic party has claimed that banning this rifle will end mass shootings and some states have already taken this approach. I want to work with you so that you don’t make the same mistakes as these states. They have not made their states safer, in fact by telling people they are safer they are now at a higher risk for some lunatic to try and prove them wrong.
The fact is the shooters of columbine fired 188 rds over 47 mins, which averaged 4 rounds per minute. This is the Same Rate of fire as a Muzzle Loading Flintlock Kentucky Rifle. Used in the American Revolution. The Virginia tech shooter fired 174 rds in 11 minutes, averaging 15 rds per minute. The same rate as an 1848 single-shot rifle. The Sandy Hook Massacre fired 154rds in 5-9 minutes averaging a max of 31rds per minute, the same rate of fire as an 1848 Sharps single shot rifle. Fort Hood 214 rds fired, over 10 minutes, 21 shots per minute avg, the same as an 1860 lever action henry rifle. Parkland 136 rds over 4-6 minutes, with an avg of 22.667 rds per minute again the same as an 1860 Lever Action Henry Rifle.
I could have also listed San Bernardino, Binghamton, Umpqua, Charleston, and Red Lake. All of which had the same rate of fire as pre-1900 firearms. It is important to understand it is not the rifle that is being used. It is the sick mind of the people doing this and the fact is banning the AR is just going to lead them to use something much more powerful than a firearm that uses a bullet the same diameter as a .22 handgun.
The banning of a firearm is equivalent to burning books to prevent evil. A firearm is nothing more than a tool to a criminal. The AR-15 is used for home defense, competitions, and hunting. While there is a ton of other rifles out there, it offers features to people who may have weak shoulders, lower strength, and other handicaps and allows them to defend themselves and to get out at the local range. Ranges are a small businesses that gives back to their communities and keep the money local. There are a ton of different handguns are you one day going to decide one of them is evil too. They are tools, it is not the fault of the firearm for who picks it up and uses it in a way it was never intended to be used.
I would like to believe that as a nation we have not decided to go backward in time and make the same mistakes as our ancestors. We have faced hard times before with evil people doing evil things. If you notice back, then the answer was not to burn the witches at the stake. It was to find a way to find the evil people behind it, burning books did not stop fornication. How we can accomplish this is through education and training, that is how we continue to bring the violence down in America or at least it used to be.
I realize the argument is also against what has been called a high capacity magazine. The thought is if a person must reload more it gives the police more time to take out the shooter. The fact is these shooters don’t need to worry about that. They have an average of 9 minutes in gun-free zones before police can arrive and sometimes longer before they can make an entrance. This means the shooter can reload as slowly and as often as they like. Typically they either die or surrender once the police make an entry.
They often carry way more ammunition than they shoot. They also don’t wait until they run out of ammo before reloading, they reload when they have the opportunity while people are running for their lives. Meaning they are not firing every round in the magazine as it is. Lowering capacity is not going to change the mass shooting outcome. In fact, what it will do is hurt law-abiding Americans like me. Because I will be restricted to a smaller magazine, but the criminals will not be. They have spent months anticipating congress lowering magazine capacity and have stocked up on the black market. Which any criminal can reach through a simple Tor Browser.
Now you have decided to end online sales of firearms and ammo. In order to purchase a firearm online, it must be sold by an FFL dealer that is licensed by the Government and approved by the ATF. They only ship to other dealers and not directly to any private citizen. By ending online sales of firearms, you would essentially be destroying thousands of small business throughout this country whose main business is online. When the dealers are the only ones keeping firearms out of criminal’s hands, every single FFL dealer does a full background check before handing over a firearm. If the person doesn’t pass, they return the firearm to the original dealer all within a few days.
I completely understand that you also want to stop felons from getting ammunition. Again, stopping online sales is not going to prevent that, what it will do is make more firearm owners less safe. Let me explain. When you go to a lot of local shops, they charge almost double than online companies for the same ammo. This means instead of firearm owners training, practicing, and learning to handle their firearm safety through a steady routine.
They stockpile what they can afford and in the event, they have to use their firearm to protect against a home invasion or violent attack. They have fewer skills and become more dangerous to their own families and the other people around them. As a firearm owner and instructor, I can say that we need ammo prices to stay low to encourage all the new firearm owners to train and to be responsible.
To take this one step further, Author and Chief instructor Michael Martin wrote a full plan in his book on countering the mass shooter threat. In his book, he lays out a full plan on how we can work with the schools and other high-risk areas to prevent mass shootings from ever having a devastating effect again. We can protect our children like we protected the planes after 911 without turning them into a fortress and without arming teachers. We do this by working together as a community.
The point is while you are attacking middle America because of violent criminals and punishing middle-class America for owning firearms. We want to work with you to end gun violence, to lower suicide rates, to stop the mentally ill from owning firearms while helping responsible Americans who need to protect themselves during the crucial seconds of a violent attack when the police are minutes away. You want red-flag laws to prevent the mentally ill from owning firearms, we agree but we also want due process and consequences against people who bring false claims.
Our goals are the same, but instead of attacking those of us that pass background checks, follow the laws, get training to use conflict avoidance, situational awareness, and learn how not to be a victim. We want to help you to go after the criminals causing the violence in this nation. We have experts like Michael Martin, Massad Ayoob, Mickey Schuch, Rob Pincus, Tom Givens, Michael Seeklander, and many more. That has studied the violence problem and they help turn private citizens into responsible firearm owners.
They are willing to work with legislators to pass laws that stop the criminals while protecting the rights of firearm owners. No we don’t want more laws, but if are going to pass something, wouldn’t it be smarter to listen to the guys who are on the front lines with years of data, rather than listening to those who have no experience and put data together to prove their opinion.
As our legislators, it is your job to not only protect the constitution but to also work for the people’s best interest. I believe I have shown you a small part of how these new laws just don’t work. I know anything else but the current agenda is not popular, but you just seen over 70 million people vote in fear of you taking away their firearm. If that is not a message, I don’t know what is. If you truly want to represent us then let’s work together, if you feel so strongly against it. Then maybe it is time we use our vote toward someone who will.
Sincerely,
Your Name
If you have a better one, post it, and let others use it. This was the first draft and I am sure it can be improved on. It’s time to stop worrying about what-ifs and praying on fears. It’s time to take real action. With almost 100 million firearm owners if even 5% take action, it stops the firearm bills from ever moving forward. These are elected officials that just lost many seats and fought close races. They will not go against the people.
