Guns: Emotions vs. rational thought

To the Editor:
It's very difficult to calmly discuss and debate gun rights and gun crime when anti-gun proponents resort to personal attack and hyperbole. Calling people names isn’t going to solve any of America’s problems, including gun violence. It shows the lack of confidence that anti-gun people have in their ideas and arguments. Anger and hate is what we get; not reason, not logic, not rational thought.
I was in high school back in the mid to late 1950s, in suburban New Jersey. On the first day of hunting season, after the morning hunt, students would bring their guns to school. The guns were stacked military style in their home rooms. No one bothered the guns, stole the guns, or engaged in gun violence. This tradition existed all over the country. Mass shootings were unheard of in America back then. But, in the last 50 years, something happened. One of the slogans from the 1960s was “let’s party man” and that partying was a lot of fun. However, when we questioned all authority and all tradition we “threw the baby out with the bath water." We lost much of the shared values that kept us together. Our standards faltered, and America’s students learned less and less about the majesty of this country, the superior idea of liberty, and the supremacy of the Constitution and other documents.
The people who argue that our founders could not have imagined the technical advances in firearms making the Second Amendment obsolete will eventually argue that the Founders could not have imagined the internet and other communication advances, making the First Amendment obsolete. The Parkland students, traumatized by the tragic loss of their classmates, had little understanding of the Second Amendment, our Constitution or the nature of government. They were used and manipulated by anti-gun statists whose goal is to disarm 99.9 percent of Americans who are innocent of gun crimes. These people love big, obtrusive government and ignore gun statistics compiled by the FBI and other agencies. Among these hard facts; less than 1/10th of 1 percent of guns are used in crimes. Most gun crimes and mass shootings are committed with hand guns not long guns. Only 0.04 percent of shootings involve semi-automatic rifles. When semi-automatic guns were outlawed in the 1990s, it had no effect at reducing gun crime. When these rifles were again legalized, gun sales went up and gun violence dropped.
Shootings are lowest in “right to carry” states, but highest in cities with the toughest gun laws. Nine times more murders are committed with knives than with guns. And six times more murders, are committed with hands and feet, than with guns. The Second Amendment was given to us as a final protection, to prevent an abusive government from stripping away our Constitutional rights. It was written primarily by George Mason and James Madison; and George Washington said: “A free people ought not only be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from anyone who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government." I believe however, that we will not be forced into armed conflict with our government. Our military will not attack us. The Originalists and Constitutionalists will prevail, the Statists will lose, and we will preserve our wonderful Republic. We will reclaim control over our schools and again teach our children the Revolutionary ideas behind the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and our Constitution.
William R. Chaisson
Liberty Hill Patriots
Milford