Sunday, May 17, 2009
PHOENIX — Water is essential to life. Then again, it can kill you. Drowning. Scalding.
The same goes for cars, trucks, chain saws, knives, crowbars, blowtorches and tea kettles. All are essential, and potentially deadly. Each is a useful example when the subject is banning things.
A certain lunatic fringe is always conspiring to ban guns, something else we need to live.
You don’t ban electric guitars just because someone has a lapse in logic and spontaneously breaks out into country and western music. (God, of course, intended electric guitars for whipping out good, sexy rock ’n’ roll licks.)
Ban guns? Don’t try it. The National Rifle Association, formed 138 years ago, is dedicated to the self-evident truth of self-defense.
The NRA annual meeting, which I’m attending right now in Phoenix, is a great celebration of good over evil, of logic over illogic.
With increased NRA memberships, with guns and ammo sales surging along with concealed weapons permits, never in the history of mankind have more people possessed more firepower.
FBI crime reports, and numerous law enforcement and academic studies conclude the same inescapable truth: More guns clearly mean less crime — particularly assault, rape, burglary and robbery.
By contract, Ted Kennedy’s gun-ban dream of “gun-free zones” has resulted in guaranteed slaughter zones.
Columbine. Virginia Tech. Luby’s in Killeen. Flight 93.
Peace and love will get you killed. Unarmed helplessness is a welcome mat for evil.
Fortunately, this level of defenselessness is incomprehensible to about 100 million Americans who own guns.
Because of them, and the NRA, the lunatic fringe left touches the issue of gun control at its own political risk.
Fresh from escaping the tyranny and slavery, our brilliant, sensible Founding Fathers wrote down the self-evident truth that the right to self-defense is God-given.
And write this down: To “keep” means it is mine. You can’t have it. To “bear” means I’ve got them right here on me.
“Shall not be infringed” echoes that beautiful “Don’t tread on me” chorus. Sing it.
Self-defense is the most powerful, driving instinct in good people everywhere. To deny it is evil personified.
Good people don’t want the rapist to succeed. They want him dead. We don’t want our homes invaded. We want invaders dead.
We don’t like carjackers. We like them dead. We don’t like armed robbers. We like them dead.
All the evidence tells us that calling 9-1-1 is a joke. For those of us for whom self-defense is no joke, we’ll call 9-1-1 after we’ve defended our families. We’ll tell authorities to bring a dustpan and a mop to clean up the dead monster we just shot.
Gun control as envisioned and employed by the Chuck Schumers of the world is complicit in every violent crime committed.
By comparison, here’s gun control a la Ted Nugent: Put the second shot through the same hole as the first shot.
Join the NRA and celebrate 138 years of keeping and bearing.
Ted Nugent is a Waco-based musician and television show host. Contact him directly at tednugent.com.
