Second Amendment Rights advocates fasten your seatbelts for a potentially wild and wooly right in 2020 as the gun-rights legislative battles in 2019 may be tame compared to what’s in store in 2020.
Virginia, Washington and Oregon are the leading battleground states for gun rights, but they aren’t the only states where gun control battles threaten to heat up with the arrival of 2020.
According to our guest this hour, the year-end murder data in just four cities, Baltimore, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, are likely to exceed the murders of the entire states of our average listeners.
Welcome, Mark Walters (or Tom Gresham or Alan Gottlieb or Dave Workman).
Q&A:
- Before we discuss what could be a Draconian year for the 2nd Amendment, let’s review 2019. What are some of the highlights or examples?
Answer: One example is that in 2018, the most recent year for which crime data is available, the FBI says there were 14,124 homicides, of which 10,265 involved firearms, yet there are more than 100 million legal guns in America. So, that shows that the majority of gun-related murders are committed with illegal firearms, showing that outlawing guns, produces two things: more outlaws, and more murders.
- Statisticians are keeping an eye on the year-end murder data in Baltimore, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. Chances are that more people will be killed in any one of those four cities this year than in any of our listeners entire states in 2018. Can you elaborate on that?
Answer: For example, even though murders have declined in Chicago this year with the Chicago Tribune reporting 475 slayings already in 2019—that’s still more killings in one city than the combined total of murders in several western states where gun ownership is high and gun laws are scarce.
- What gun legislation do you expect us to see in 2020? And what carry-over issues are likely to traverse from 2019 to 2020?
Answer: One other hotbed issue involving gun control is in Washington State where an online petition calling for the impeachment of anti-gun Gov. Jay Inslee and Attorney General Bob Ferguson has garnered tens of thousands of signatures. While it has no force in law, the petition does reflect discontent with both officials for their anti-gun-rights actions.
- Where may pro-gun grassroots activists lay their hands on statistics to help counter gun-control arguments.
Answer: The FBI website has those stats. It’s the FBI Uniform Crime Report’s state-by-state homicide and weapons breakdown.
- In your seasoned opinion, do you believe that the typical gun control argument is more logical or more emotional?
Answer: Virtually totally emotional since once logic enters the equation, the gun-grabbers totally lose the argument, so they keep hysteria high and logic low.
- What is a so-called assault rifle and how has it contributed to murders?
Answer: Where anti-gun lawmakers make a push on so-called “assault rifles,” remind them that several times the number of people were killed with knives and other cutting instruments than with rifles in 2018, and that the pattern holds true for any given year. Likewise, more people were killed with blunt objects (443) than with rifles or shotguns. More people were beaten, stomped, kicked and punched to death (668) than with either rifles or shotguns.
- Have murders risen to dropped in light of new concealed carry laws?
Answer: Murders with firearms have declined for the third year in a row, at a time when concealed carry figures have climbed to more than 18.6 million Americans licensed to carry across the 50 states.
- Where may those in our audience get more information on gun rights and the 2nd Amendment Foundation:
Answer: At SAF.org
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Time permitting, the guest can go into detail about the high-profile political gun battles in Virginia where 40% of Virginia sheriffs in Virginia refuse to enforce gun control laws that they find to be unconstitutional.
Q&A:
- Clearly, Virginia is a hotbed state for gun rights where anti-gun Governor Ralph Northam plans to lead his Democrat friends in the General Assembly in a crusade against guns. What are firearms statistics in that state?
Answer: Last 2018, Virginia reported 391 slayings of which 297 involved firearms, only eight of which are confirmed to have involved a rifle of any kind. Yet Governor Northam wants to ban so-called “assault rifles.” It’s almost as if he wants murder rates to sky-rocket.
In 2017, Virginia posted 453 killings in which 338 involved firearms and again a fraction of those murders (11) were known to involve rifles of any kind. Yet, here comes Northam and his colleagues after rifles starting next month.
- Culpepper County Sheriff Jenkins plans on deputizing enough residents to counter any government gun grab. How might he go about that?
Answer: He will properly vet the citizens through a normal process used in adding deputy sheriffs. The County Sheriff will likely do everything from normal background checks that we do for other deputy sheriffs as well as psych evaluations.
3) So, it’s not just a blanket policy of swearing-in anyone who is interested?
Answer: Clearly not. Sheriff Jenkins explained this is not the case during his interview on Fox & Friends recently, inferring that his office will act responsibly and diligently and expeditiously.
4) According to the National Review, the 93 counties involved in the Sanctuary movement represent about 40 percent of the population in Virginia.
Answer: Numbers like this are a start but they may not impress hardened cold-hearted anti-gun Democrats or the governor, who seem intent on passing new restrictions in the wake of this year’s mass shooting at Virginia Beach, regardless of consequences and no matter what the U.S. Constitution or Bill of Rights has to say.
5) This has been called to possible makings of a civil war. What are your thoughts on this?
Answer: The kind of “civil war” now brewing in Virginia may not be the shooting kind, but it is likely to be a noisy affair with plenty of shouting.
6) In the unlikely event this actually turned into a full-fledged civil war, who would liberals who don’t own guns ever expect to win a war against conservatives, many whose households have multiple firearms and ammunition?
Answer: I think I’ll let you answer that question yourself.
7) Where may those in our audience get more information on gun rights and the 2nd Amendment Foundation:
Answer: At SAF.org.
EXPERT GUESTS AVAILABLE TO INTERVIEW ON THIS TOPIC:
ABOUT MARK WALTERS (in Eastern Time):
Mark Walters is a national board member of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and a broadcast media spokesman for the Second Amendment Foundation.
Recipient of the 2015 Gun Rights Defender of the Year Award, Mark Walters is a weekly national columnist for Ammoland, and author of three books, Lessons from Armed America with Kathy Jackson: foreword by Massad Ayoob, Lessons from Unarmed America with Rob Pincus: foreword by Ted Nugent, and Grilling While Armed.
Mark is the host of two nationally syndicated talk radio programs, Armed American Radio, and Armed American Radio’s Daily Defense heard on hundreds of radio stations across the country, six days per week. In addition,
Mark has appeared on national and international radio and television on gun-related stories and is a popular podium speaker on firearms topics.
Mark is a husband and father of two children and resides in Georgia with his family.
ABOUT DAVE WORKMAN (In Pacific Time):
Dave Workman is an award-winning career journalist and senior editor of TheGunMag.com (formerly Gun Week). He also writes for Liberty Park Press, Conservative Firing Line and several firearms periodicals. He is also the communications director for the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
He has authored Op-Ed pieces in several major newspapers including the Chicago Tribune, Seattle Times and Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He has also co-authored seven books with Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation.
Workman’s beat is firearms, from politics to the outdoors. He is widely considered an authority on firearms, concealed carry and gun politics.
ABOUT ALAN GOTTLIEB (In Pacific Time):
Alan is a strong advocate of defense. He’s a nuclear engineering graduate of the University of Tennessee, publisher of Gun Week, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and Founder of the Second Amendment Foundation. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the American Conservative Union.
ABOUT THE 2ND AMENDMENT FOUNDATION:
The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.
