Saturday, April 16, 2016

Statistics - Lord Of Our Liberty? © 2016 by Phillip Evans


The Numbers Don't Lie!

Newsflash! Statistics prove that firearm ownership causes most mild-mannered, civilized people to turn into ravenous beasts who visit "gun violence" upon innocent victims. 

You are far more likely to be a murderer if you own guns than if you don't. You are far more likely to be a robber if you own guns than if you don't. You are far more likely to be a rapist if you own guns than if you don't. You are far more likely to kill yourself if you own guns than if you don't.

Therefore, guns are an evil poison to the peacefulness of any society. The temptation to commit wickedness with them is too great for mere mortal citizens. Most simply do not have the strength of will to resist the urge to commit crime once in the possession of firearms. Statistics say so, so it must be so.

When It's All Added Up

Okay, you got me. Who am I to argue? No, really - I'll concede the raw numbers if correctly documented, but I won't necessarily concede the conclusions some draw from them. 

Tell you what, when all is said and done, I'll take my chances. I'm fairly certain I'll never have any urge to levy any dose of "gun violence" on anyone. Nor do I anticipate ever having the urge to use a gun against myself in an act of suicide. The odds be darned.

Daredevil? Maverick? Maybe. It's simply a personal choice I've made for myself in spite of the massive numbers compiled against me. I have absolutely no shame in making this choice. After all, as a free American, it's a liberty I enjoy. 

I love this freedom so much that when I'm in public, I typically wear my pistol in plain view so that my choice to be armed will not be a secret to anyone, whether they agree with my choice or not. I suppose it's one way of saying out loud in a visual sense, that our liberty is not subservient to those who believe citizens should go about their business unarmed, even if this belief is rooted in glorious statistics. 

They've Got Your Number

The government loves to spend multi-millions of our tax dollars to produce statistics on a number of things, with an eye to convince us how we should live our lives. How charitable of our civil servants to do so! Perhaps they got the idea from those "paint by the numbers" watercolor kits.

Gun statistics are even couched in terms like "disease" or "epidemic", in order to justify using the resources of the CDC to assist in the government propaganda effort.

Breathless statistics are produced by the ream by multiple government agencies to connect the dots between guns and crime, with the natural conclusion we are expected to draw, is that guns cause crime.

It was rather humorous in light of this to see leftist NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio admit that less guns among criminals actually contributed to more crime committed with knives. 

"'I’m not a criminologist', de Blasio told reporters in response to a question about the knife attacks. 'But I can safely say that guns are being taken off the street in an unprecedented way. Some people, unfortunately, are turning to a different weapon.'”

Oh, the irony! How could lessening one evil increase another? I guess that's just mathematics, eh? Or could it be that criminals will still be criminals regardless of their available tools?

In Britain, where the right to own firearms is gone, they now turn to the next most popular tool of criminals, the knife. Citizens are now encouraged to "Save a Life - Surrender Your Knife”. Yes, that's an actual slogan, much to the horror of chefs, who must now give up their long butcher knives and use roundnose safety-scissors. Well, I was kidding a little with that last sentence, but give it some time and those funny Brits just might take me up on that.

Trust Us Even Though We Don't Trust You

If guns are really the evil that government claims them to be, are we to believe that government training in how to use them really inoculates police officers and military troops against the criminal influence of these inanimate objects? Aren't the police and military composed of mere flesh and blood citizens like the rest of us?

Non-sarcastic statistic ahead... Police officers are more likely to commit crimes with firearms than "regular" citizens who are licensed to carry guns. Who knows why this is true? Regardless, one cannot argue that this doesn't show that the police are human, too. 

In spite of this statistic, we are told that only the police and military should have guns. Trust us on this, we are told by the government. Nothing like mutual trust and respect, eh?

False Security Seduction

Statistics is the fluttering, long-lashed eyes and luscious, pouting lips that is the tool of seduction used by anti-freedom forces to subtly brainwash the masses into believing that good people shouldn't possess guns. This is why my earlier presentation of gun statistics is an absurd exaggeration.

I wanted to make the point that if gun statistics is such an attractive argument for anti-gun rights zealots, then even prettied up to the hilt, I would still reject it. This is because I am already taken by a better love.

The idea that we will be safer if the weapons we keep to defend ourselves with are gone is as absurd as the idea that lions would truly be king of the jungle if they had no fangs or claws. And as we see with the British, banning guns is only the beginning. What are they going to do when knives are strictly controlled, registered, and monitored? Go after fireplace pokers, baseball bats, and sharp sticks? How about fists and feet? 

Do we really want those who are physically weaker to be prey to the strong? We may not have been born with sharp fangs and claws, but as humans, why is it wrong to use our brains to make and use tools that allow one person to effectively defend himself and his family from a pack of thugs?

That so many fall for this seduction is evidence that it works. Just ask the Brits and Aussies how they got defanged and declawed.

Too many are content for hired help come to their rescue. After all, the thought of personally using force to repel evil is too frightening for delicate-minded people. Those who accept responsibility for their own safety are therefore eyed with suspicion. To want to be a gun owner must mean you savor the thought of using force against others. Today, it might be against criminals, tomorrow it might be against innocent people, is the unspoken (and sometimes spoken) accusation projected against you.

The sheep barely tolerate sheepdogs with badges. Sheepdogs without official government credentials are often viewed as much of a threat as wolves. But that's a by-product of people not trusting themselves to be grownups when it comes to their own safety. These people are most certainly not going to trust their fellow citizens to be armed unless something elevates them to a higher plane in their eyes, such as a shiny gold or silver badge.

Infantilizing Adults Offensive

For illustrative purposes, let's look at drunk driving from a statistical point of view. If you own a car, and also keep alcoholic beverages in your home, you are statistically far likelier to drive drunk than someone who doesn't allow alcohol in the home. That is a simple and true statistic. Now, I could use this statistic to try and shame you into either giving up your car or giving up your adult beverages.

How can anyone deny the two are a deadly combination? If it saves even one life, it's worth it, right? Yet, you'd be deeply offended, and rightly so. It is counterintuitive to treat adults like children. 

But that is precisely what the government does by telling us we do not need this or that firearm, or this or that ammunition magazine. And the attempt to pacify us by saying we can be allowed to only possess arms suitable for deer hunting is actually meant to be received by us with grateful hearts that the government is doing us a magnanimous favor. 

See, we have liberty - look what the government is permitting us to have! (please pardon while I vomit a little in my mouth). 

Risks Are Inherent in Liberty

There are always risks with having liberty, if only for the fact that we humans are not perfect. It's called life. But that certainly is no excuse not to enjoy our freedoms. I could surely avoid the risk of going down in a fiery crash if I choose to never fly. Just because I will be safe from ever being a doomed passenger in an airplane doesn't make me safer than others, however. More automobile accidents occur per mile than airline accidents, so statistically, we are safer flying than taking a road trip.

Some may prefer to guard against firearm accidents by never allowing firearms in their home. In 2010 there were 606 accidental deaths involving firearms. Compared with about 90 million firearm owners and 250 million firearms owned, that is a minute number of fatal accidents. And in the last 20 years, the accident rate has dropped 58%, even as firearm ownership is growing.

Are you really going to fear the minuscule risk of an accident enough to give up your ability to defend your loved ones from a violent home invasion robbery where armed gunmen will show no mercy? They will not heed your tears to spare your family. They will tie you up, rape and murder your spouse and children right before your eyes while laughing about it.

You can choose from a myriad of safety measures and firearms training to help reduce the risk of accidents. You cannot choose whether or not armed bad guys will suddenly kick in your door.


One might argue that the risk of a home invasion is also small. True, but I play the stakes, not the odds. While I can control what safety measures I take; I cannot control when evil strikes.

Liberty Only For The Politically Correct?

Choose not to own a firearm? Fine. The problem comes when you choose to infringe on my firearm ownership. Especially when the enforcer of your choice against me is the government, which will gladly use its own guns against people that have never harmed anyone, to have them fined and imprisoned merely for possessing "unapproved" weapons that have this or that cosmetic feature, or that can hold more than some arbitrary number of rounds. This is precisely what Georgia House Representative Mary Margaret Oliver has proposed with her gun confiscation bill, HB 731.

Ironically, the "scary looking" rifles under fire by leftist, elitist politicians (usually Democrats) to ban are involved in only a tiny fraction of crimes committed with firearms compared with pistols. I can assure you, if Democrats get their way with semi-auto rifles, they will come after pistols. 

The weapon-grabbers are never satisfied. The more helpless we are, the more we will have to depend on government to keep us safe. And the more control over our lives will be the result. The issue is not so much "gun control" as "people control".

I don't care what excuse is used to support such totalitarian actions, whether it be statistics, "common sense", or "it's for the children" - I'll never be seduced by it.

My love of our hard fought and won liberty is eternally faithful. Try to take it by force and I'll die for her. When the government treats adults like children, it's called tyranny. Children will comply. The adults will not. 

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