Why Gun Owners Keep Shooting Ourselves In The Foot On Gun Rights

by Tom Knighton: I’ve spent a lot of words about how gun control doesn’t gain as much headway as anti-gunners think it will, and I stand by them all. However, gun control does gain traction in certain places and at certain times. In Florida, for example, you now have to be 21 to buy a hunting rifle. In my home state of Georgia, we don’t.

Not a big deal, huh?

But as Luis Valdes writes over at The Truth About Guns, that’s a crappy way of looking at it.

NEWSFLASH: Gun grabbers won’t stop until every civilian-owned firearm is outlawed. They want total civilian disarmament and a government monopoly on gun ownership.

I have personally spoken against gun control on numerous occasions, in the very halls where our lawmakers violate our civil rights all in the name of public safety.

The thing that always amazes me is how small in number we are when it comes to speaking up for our rights. The gun grabbers are always there in full force, in their red or orange shirts, working to limit our freedoms. They organize, rally, march, and yell for more control and more restrictions on our civil rights. They sacrifice their time and their income to advance the cause of civilian disarmament.

Yet, on our side, we have people who express happiness when a fellow citizen is stripped of some of his or her rights. We have people ‘on our side’ who say they’ll stand with others if need be, but don’t bother to show up at pro-freedom rallies or legislative sessions. Are we really going to let the opposition do better?He’s dead on accurate.

You see, he points to examples of people not worrying about bump stock bans because the law won’t affect them. As Valdes rightly notes, the gun grabbers aren’t going to stop with bump stocks.

Their every move is to slowly turn up the heat until the frog doesn’t realize it’s boiling. Gun grabbers want universal background checks today, but tomorrow they’ll want you to have a license before even buying a gun. Then it’ll be something else until one day you’ve got a better chance of making out with Kate Beckinsale while Scarlett Johansson calls “Next!” than you do of actually buying a firearm legally.

By conceding ground to them, even if it doesn’t affect you, you’re empowering them for the next round. You’re giving them momentum.

You see, in politics, people back winners. Every victory empowers groups by allowing them to tout the win in fundraising literature. And it works, as they get more money because people have a hope of ultimately winning.

But if you beat them back, the well dries up. People figure they’ll keep their money since donating to a lost cause is about the same as flushing it down the toilet.

So you don’t let them win. You push back at everything they try.

Look, when it comes to bump stocks, I don’t care a damn thing about them. I don’t own one, and I have no real interest in getting one. The only reason I’ve ever wanted to own one is due to anti-gun zealots pushing to ban the blasted things. I have no use for them.

But I’ll be damned if I don’t put up a fight to try and protect my right to own something I have no use for. It’s not about me wanting to buy one. It’s about me having the God-given right to buy one if I so choose. That’s the way you need to look at it. The moment you give ground to the anti-gunners is the moment you empower them.

By letting them do crap like banning bump stocks, while we get nothing, some gun owners are shooting the gun rights movement in the foot. Stop.
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Tom Knighton is a Navy veteran, a former newspaperman, a novelist, and a blogger at Bearing Arms. He lives with his family in Southwest Georgia.

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