One of the strangest beliefs that anti-gunners seem to have is that private citizens shouldn’t have firearms because that makes the world more violent but it’s okay for law enforcement (yes, people working for the government) to have the exact same firearms.
Now, sometimes, those anti-gunners will argue that law enforcement officers have had training in firearms safety and use, which is true. Then, again, many (probably most) firearms owners also advocate training in both firearms safety and use, so this point is moot.
Most anti-gunners, though, don’t seem to have thought about the assumption underneath their belief about who should have firearms, that assumption being: working for the government (even though it’s made up of people who are private citizens, too) makes a person magically safer and better with their firearms use.
Those people obviously haven’t studied the missed shot ratios of many police departments. That’s not a criticism of law enforcement, by the way, just an acknowledgement of how the stress of a gun fight can make accuracy more difficult and an observation of the absurdity of anti-gunners’ assumptions.
A recent report from the FBI isn’t going to make anti-gunners happy, either. In fact, it will probably make them furious because even the data published by the FBI under anti-gun Joe Biden doesn’t support gun control policies. An unnamed writer with our friends over at The Gun Feed writes,
The FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2020 indicates that armed private citizens killed more criminals during the commission of a felony than were killed by police, and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms says this data clearly underscores the continuing need for American gun ownership.
“We looked at Tables 14 and 15 in the FBI’s new report that apply to justifiable homicides by law enforcement and private citizens, respectively,” noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “Last year, according to the data, armed citizens killed 343 criminals during the commission of a felony while police fatally shot 298 felons.
“If the FBI data published in their crime report for 2020 is accurate,” he continued, “it is ample evidence that the individual right to keep and bear arms for personal defense is as important today as it was when the Second Amendment was adopted as a cornerstone of the Bill of Rights.
“The use of deadly force is not something anybody wants,” Gottlieb observed, “but neither is being injured or killed by some thug during a violent criminal attack. Self-defense may be the oldest natural right, and every time we hear some politician, public official or gun control extremist call for citizen disarmament, we have to wonder which side they’re on. It certainly can’t be on the side of public safety.
Gottlieb is absolutely right: personal safety is one of the most important reasons for private gun ownership.
The fact of the matter is that law enforcement simply cannot be everywhere at once (no matter how much those who advocate for government treatment of citizens as toddlers would like to believe), so, if you’re going to minimize the risk of personal injury or death at the hands of another person, you must be able to defend yourself.
A personal firearm is one of the best and most effective ways to do that, especially for those who are physically weaker than the attacker (such as most women) or those who are physically disabled in some way which impairs physical fighting ability.
Simply put, gun control laws make the populace of a country less safe, not more. The evidence is clear.