I Still Believe in the 2nd Amendment!
I have not made a statement concerning the recent mass killings and how my views on guns fit in on purpose. I never want to have my views take attention away from those who loss their lives because of the evil that exists in our world. My heart grieves over the senseless lost of life at the hands of these evil men. That is right, I said evil, not mental illness or troubled youth. It takes a certain type of evil to purposely go into a grocery store, church or elementary school and now, a hospital to kill innocent people who have never done you any harm.
But with that being said, I still believe that it is not only our right but our responsibility to responsibly own firearms. Just as before, these evil men used the fact that there would be nearly no resistance to fuel their evil acts. They cowardly chose soft targets that they knew that they would be able to deliver mass carnage with little to no resistance. This has been the strategy of evil people from the beginning of time.
Here are a few lessons learned from these events. My son sent me a text that said, there goes your good guy with a gun theory. He felt that a good guy with a gun would not have made a difference. Well I don’t agree. What didn’t make a difference was law enforcement’s ability to stop these events. They arrived at each event in less than 5 minutes. By then the damage has been done.
First lesson, evil people (criminals) don’t care about gun laws. They will get whatever they want one way or the other. They don’t care if the gun is “on roster”, how much the magazine holds and if it is CA legal. They don’t have to wait 10 days for a background check. They can by as many as they want, when they want. Only law abiding citizens will pay attention to those rules and therefore, we are left out gunned in a lot of these cases. Therefore, if more of us were prepared to confront evil, our chances will increase. That being said, I believe that there should be expanded background checks, within reason. Take out all the subjective requirements. I believe that there must be a way to take guns away from bad actors or someone who is at the risk of harming themselves and others. I believe that you should be required to some level of training before you purchase.
Second lesson is that we can’t depend on Law Enforcement to save us!!! They arrived in 2 minutes in Buffalo after 13 people were shot and 11 killed. They met the TX shooter before he went into the school and stayed outside for more than an hour while the shooter continued to reek havoc on two classrooms of 4th & 5th graders. The reason the Church shooting in Laguna Hills, CA wasn’t worst, members of the congregation attacked the attacker until they were able to subdue him. We have to be ready to fight with everything we have to save our lives and others.
I am determined be an A.S.S.E.T. I mean I promote Advocacy. Safety. Self Defense. Education. Training.
Be an advocate for your rights. Politicians wants us to believe that it is all or nothing. Either make all guns illegal or no laws at all. I believe in our rights of gun ownership. African Americans has always been the targeted by the gun laws. Gun free zones, gun buyback programs and no-issue CCW zones are the modern day Jim Crow or Black codes. They are disguised as a war on drugs or crime, but it leaves us as sitting ducks for those who wish us harm. We must advocate for ourselves. Our nation has a history of arming us to defend her freedoms, only to disarm us so that we are not able to experience that freedom.
I promote safety. There is no denying that guns in the wrong hands are very dangerous. Safety should never be compromised. Safety should be practiced when storing, transporting or using firearms at all times. Safety should never be compromised.
As stated earlier, I believe that we are responsible for our own self-defense. We must Plan, Prepare, Practice and Perform for whatever life throws at us. Be situationally aware. Be a hard target. And if you have to fight, refuse to loose. Fight as if your life depends on it. NEVER GIVE UP!
Educate yourself. Know the laws were you live. Know your rights. Know the difference between the AR-15 semi-automatic rifles you can buy and the ones issued by the military and law enforcement. They are different. The media will have you thinking that they are all the same. They are not. Take a class. Read a book or two. Seek knowledge and understanding. Learn first aid and basic lifesaving steps. You cannot depend on first responders to save you.
Train. It really amazes me how little most firearms owners train. Yes ammo is expensive. Yes the range is far. Yes I don’t really have time. But the only thing that can prepare you for having to use your firearm in self-defense is training. While in the Marine Corps, I use to think, “Why are we always out here shooting blanks at each other?” “Why do we have to go to the range so often if we only have to qualify once a year?” That was until I found myself in a situation where I had to rely on my training to save my life and the lives of the men I was given charge over. I am not saying that training will ensure that you can perform under pressure. But I am saying that lack of training will almost always ensure that you won’t.
Bottom line, no matter how you feel about guns, you should educate yourself with the historical truths of disarmed populations and the affect it had on that population.
Rick Archer
Owner
Archer Firearms Training, LLC
