In the wake of the mass shooting in South Florida which occurred in February of 2018 we need to make some basic things clear as a foundational argument. I agree, we should change gun laws so that we don’t have more violence in our schools by disturbed people. But the solution isn’t feel good gun laws which provide a false security blanket over the eyes of our most liberal American citizens who are suffering from their own psychosis indicated by their political affiliation. Their view is similar to a child pulling their bed covers over their eyes to avoid being eaten by a monster that lives under their bed. If the monster wants to eat children, a flimsy layer of covers won’t stop the violence from happening. It only covers the eyes of the victim from the possibility, and that is all liberals want to do in the wake of gun violence. They want to cover their eyes to the real problem and hope that it doesn’t happen again. This is a typical liberal approach to just about everything and it stands against the basic nature of what America is all about.

America is a lot of things, it’s a nation of immigrants, it’s a nation of capitalism and private property. There is a big reason that Siberia takes up approximately 10% of the earth’s landmass yet it as the economic development of a kid’s lemonade stand whereas the vast expanses of land in America known as the West has at least a McDonald’s every thirty miles in every direction—and that is because of private property ownership and incentives which are fundamentally protected by personal firearm possession—a decentralized element which allows such vast expanses of land to be developed for the enterprises of human thought. No matter where you go and what you do in America it is the right to personal firearms which defines our nation under a common thread of philosophy. We are a nation built on guns and of course America’s enemies understand that. If they want gun control, they essentially want to change the nature of America from what it is to what it isn’t.

When you visit England, what do you think of as their cultural heritage—tea? Ships? Monarchy? What about Germany—what do you think about in regard to their culture, beer, pretzels, Hitler? Japan—samurai swords and sushi? How about Spain, bullfights and cheesy men who want to sleep with our wives? Every nation has their thing which defines their culture, and in America it is the gun. Guns are what binds all Americans together, young and old, rich and poor, man and woman, black and white—no matter who, what, where, and how, guns are what define our nation and always have from the very beginning of revolution to the westward expansion. Guns made our nation and to this very day are important parts of our culture.

It was my wife’s birthday over the weekend and we went to LaRosa’s by our home to celebrate it. It was a Saturday night and we were talking about militarizing public schools with metal detectors and military personnel to prevent school shootings in the future. I explained to my family that within LaRosa’s that night there was a crowded dining room and among the occupants I estimated that there were at least five to six concealed carry holders there. If a terrorist of some kind were to barge in and try to shoot the place up, they would be engaged promptly by the concealed carry holders. Some people may be injured, but the aggressor would not have his way with the public. He would be shot dead, maybe worse. And the same could be said of every place containing people all across the country. The reason there is peace and stability in America with so much money floating around in a free society is because so many people are carrying guns, bad guys never know who is or isn’t and it forces them to behave themselves.

Liberal people do not understand human nature, it is part of their personal psychosis which has contributed to their intellectual deficiency leading to their liberal attributes to begin with. I can sympathize that they are too soft natured to want to handle a gun, or that they have hope that humanity can be trained away from violence and the desire to take what other people have. I can also see how they might be seduced by the work of Karl Marx and to just make everyone equal, give all the private property to the State and eradicate guns from our lives so that we can live in a utopia. Being people who aren’t prepared to deal with reality, such things may seem appealing. But history says what you get is not a great world of philosophic understanding, you essentially get Siberia, a vast wilderness of little economic activity because nobody really owns anything and there is nothing to protect if they did. Earth first advocates and environmentalists might find that idea appealing too, because they see the human race as inferior to planet earth and would like to see people removed from climate influence. Again, we aren’t dealing with irrational people when we talk about the political left. They are people often suffering from various degrees of mental illness so they aren’t prepared to talk about guns—only that they think civilization should not have them.

But look at the human condition and the way its evolved. Look at the toy aisle in Wal-Mart or Target where superhero action figures occupy one entire section, and each action figure has some kind of gun so that kids can go home and play with them. Go another aisle over and there are Lego sets with the same kind of message. Go another aisle over again and there are the Nerf guns which allow kids to shoot at each other harmlessly—for the sport of it. Go to the video game section and you’ll see that most of the top-selling games are first person shooters like Battlefront, Call of Duty and Doom—where guns are the feature attraction of the whole experience. Then go to the television section and see what they are playing on the demo screens—action movies filled with guns. Americans love guns—they love them deeply. Guns are so much a part of American culture that many don’t realize just how much. And that’s not going to change. We aren’t going to see a liberal push away from guns, I think the next generation because of their video game exposure and other modes of entertainment will be more pro-gun than ever. What they lack is parental guidance, which makes them more dangerous, but the love of guns is still there—probably stronger than ever.

I went to GameStop to do a little shopping for some fun stuff and I was met at the counter by a really scary looking young lady covered in tattoos and body piercings. She had blue hair and looked like she was the lead singer of a punk rock band. But I had a question about the release date of the new game coming out this fall called Red Dead Redemption 2, which is a western video game. You might recall that I thought Red Dead Redemption way back in 2010 was the best western I had ever been exposed to, so I am looking forward to the sequel. Well, this girl became very emotional with excitement. She wouldn’t stop talking about how excited she was to finally play this new game which had been delayed for three years, and was finally going to hit the shelves in just a few months. The game is all about shooting other players, and has typical western themes and obviously to this clerk, she was very excited about it. If the game was all about bagging groceries do you think she’d be so excited? Of course not.

I lived a normal childhood, one that is very close to what we watch at the end of every year with A Christmas Story. The right of passage back then as it still should be was that we get a toy gun from our fathers and grandfathers before we are five. When we are six to eight, we get our first Red Ryder BB gun. They sell those at Wal-Mart too, not because the retailer is psycho about guns, but because that’s what customers want. They even come in a pink version for girls these days because getting your first gun for a kid is a big step into adulthood. By the time kids are 12 to 16 they should get their first 22 rifle. And of course, the initiation into adulthood is that a 21-year-old can purchase an AR-15, a Glock, or even their first 12 gage shotgun. Speaking personally, it was one of the proudest days of my life when I bought my Smith & Wesson .500 Magnum. I don’t go out and shoot people up with it, in fact it never crosses my mind in daily thinking about it. But if I wanted to I could disable a car with it, and that is great to know for self-defense. Knowing that I don’t have to worry about somebody coming and taking away my private property allows my mind to think about other kinds of things which contributes mightily toward the “invisible hand” of Adam Smith’s capitalism. The right to have a gun to protect yourself from villainy is the best deterrent of those villains from taking action in the first place.

Our gun laws should be changed from being too strict to having them be a lot looser. Schools should not be gun free zones. If teachers and administrators were allowed to carry, then they wouldn’t be sitting ducks when some aggressor does show up to get revenge on former students they are having problems with. I don’t think we should have gun free zones anywhere, in any business, any school, or any government building. Guns are a tremendous part of our natural American heritage and its time we embrace that aspect of ourselves instead of letting timid liberals define our culture based on their personal insecurities. If there had been concealed carry holders at any of these school shootings over the last couple of years, or even in Vegas during that concert tragedy, there would be a lot less carnage. Likely, we wouldn’t have even witnessed the attempt because the villains would understand that their chances for glory would be greatly minimized by the concealed carry holder. The answer to gun control is to have more guns not less and to loosen up possession not to further restrict it.

As we’ve seen in the FBI just this year, we can’t trust law enforcement fully to do their jobs. That’s not going to change tomorrow, police are people just as anybody is, and if they get caught looking at dirty pictures on the internet while sitting on the side of the road trying to nail speeders, and they miss a big occurrence because of it, an apology later won’t bring back our loved ones. Courts are slow, police are slower, and the FBI is about as incompetent of a police force that I’ve ever even considered. I wouldn’t trust them with a bag of groceries, let alone the life of someone I care about. But I do trust people who obtain concealed carry permits. Why, because they have a personal incentive to protect themselves and the people around them. The same reason I trust people driving in a car coming from the opposite direction from coming over into my lane and hitting me head-on. Sure, it does happen, but not enough to keep me from driving a car. People with guns are safer to be around than people who don’t have them—and that is a unique attribute to being an American that we all share. If there is one thing that symbolizes American life, it is the gun. The gun is the secret to our success and the way to embrace that is with lesser rules, not more. That is the only way forward and the sooner everyone realizes that, the better.

Rich Hoffman
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