Your rights in jeopardy over fundraiser-inspired lies

Days ago I had yet another argument with a short-sighted individual who was buying into the leftist mantra that that we need to ban semi-auto firearms. This latest anti-gun frenzy was brought on by the shooting in Roseburg, Oregon.

The reality you won't get from the establishment media is that, according to the FBI, so-called "semi-auto assault weapons" are used in less than 1/4 of 1% of any crimes. Long guns in general are only used in 2.6 % of any crimes. These firearms are a statistical non-issue in crime, but on the rare occasion they are used the media makes a big deal about it and go 24/7 with the story.

There are millions of semi-auto rifles in the country of the type 0bama, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders want to ban, and the vast majority (99%+ by the government’s own stats) are there to keep the peace and protect lives and homes. One thing that is clear is they are is very useful in a crisis: just ask the store keepers in Ferguson, Missouri, whose shops survived the riots. Google it on your computer and you will find many images of store owners protecting their stores. Those shops did not burn or get looted. Imagine that. Go back to the LA riots and Rodney King and ask the Korean shopkeepers atop their stores with AR-15s and other firearms whose stores survived untouched by the rioters. The mobs saw them and went for easier targets, which they found in abundance, including a poor guy pulled from his semi rig truck and nearly killed with a cinder block.

Where were the police in those riots in Ferguson or in Baltimore? When it hits the fan, the police pull back or pull completely out. We watched Baltimore burn, of course Maryland banned many useful semi-auto firearms years ago. The law-abiding, having had the perfect riot tool taken away from them, surrendered and watched their property looted and then the buildings burned to the ground.

You can face down a mob with a 30 shot AR-15 or a semi-auto 30 shot AK-47 with a fair amount of confidence and, thanks to the movies, people think they are more powerful than they really are. They scare thugs, that is the point, it’s a very useful tool that can save your life. While you can try it with a over and under shotgun, somehow a two-shot firearm is less intimidating to a big mob. The mob’s odds are pretty good against a conventional looking, slow to load, low-capacity gun and they know it. An AR-15 will even your odds and give them pause. It may save your life and that of your family.

We live in a surreal and very weird time. With a radical left-wing government that lies to us daily, balkanizing us into little separate warring factions based on race, religion and wealth. Heck, they even try to separate us based on gender these days. All this is done for their political power. The regime is even encouraging making war on the most basic foundation of order: the police. Hounded as they are, law enforcement officers are going to be less and less willing to risk life and limb for you in a crisis. We saw them abandon their posts by the hundreds in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. After all, they have families to protect too.

So who is going to protect you in a crisis? I have news for you, if you don’t already know this: you are your own last line of defense. You don't have to like guns, but you better recognize it's a useful tool that can keep you alive in a crisis. So my advice is get over your hoplophobia and learn how to use such a tool before its too late. And don't try to trample my rights by attempting to take mine.

The latest attack is instructive. They will use anything to push an agenda. The last school shooting in Oregon - the one starting this latest wave of anti-gun hysteria - was not done with a so-called "assault weapon," it was mostly committed with a common Ruger 10-22 - a ten shot .22 lr. caliber rifle that has been on the American market since 1964. Hardly an "assault weapon," it was bought legally, with the killer having passed the required background checks after having filled out the form 4473. So nothing proposed by Obama would have stopped this. Are you going to let Obama assault your rights over a lie? Are you going to give up your .22 rifles now? Because in the end, they eventually will come for that too.

Following Rahm Emanuel’s shameless advice to never let a good crisis go to waste, Obama went to Roseburg to make the most political hay of the “crisis”. He did it on a day when the families of the victims were trying to bury their dead. Civic leaders told him to not come, but he did anyway. Afterward, he went fundraising, using the dead victims as props, attacking your gun rights. This is beyond shameless and disgusting. We vote next year for a new president, vote for one who will protect your rights, not one who has already told you they will lay waste to them.

(As a post script, I watched the Democrat Debate on CNN hours after writing this article. It was disturbing to see the Democrats express more hate and vitriol aimed at the NRA than what they showed for ISIS, Al Qaeda, Iran, the Taliban or any real enemy of the United States. Keep that in mind when you go to the ballot box.)

Tim Inwood is the current Legislative Liaison and Past President of the Clinton County Farmers and Sportsmen Association, an Endowment Member of the NRA and Life Member of the OGCA, a member of the Board of Directors of the OGCA, Chairman of the Clinton County Republican Party, and a volunteer for Buckeye Firearms Association.