Angry man gun control cartoon
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By Lee Williams

These are the most perilous times many Second Amendment watchdogs have ever seen. Our right to keep and bear arms is under constant assault by a troika of would-be infringers: the Biden-Harris administration — the most anti-gun group of bullies to occupy the White House in modern times — the legacy media, which is aids and abets Biden’s every whim regardless of its constitutionality, and the anti-gun industry, which provides the playbook and orchestrates the campaign.

Still, there are glimmers of hope. The light at the end of the tunnel may be dim, but at least it’s visible.

At least for now, things appear to be changing, albeit slowly. Thankfully, a growing number of Americans has stopped listening to the anti-gun forces. In other words, regardless of what Biden, Murphy, or Giffords are saying, the liberal bubble has been pierced by the truth, and worried folks are buying guns.

Over the past months, I’ve talked to dozens of new gun owners. Many described themselves as liberal or formerly liberal. Here’s what they are saying about why they broke ranks with the gun banners and bought guns:

Root Cause

New gun owners revealed near unanimity for the main reason they purchased a firearm: the surge of violent crime.

Smash-and-grab robbery gangs, well-publicized home-invasions and the newest media buzzword “follow-home robberies.” have folks terrified they will be ambushed in their home or on their doorstep, in zip codes where these types of crimes are not supposed to happen.

Some say the specter of mob violence has them readying themselves for the next wave of rioting and looting, and those unfortunate enough to live in large metropolitan cities say open warfare on their streets forced them to purchase a means to defend their hearth and home from illegally-armed gang members.

Radical Social Agenda

Many new gun owners complained about liberal criminal justice policies, which have caused increased crime: low/no bail, lighter sentences and no-arrest guidelines. These felon-friendly policies combined with the “defund the police” movement and liberal prosecutors are wreaking havoc in communities across the country.

Add to that the politicization of federal law enforcement agencies – most notably the FBIs involvement policing local school boards – and many folks don’t see any relief in sight.

Warnings

The nation’s sheriffs were the first to sound the alarm. Several famously warned the public they needed to arm themselves, for they were their own first responders. Bank of America and Citibank warned their employees in New York they needed to “dress down” so as not to become victims of crime.

Other employers chaperone their employees to and from work, and several major retailers are closing stores in large cities because of skyrocketing thefts, robberies and assaults on their staff.

Other Contributing Factors

Terrorism, the pandemic and its lockdowns, waves of illegal immigrants, Biden’s tanking economy, inflation concerns and the growing scarcity of basic commodities have created a sense that “something bad” is coming for many first-time gun buyers.

They have responded by heading to a local gun shop. More than a few said this growing sense of dread and uncertainty was unprecedented – something they had never felt before. One new GLOCK owner compared it to watching the first episode of “The Walking Dead.”

Empty Rhetoric

While their constituents were becoming concerned about how they would defend their families, the Biden-Harris administration offered nothing but tired talking points spoon-fed directly to them by the anti-gun industry. It didn’t work.

Joe Biden
President Joe Biden walks out of the State Dining room after an event with Attorney General Merrick Garland at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, June 23, 2021, to discuss gun crime prevention strategy. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Many Americans wanted easier access to firearms, not more restrictions. Biden, or whoever is actually calling the shots behind the scenes in the White House, has completely misread the room.

The gun banners are just now realizing that no one is listening. For many people, the skewed data from debunked sources that the anti-gun talking heads have been peddling for decades only reinforced their desire to buy a gun.

The more dire the warnings from the gun banners, the more guns were sold. It’s something Shannon, Gabby and Mike have yet to fully grasp.

The Result

More than 36 million Americans blew a big fat raspberry at Biden and his gun-banning squad, according to NICS background checks, and that only includes the first 11 months of 2021. It does not include private firearm sales, which are still legal in free states.

That’s more than 74 background checks per minute – a rate the market is still struggling to counterbalance.

In short, gun sales have skyrocketed. Ammunition sales have skyrocketed. Membership in gun-rights groups has skyrocketed. Demand for firearm instruction has outpaced the instructor pool, and support for anti-gun groups has plummeted. As expected.

Public opinion is shifting, the polls are showing, as more and more Americans realize the utility a firearm can offer. Politicians are discovering that an anti-gun stance will cost them votes. As time goes on, the anti-gun groups are growing more desperate. The more they’re ignored, the louder and more shrill they become.

This is, however, not the time to celebrate. We are only one executive order away from yet another infringement. Our right to keep and bear arms requires eternal vigilance.

Remain vigilant, friends.

 

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This story is part of the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project and is published here with their permission.

 

 

49 COMMENTS

  1. The plan is in 2022 to vote overwhelmingly to cancel anymore fraud or winning by a hair crap. If you know a slacker who you carry the water for in elections get their assurance they are registered to vote right now or tell them it’s adios until they do. Talk on these forums means nothing without action to back it up.

  2. Remember to check if your employer matches donations. Give to SAF and the like. Great way to make virtue signalling corporations help the good guys.

    • For those who insist on using Amazon, you can log in through Amazon Smile and a portion of what you spend will be donated to a charity. I set my wife’s up to donate to SAF.

  3. Strict gun control and confiscation initiatives are coming, and there’s literally nothing y’all can do about it. Well, except fuss and preen in this echo chamber. When the time comes, you’ll comply or be dealt with. But most of you will comply. And that’s a fact!

    • Step,

      You wouldn’t know a fact if it fell out of the sky, landed on your face, and started to wiggle.

      Well, bless your heart!!

      • Hahahahahaha. See what I mean ⬆️. Nothing but big words and nothing to back it up. Lolololol

        • “Nothing but big words and nothing to back it up.”

          Coming from the mentally-disturbed guy who uses new user names nearly every time he ‘comments’.

          No balls. Not surprising, since his have never gotten a proper workout.

          Poor little boy. (Very little, if you know what I mean! 😉 )

    • Perhaps those who have never grown up may roll over and comply. But, showing in the night and “Dealing” with those who refuse to submit, is a damn good way of getting your enforcement troops killed or injured.
      But then I am not too worried, I only have a few antiques and legal guns. Those your looking for were lost, sold back in the day at some gun show or fell overboard during a duck hunt. Sure, search away, be careful behind the forge shop and scrap iron pile, I saw a couple snakes back there. Oh, that PVC pipe I bought a month ago? Used it to fix the septic lines or build something. Might want to stay out of the wood lot as well the bull I have has gotten a little mean.
      All gun control does is make life easier and safer for those who would commit violent crime, does nothing to make any citizens safer or prevent crime or domestic violence. Nor does it get the guns off the street. Criminals will have guns no matter what the law reads.
      And, finally, the worst crimes against humanity have been committed by government troops. Usually against their own people.

      • “…or fell overboard during a duck hunt.”

        Durnit. Now the ducks will be able to defend themselves.

        • “Durnit. Now the ducks will be able to defend themselves.”

          Wasn’t there a Sci-Fi story years back where the game learned to use firearms?

    • Step up bozo…You need to test your hypotheisis first…Go get a box and go door to door demanding residents put their firearms in your box. By all accounts you should not be surprised when a frying pan lands on top of that pinhead of yours.

    • HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

      * Wipes tears from eyes *

      HOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO!

      And you’ll be in the front of the raiding party, holding the shield and the S&W TRR8/R8 SWAT Revolver.

      HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

  4. My wife telling me about an interesting essay she read today. The author was a professional hypnotist. He said the approximately 30% of the public cannot be hypnotized and another 30% can be hypnotized. Further, that the 30% that can be hypnotized have been hypnotized, deliberately, by big media and big tech. They set out create an unwavering, highly controllable base to begin building their obedient society. These corporate hypnotists know they will never reach the 30% that are not hypnotizable, but can use their base to increasingly control to 40% in the middle who may be influenced.

    Explains a lot of what we are seeing, nowadays.

    • LifeSavor (love the handle!),

      Not to be pedantic, but . . . while I agree with the overall thoughts in your comment, there’s a pretty obvious logical fallacy in the example. The ability to be hypotized is pretty much binary – you either can be, or can’t be. There is no third option in that dichotomy. So, if 30% can, and 30% can’t . . . what about the other 40%???????

  5. In response to the screenshot of Shannon Watts’ comment over John Lennon’s song “Imagine”, she should actually read the lyrics to that horrible song:

    Imagine there’s no heaven
    It’s easy if you try
    No hell below us
    Above us only sky
    Imagine all the people
    Living for today… Aha-ah…

    Imagine there’s no countries
    It isn’t hard to do
    Nothing to kill or die for
    And no religion, too
    Imagine all the people
    Living life in peace… You…

    You may say I’m a dreamer
    But I’m not the only one
    I hope someday you’ll join us
    And the world will be as one

    Imagine no possessions
    I wonder if you can
    No need for greed or hunger
    A brotherhood of man
    Imagine all the people
    Sharing all the world…

    Lennon was a Marxist. If not by title, then certainly by ideology. And countless people have swooned to this song for half a century.

    • ….that it has now been 11 months and 2 days since this cowardly music critic failed to heed President Donald J. Trump’s urgent call to action on Freedom Day. Seriously, what a joke ‘Haz’ is….

      • “….that it has now been 11 months and 2 days…”

        Keeping track, eh? That’s a classic symptom of obsessive behavior.

        To say it’s not healthy is a drastic understatement, son. Get help, but if you won’t, do your imaginary family with your imaginary 2 children a favor and take yourself out.

        Because your are dangerously delusional… 😉

    • lennon was a hypocrite. Imagine no possessions. An apartment at the Dakota. Houses in different countries. A fat bank account. He and Carlin were phonies.

      So yes. He was at least a marxist.

      • Lennon was simply FOS. The image of that multimillionaire banging out the chords to “Imagine” on his grand piano from his apartment overlooking Central Park while caterwauling about no possessions is worthy of Monty Python.

    • Lennon was a kind of an all-around pr*ck. Bad father, unfaithful (and often abusive) husband, head up his own bum about his sense of self-importance, massive hypocrite on a wide range of issues.

      Never been a fan of his music, either. I enjoy The Beatles (mostly the early stuff), but never heard a Lennon song I liked.

      • the early stuff.
        i prefer chuck berry’s versions.
        as for the later stuff, i had five sisters; i lived through it once.

  6. People, just like any other animal, automatically become more aggressive and more ruthless when they believe they are losing a lethal fight and have nowhere to run to. The basic survival instinct kicks in and any rules are discarded. This is, and has been, a fight for dominance if not outright survival since at least the early ’60s. The rules of gentlemanly conduct are becoming less important by the day.

  7. Eleven…one louder. It’s cranked up alright. Buying more 556 tomorrow. LGS running a “pre-Christmas sale”. Yippee.

  8. I was just in a gun shop in Georgia over the week end. They had evil black rifles and they had handguns and even some ammo. I saw no .38 or .357 but the other flavors were available.

    They had a wide selection of cross bows as well. After the xmas rush I might check into one.

  9. Gun control is dead, killed by the left, its felon-friendly policies, the “defund the police” movement, and prosecutors bought and paid for by George Soros.

    Americans may be stupid, but they’re not so stupid that they can’t read the writing on the wall.

  10. For liberals, when the mayhem is happening amongst “those people” they see an excuse to push their progressive agenda. Of course, once it moves into the pricier zip codes it’s “Muffy, we really do need a gun”.

    • “Muffy, we really do need a gun!”

      “Okay, Biff. Can it be pink?”

      “You’re right. It’s gotta match your new Lululemon stretchies. Y’know, the ones that make you look fat.”

      “Biff, you a*hole!”

      • My wife may have some gold anodized pieces to her collection. God help me if she ever needs to use them and the evidence locker gets a pretty decoration for a few years.

  11. “… or whoever is actually calling the shots behind the scenes in the White House …”

    Susan Rice. And Obama is pulling her strings.

    • “Susan Rice.”

      Crap, what a real piece of work that creature turned out to be.

      What a come down from Condelezza Rice… 🙁

      • I saw Condi in person, once. She gave a speech as part of a “Speaker’s Series” that included Slick Willy, Powell, and some other worthies.

        I was singularly unimpressed with her speech, her answers to questions, and her demeanor. The press played her up so much, the real person was a let down. Mediocre is the word I would use to describe her.

  12. man…
    if bump stocks get past the scotus
    theyll be able to charge almost whatever they want
    and
    theyll
    sell
    like
    HOTCAKES

  13. Ok,,, bump stocks, I have no problem with people getting things they want,,, none at all,
    But I’ve used a bump stock before, & I gotta tell ya , as much fun as it might be to use, I personally would not waste MY money one one, unless you got lots of money or bullets to burn up.
    No accuracy to start with, waste of ammunition me thinks. Before the bump stock became available there was or still is a trigger system that works way better. Can’t remember what it’s called though.
    Just my thoughts on bump stocks.

    • More than a few companies are putting out binary triggers and a I think there is a forced reset option as well. Not really my area of interest as for full ammo I am more used to belt fed or mp5 offerings but options should be available for all.

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