Columnist Tom Teepen lives in a dream world.
By Ralph Weller
CalNRA.org Contributing Editor

Syndicated columnist Tom Teepen published an article recently about licensing gun owners. Of course, Mr. Teepen advocates gun control and, like most anti-gun types, he has just one more gun control measure to make America safe.

What separated his commentary from others advocating licensing was that he was pretty straight-forward about why he supports licensing, though he wraps his liberal belief in safety, which is not the issue.

Teepen says, “Rather, licensing would bring a new sobriety to personal decisions about whether to take in firearms. The bother of licensing would cut the number of firearms coming into play. The process would impress upon buyers the life-or-death enormity of their decision.” In other words, we liberals are going to make you jump through hoops and make you feel like a common criminal. We’re going to make you register with the police department like a child molester. Gun owners are incensed about this issue for that very reason. As a side note, you have to laugh at the absurdity of liberals with the recent news item where San Francisco dope smokers are going to be given identifications cards. The cards will bear no name or picture of the registered dope addict to make sure their privacy is protected! Yet, when it comes to law-abiding gun owners, they are treated with less dignity than dope smoking drug addicts. Orwell’s 1984 is a little past due, but becoming reality very quickly!

Teepen goes on to say, “Some of the most deadly guns have been ones bought impulsively, often during a local panic over crime stories, by persons ill-prepared for the responsibility and thoughtless in how and where they maintain the weapon.” Teepen thinks that by licensing a potential gun owner, that somehow safety and firearms maintenance is enhanced. How does that happen? Why not just have people take a safety course like in California? Licensing a gun owner is certainly not a prerequisite to taking a safety course. Besides, Teepen doesn’t like the fact that law-abiding people, in some states, can leave their home and an hour later have a firearm for protection. I guess he didn’t particularly like the last Watts riots where store owners stood their ground from roof tops protecting their businesses. Yes, firearms in those instances are deadly… deadly for the looter and arsonist.

Teepen goes on to say that less people will die because, in essence, licensing will make people safer. Licensing has nothing to do with safety. There are plenty of idiots on the roads of America with licenses.

“The fact that we have a constitutional right to bear arms and no constitutional right to be borne by a car is often cited as somehow clinching, but it is meaningless when licensing would deny no one access to a lawful firearm.” If no one is denied access to a lawful firearm, what’s the point of licensing? Besides, what the hell is a lawful firearm? Does he mean the opposite of an unlawful firearm? How can an inanimate object be lawful or unlawful? Guns can be legal or illegal. But guns don’t have brains to commit an unlawful act. Minor point I admit. But, it goes back to the core belief of liberals that firearms in the hands of an otherwise law-abiding person will somehow, using some form of mystical powers no doubt, transform their owners into killers.

Teepen goes on to say the Nazi conspiracy theorists will point to Germany as an example of what will happen to us if licensing is implemented. I could care less about Germany and what happened sixty or seventy years ago. Licensing is a way of discouraging law-abiding citizens from purchasing a firearm. The bottom line is, if gun grabbers can’t ban them, throw enough government red tape and dollar signs in front of people and the result is a reduction in firearms ownership. When the liberals can get robbers, murderers and rapists get a license to purchase a gun, then I might consider licensing as a way to make society safer. So far, no one has bothered to mention how that will be accomplished.

Let me give Mr. Teepen my analysis of gun owner licensing. There is no legal product in the U.S. where the government requires a citizen to purchase a license for the privilege of buying a product. None — not a car, an airplane — nothing, with the possible exception shortly of illegal marijuana in San Francisco. If Teepen wants people to be safe with a firearm, make them show their safety training card. Licensing is a waste of time and money and serves no purpose other than to provide political fodder for an election. Licensing, as in drivers, allows the use of an automobile. Licensing gun owners does not allow use of a firearm, as in carrying a concealed firearm. That requires an additional license in most states unless one resides in California where licenses are rarely, if ever, issued in certain jurisdictions. If concealed carry licenses are an indication of how the government will manage a gun owner licensing program, anti-gun liberals can forget it. We already know the corruption, bias, and downright violation of the law by law enforcement officials associated with the concealed carry permitting process in this state. It takes the phrase, “Trust me, I’m from the government” to new levels of hypocrisy.

The issue is criminals, not safety. 48,000 people die in car accidents every year compared to 1200 from accidental deaths from firearms. There are roughly twice the number of guns in the U.S. than cars. That’s a damn fine safety record that has dropped every year for the last forty years and will continue to drop. The liberals, Teepen included, are trying to ignore 9000 murders a year. Conservatives won’t let liberals forget the real issue in our country…criminals. Criminals are the issue, not law-abiding citizens and Teepen knows it. Teepen’s problem with gun owners is just that…they’re gun owners and he doesn’t like it. Liberals hate the fact that Americans can protect themselves and their family. Teepen feels that’s the responsibility of the government, despite a Supreme Court ruling saying Americans have no right to protection by law enforcement from criminals.

Teepen and his merry band of do-good liberals are the same folks that want to ban cigarettes, SUVs, nuclear power, the military, three strikes, hunting, private land ownership in the west and gun owners, providing it doesn’t hamper the lifestyle of liberals. All the while they want to decriminalize the use of drugs which are ruining the lives of our brightest and best children. His type, when they have nothing better to do, suggest that home offices are subject to OSHA regulations. No, the dangerous people of this world aren’t law-abiding gun owners, it’s people like Teepen who sit around all day dreaming of ways to restrict rights of law-abiding citizens based on the moral standards established by felons. That’s not the kind of country I want to live in. If Teepen wants that kind of life, there are plenty of countries that will gladly accept the Teepens of the world. If he wants a gun free society where everyone feels “safe”, walk the streets of London in the evenings. Teepen will be glad to know the gun shots he hears on his stroll are all coming from criminals because the law-abiding have been disarmed.