|

Jon Dougherty
) 1999 WorldNetDaily.com

I don’t often write about the same subject twice in a
week, but I received a pro-gun/pro-safety response from an
interesting fellow last Thursday after I wrote a column
about the absurdity of disarming all Americans. I thought
readers would find it useful in making their case that the
gun issue really does revolve around safety, not just
rights.

This is his message:

“Just read your article on Maryland’s attorney general
wanting to ban handguns for most. Your conclusions are
correct. “We have lived for a number of years in Kenya.
There ALL guns are banned, including toy guns that look like
guns. The only exception is for small bore shotguns for
bird hunting, which are owned by a select few. These guns
must be stored in the local police station armory. They can
be checked out only during hunting season. It takes an act
of parliament to get shells.

“Yet in Kenya any criminal that wants one can get a
gun.

“My wife and a friend were robbed at gunpoint near
Mombassa. Their vehicle was taken also and they were left
standing on the side of the road. As they were walking
along they heard shots. The same crooks who had just robbed
them, robbed and killed a tourist down the road. And this
is in a nation where the police go around with automatic
weapons.

“They (the police), by the way, shoot to kill all the
time. I worked as a pilot and the airport had armed police
everywhere and lots of ‘security.’ One day, in front of our
hangar, a Kenyan made the mistake of touching the police-
man’s rifle. He died for that mistake, right there in the
parking lot. One night in Nairobi, next to my house, a
person was lurking in a nearby empty lot. The police came
and blew him away with automatic rifle fire. Shoot first
and no questions, now or later.

“Make no mistake, when only the police have guns, no
one is safe. But even wanton killing by police does not
deter crime. The only safety is when you’re at home and
behind locked bars. Bars everywhere, doors, windows, gates,
everywhere. We had to have a security guard, armed with a
machete, and a locked gate and wall around our house. Day
and night. Terrible way to live.

“And there is still no safety. There are home inva-
sions there too, where 20 or 30 thugs come with wrecking
bars and break into houses. Happens all the time. The
police for the most part had no cars for transportation.
Call 999 (911) and if the phone happened to be working, the
response would be on foot or by public bus.

“Another friend was robbed once, during the day. The
police came and when they were standing in line for the bus
to go back to the stationhouse theynoticed someone standing
there in line also, with the loot they recognized from the
same robbery they came to investigate. The person started
to run, so they blew him away too. Our friend felt real bad
someone had to die over mere ‘stuff.’

“I am a gun owner and don’t like the NRA, but when they
say, ‘when guns are outlawed then only outlaws will have
guns,’ they are correct. Then, no one is safe.”

This gentleman wrote me again last Friday, telling me
that he’d still jump at the chance to make a pilgrimage to
Kenya, even to this day, and he was emphatic that all parts
of Africa are not similar. But he added that even in a
country with a well-armed police force, criminals who still
manage to acquire “tightly regulated and prohibited” fire-
arms commit ghastly crimes, including murder, rape and
robbery.

Alas — and in keeping with the notion of tying gun
rights to the issue of overall safety — that is the point
this man is trying to make.

Point taken, as they say.

Still I wonder, how many vehement anti-gunners will
simply never get the message until it is they who are con-
fronted with this threat and there is nobody around to help
and no way to help themselves? Will it be only then they
will ask themselves — right before a criminal puts a gun to
their head — why they didn’t realize sooner that indeed the
issue of gun rights was really an issue of personal safety
all along?

Writing about the wisdom of opposing abortion, Alan
Keyes last week made some brilliant points about avoiding
the pitfalls of painting all who oppose your point of view
as “immoral” slobs with no consciences. He’s right; some
very well-meaning people who are otherwise very well in-
formed and compassionate about a variety of issues still
cannot see the wisdom in supporting gun rights, either as a
matter of constitutional law and freedom or as a matter of
enhancing personal and community safety. We shouldn’t, as
Mr. Keyes suggested, simply write these people off as our
enemies and fail to engage them in reasonable dialogue,
debate and discussion. Instead, we need to demonstrate that
it is because we care about them — as well as ourselves —
that we support the Constitution’s reaffirmation of our God-
given right to self defense and our nation’s common goal of
providing safety and security in our homes, our workplaces
and our communities as a whole.

If anything, the gentleman who shared his Kenyan ex-
periences with state-sponsored gun control and the utter
lack of safety such a concept provides will go a long way
toward making these points.

As a qualifier, I would like to add that in no way
would I (or he) suggest that American police officers are or
could be capable of such behavior. But let’s face reality:
We all know from experience that oftentimes their superiors
certainly are capable of it (Waco comes to mind). For our
own personal safety — and the safety of our way of life and
form of government — we should work strenuously to avoid
repeating the mistakes of others, mistakes dictated simply
by human nature, in the arena of total gun control.

Perhaps if the other media and government leaders did
not behave the way WND Editor Joe Farah described Friday —
ignoring acts or *events they have deemed “politically
incorrect” — more Americans would have the freedom to
decide for themselves just how safe they want to be. *

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_btl/19991022_xcbtl_not_hate_c.shtml

———-

Jon E. Dougherty is a staff writer for WorldNetDaily.

<@{{>< <@{{>< <@{{>< <@{{>< <@{{><
<@{{>< <@{{><
—————————————
“But if the watchman sees the sword coming and
does not blow the trumpet to warn the people and
the sword comes and takes the life of one of them,
that man will be taken away because of his sin,
but I will hold the watchman accountable for his
blood.” Ezekiel 33:6 (NIV)
___________________

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_dougherty_com/19991025_xcjod_the_danger.shtml