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As the number of coronavirus cases continues to go up, gun sales are rising too. That seems to trouble officials in New York’s Nassau County. In March, Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder admitted some residents “are concerned that they need to protect themselves.”

However, Ryder insisted that “the Nassau County Police Department will protect you.” He didn’t explain why police didn’t protect any of the 16 people who were murdered in his county last year.

Ryder went on to promise that “burglars won’t break into the house knowing the people are home.” This would come as news to at least one Nassau County couple: in January, the pair were both repeatedly stabbed by a home invader.

RELATED NEWS: 10 Mass Shootings That Were Stopped By Armed Citizens

He also didn’t mention Nassau County’s problem with gangs like MS-13. In neighboring Suffolk County, MS-13 members brutally murdered two teenage girls who were on their way home from school, with police saying the bodies were “unrecognizable.”

Given that county law enforcement has failed to protect people under normal circumstances, you may be wondering how they could guarantee everyone’s safety in a crisis. The simple answer?

They can’t.

Officers are rarely close by when a predator strikes. They weren’t when convicted sex offender Christopher Ray Foster broke into a woman’s home. Thankfully, her pistol was.

RELATED NEWS: Texans Who Carry Have A Lower Murder Rate Than Brits

Police didn’t arrive for North Carolina home invasion victim Kay Dickinson until after she shot her attacker. A rape survivor in Missouri had a similar experience.

There were no cops around when two men armed with a knife tried to enter the home of a single mom in Oklahoma; she had to rely on a shotgun instead.

Cases like these demonstrate how having a gun can make the difference between being a survivor and a statistic. And that’s even more true when order breaks down.

In 1992, Los Angeles was hit with deadly riots, and the Korean-American community was specifically targeted. With no help from the police, store owners picked up semi-automatic rifles to defend their lives and property. Without the ability to put down a high volume of fire, it’s likely that many would have lost their lives. 

Even criminals themselves agree that armed victims are a deterrent. A survey of convicts funded by the Department of Justice, 81 percent of participants agreed that “a smart criminal always tries to find out if his potential victim is armed.” Another 74 percent concurred with the statement, “One reason burglars avoid houses when people are home is they fear being shot.”   

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While it’s true that some studies claim having a gun increases your likelihood of getting shot, they often make no distinction between armed criminals and legal gun owners.

There’s also the fear that keeping a gun in the house will lead to a child’s death. Yet CDC data shows that from 2013 to 2017, an average of 42 children under ten died in firearm accidents annually. By contrast, 624 drowned in 2017 alone, and yet there is little worry over owning hot tubs, pools, or plastic buckets. What’s more, those things don’t have the life-saving potential a gun does.

RELATED NEWS: While Gun Sales Are Up, Crime Keeps Falling

During a press conference, Nassau County Executive Laura Curran complained, “Guns are not going to fight the virus.” She’s right: they’re going to fight the criminals she can’t control.

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To rally or not to rally–that seems to be the question.

Let me start out by saying that I’m keenly aware that the whole rally debate is as much a personal preference issue as choosing which manufacturer and caliber you rely on for your everyday carry gun. Generally speaking, what works for you doesn’t necessarily always work for your neighbor.

That being said, we need to look at the why behind the recent Second Amendment rallies; local, state, and at our nation’s Capitol.

If you’ve ever been to a Second Amendment rally at any of these levels, you already know that you will likely run into the same groups of people and quite possibly hear from the same few speakers most every time. The politicians who are actively manipulating numbers and conspiring to pass infringement laws are not going to show up, and the fact that we have gathered there in defiance of their overreach doesn’t seem to deter them or delay their scheming a single bit. It’s important for you to understand and acknowledge that fact. The anti-freedom politicians and organizations are not our audience at a rally.

Too often, you and I can get hung up on that fact. We begin to doubt the impact of bringing our Second Amendment community together to share ideas and strategies in a common place, in full view of both supporters as well as oppressors. We become dissuaded by the feeling that we are merely preaching to the choir. After all, isn’t that what we all use social media for?

So, if we are preaching to the choir, why should we participate? What is the motivation for taking time off work, incurring travel expenses, possibly getting your name put on a list, or having to follow unjust laws to even have the opportunity to attend?

The why is easy. We attend rallies because we thrive when We The People build communities, network, and form partnerships or alliances. We are reminded that we can and should work together on a daily basis even if we don’t agree on other issues. When we work together, putting aside our differences, in order to protect our individual liberty, that is the moment when our mission is noticed by those who would prefer to ignore us and pretend that we are nothing more than a lone voice in a crowd.

For far too long we have propped up organizations to pass off our responsibilities on to. These organizations have become easy to disparage, vilify, and arrogantly ignore. We, the American gun owners, have been lost in the shadow of these entities we helped build, and our individual rights are being eroded at a staggering pace, because others have been fed and believe the false narrative that gun owners come in one cookie cutter pattern, represented by an acronym or a single face on a billboard. They have been duped into believing this instead of the truth, that we are comprised of individuals representing the full spectrum of humanity.

When we come together like this at a rally and build alliances in our goal to protect our liberty, we are sending a clear message to everyone that the gun lobby is not some organization, corporation, or ambiguous entity. Instead, we are individual citizens standing together in solidarity, in unison, in harmonized defiance saying in a powerful singular voice that even though our liberty is individual, our fight to keep it is unified. If you are in the market for superclone Replica Rolex , Super Clone Rolex is the place to go! The largest collection of fake Rolex watches online!

I am the gun lobby. You are the gun lobby.

When you and I join together, standing shoulder to shoulder in bold dissent over the infringement laws being passed by an overreaching government, we leave no doubt that We Are The Gun Lobby. And, like it or not, we are your friends, neighbors, coworkers, small business owners, presidents of corporations, county commissioners, and school teachers. We are in every store, every restaurant, and college campus. We sell you your home, deliver your babies, and care for your loved ones in care facilities across the nation. We are not a face on a billboard. We are “The People” which our constitution was written to protect, and together we mean to protect our Constitution just the same.

Again , I ask you, why do we take the time and effort to attend a rally? It is simply because that is not a message which can be conveyed properly by so many words typed on a screen.

I, personally, look forward to standing alongside of you at the next rally so we can finding new ways, face to face, to work together to help rebuild our Constitutional Republic to what it was designed to be.

Rebecca Schmoe

What do you think? Leave a comment below.

Gun violence has been in the news lately, which has some Americans advocating British-style gun laws. The UK bans handguns, and in 2018 its per capita homicide rate was only 1.2 per 100,000 people. But while it’s true that Brits commit relatively few murders, there’s another group that commits even fewer. Who are they?

Legally-armed Texans.

Over 1.3 million people in Texas are licensed to carry a firearm, and the state publishes a report on the crimes they commit. In 2018, one was convicted of murder and another three were convicted of manslaughter. If they formed their own country, its murder rate would be 0.29 per one hundred thousand residents.

In other words, Britain’s homicide rate would drop by more than three quarters if it were populated by nothing but Texans with concealed handgun permits. Texas isn’t unique: across the country, it’s rare for people who carry guns legally to commit crimes. They do stop them, however.

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Sheriff’s Deputy Dylan Dorris discovered that when he was rescued by an armed motorist. Dorris was overpowered during a traffic stop, and the officer says he’s “alive today” because Marine Corps veteran Scott Perkins intervened. You can find many similar cases of individuals defending themselves and others.     

RELATED NEWS: Nobody Needs an AR-15? These Folks Did.

While the stats show most people who carry are male, women actually have the most to gain from a concealed handgun. Unlike other weapons, the efficacy of a firearm depends on its user’s skill–not her size and strength. That’s why an armed Minnesota woman was able to fend off a gang of men. It’s the same reason a 91 year-old man in Michigan could defend himself in a drugstore parking lot.  

And there’s an additional benefit: the presence of guns creates a deterrent. In a survey of convicts funded by the Department of Justice, 81 percent agreed, “A smart criminal always tries to find out if his potential victim is armed.” Seventy four percent concurred that, “One reason burglars avoid houses when people are home is they fear being shot.”  

It’s true that the United States has a problem with violent crime, and that problem has many components. Law abiding gun owners aren’t one of them though. They’re part of the answer.  

There’s a refrain you’ll hear whenever a mass shooting is committed: “Nobody needs an AR-15.” You’ll hear it even when an AR-15 wasn’t the weapon used. Now, it’s true that most people don’t actually need an AR on a daily basis. Then again, they usually don’t need a seat belt, either. But when the need does arise, folks tend to be glad they have one.

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Like other rifles, an AR comes equipped with a shoulder stock and has a longer sight radius than a handgun, both contributing to better accuracy. Commonly chambered in .223, it has little recoil but delivers far more stopping power than most pistols.

Its aluminum receiver and gas impingement operating system reduce weight and allow for fast follow up shots, which is part of why it’s popular among hunters and female shooters. Finally, its detachable box magazine provides high capacity and quick reloads, a feature some Korean-American shopkeepers found essential.

RELATED NEWS: Texans Who Carry Have a Lower Murder Rate Than Brits.

In 1992, Los Angeles was hit with deadly riots, and the Korean-American community was specifically targeted. With no help from the police, store owners picked up semi-automatic rifles to defend their lives and property. Offering the ability to put down a high volume of fire, it’s one of the few ways someone can hold off angry mob. And a riot isn’t the only time that ability is important.

A Milwaukee man used an AR to defend himself against multiple armed attackers. This man in Detroit did the same. And in Sutherland Springs, local resident Stephen Willeford used his AR-15 to stop a mass killer:

RELATED NEWS: Have a CCW Permit? Bob Menendez Thinks You Belong in Jail.

It’s true that AR-style rifles have featured in high-profile mass shootings. But while such crimes are horrific, they’re also anomalies: of the 15 129 murders committed in 2017, the FBI reports that only 403 involved rifles of any kind. By comparison, CDC figures show that in the same year, 624 children 9 years of age and under drowned. Despite this, there’s no push to ban hot tubs, pools, or plastic buckets. And unlike those things, an AR has life-saving potential. It’s something plenty of folks know first hand.