But do gun bans -- such as the one proposed this past week by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., which would outlaw 120 specific firearms -- curb violent crime?
Not according to a recent Fox News investigation titled "Assault-weapons ban no guarantee mass shootings would decrease, data shows." The report concluded, "Data published earlier this year showed that while the (Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which was signed by President Bill Clinton) was in place, from 1994 to 2004, the number of mass shootings actually rose slightly during that period."
Examiner.com elaborated: "Crime statistics compiled by a Northeastern University professor, the Census Bureau, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel show that in the 10 years before the Clinton gun ban, there were 173 mass shootings with 766 victims. But during the 10 years of the ban ... there were 182 mass shootings with 820 victims."
If one wants to see the ineffectiveness of countrywide gun bans and increased firearm regulations, one doesn't have to look any further than Mexico.
Sylvia Longmire, a former Air Force officer and special agent and a former border security analyst for the state of California, recently wrote a report titled "Mexico Proves Strict Gun Laws Won't Prevent Massacres."
Longmire explained: "Contrary to popular belief, Mexico's constitution has its own version of our Second Amendment. However, few private citizens own firearms. Federal laws have severely restricted the ability to own and carry weapons to soldiers, police, trained bodyguards, and a few others who can make it through the miles-long (gantlet) of the application process. If a Mexican citizen can survive the background checks, the mountains of paperwork, the half-dozen required personal recommendations, and the expense, they are limited to buying guns with low stopping power.
"There is also only one gun shop in Mexico where they can legally purchase firearms, and it's in Mexico City -- not exactly a close drive for many Mexicans."
The gravest outcome, Longmire added: "More than 53,000 people have been murdered in Mexico in the last six years."
And we don't think the same thing could happen, given enough time, to our Second Amendment rights, which are being slowly strangled by the overreaching, bureaucratic tentacles of Washington?
As with most of society's ills, the key to curbing violent crime is not more government expansion and spending. Neither is the answer dissolving our Second Amendment rights; countries with super-strict gun ownership laws have equally violent crimes and proved that taking guns from good guys doesn't prohibit bad guys from obtaining them.
Despite all the preceding evidence, President Barack Obama announced Jan. 16 that a new and tougher assault weapons ban and a 10-round limit on magazines would be a part of his comprehensive plan to reduce gun violence (aka limit our Second Amendment rights). Immediately after the president spoke, he signed 23 actions, increasing government firearm regulations via presidential executive order.
Though many U.S. representatives and at least three states so far (Oregon, Texas and Mississippi) have vowed not to enforce new gun laws and to stop Obama's assault against our Second Amendment rights, citizens should be very leery of an administration that already has skirted around Congress and overreached the American people more than any in U.S. history.
And if we think we will get a little constitutional assistance from the U.S. Supreme Court, let's neither forget how the court ruled on Obamacare nor forget what Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- appointed by Clinton -- stated last January during an interview on the Arabic broadcast network Al-Hayat: "I would not look to the U.S. Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012. I might look at the Constitution of South Africa," which, incidentally, has a bill of rights that is 10 times the length of ours but does not have one word protecting an individual's right to bear arms.
I want violent crimes curbed as much as anyone, but not at the expense of our Second Amendment rights -- which are there to protect us. And it's double-trouble lunacy when gun bans have proved to be ineffective in reducing crime in many other countries.
When our Founding Fathers secured our right to bear arms, they didn't do it so that we might go duck hunting. They did it so that we could defend ourselves. And that right was enacted into constitutional law and was never to be encroached by anyone at any time, especially those in Washington.
Could 27 words be any clearer?! "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
What don't they get about the words "shall not be infringed"?
Thomas Jefferson explained, "A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse or rest on inference."
That is why Jefferson could encourage his nephew Peter Carr, "Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks."
But then again, maybe infringing on and restricting the rights of law-abiding gun owners, too, is exactly the ulterior motive behind the White House's present gun and ammunition ban.
And why would the White House do that?
George Mason -- delegate from Virginia to the Constitutional Convention and co-father of the Bill of Rights, along with James Madison -- gave the answer way back in 1788, in his speech at the Virginia Ratifying Convention, where he explained: "I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them."