Master Blaster
November 4, 2003, 11:25 AM
The NRA stands fast against lies
By JOHN SIGLER
11/04/2003
As a retired Delaware police captain and 2nd vice president of the National Rifle Association, I am always disheartened when I see lies printed about NRA's concern for the safety of America's police officers.
The NRA will never support anything that endangers the lives of America's law enforcement personnel. No organization supports law enforcement like the NRA.
For the past 40 years we have been the only national trainer of law enforcement officers. Today, over 11,500 NRA-certified instructors train 450,000 policemen and policewomen annually. We are proud to count thousands of law enforcement officers among our membership including NRA President Kayne Robinson, former chief of detectives of Des Moines, Iowa.
In fact, 14 members of NRA's board of directors are current or former law enforcement officers representing such diverse agencies as the FBI, BATF, U.S. Border Patrol and the Texas Rangers.
Unfortunately, attempts to characterize NRA members as anti-law enforcement are nothing new. Richard North Patterson, a fiction writer and board member of the gun-ban group the Brady Center (formerly known as Handgun Control, Inc.), is the latest anti-gun elitist to attempt to mislead the American people.
Patterson twists facts and misrepresents laws to disguise his advocacy of gun bans. He then broadly accuses anyone who questions his draconian effort to suppress gun ownership as being "paranoid."
There is nothing paranoid about the restrictions groups like Handgun Control and social egalitarians like Patterson would place on law-abiding Americans. In fact, the U.S. gun-ban lobby has taken a page right out of the playbook of anti-gun fanatics in England and Australia, countries where laws adopted in the name of "safety," such as licensing and registration of gun owners, were ultimately used to strip away the rights of law-abiding citizens. These countries, over time, made restrictions more oppressive until they finally reached their ultimate goal- a total ban on firearms.
Unfortunately, those alleged wonderful "safety measures " have led to the worst crime levels in Britain's history. According to the London Daily Telegraph, street crime in England increased 47 percent between 1999 and 2000 alone. After the gun ban in Australia, the number of robberies with guns jumped 39 percent, assaults involving guns rose 28 percent and murders by 19 percent, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. This is a phenomenon that any experienced street cop could have predicted.
The truth is simple. The people of Great Britain and Australia forgot to use common sense; criminals by definition will not obey the law. Criminals do not stand in line to get a photo ID or register their illegal firearms before committing a crime. So, the criminals in England and Australia acquired firearms through their usual means of theft or the black market just as they always have, long after the honest citizens' firearms were confiscated and destroyed.
Perhaps American gun-ban groups have finally realized that they, not the good people of the NRA, are out of touch with mainstream America. Despite their attempts to put harsh restrictions on the rights of law-abiding gun owners, their efforts have met extreme opposition in Congress and the state legislatures, and rightly so.
Because of their repeated political failures, the gun-ban extremists have taken to the courts, filing frivolous lawsuits against the firearms industry in a backdoor attempt to ban guns in America through economic coercion. Firearm manufacturers are left with exorbitant legal fees and financially precarious conditions.
Legislation is now before the United States Senate to save the firearms industry from predatory lawsuits. It does not provide the industry blanket immunity. To say that manufacturers or retailers who break the law would not be held accountable is an outright lie. This is a true common-sense measure that passed the U.S. House by a better than two-to-one margin, enjoys 55 cosponsors in the U.S. Senate, and is supported by President Bush.
Despite their best efforts, the smoke and mirrors campaign of the anti-gun elites cannot deceive freedom-loving Americans. We will not stand idly by and allow our rights to be eroded away.
John Sigler of Dover is 2nd Vice President of The National Rifle Association
By JOHN SIGLER
11/04/2003
As a retired Delaware police captain and 2nd vice president of the National Rifle Association, I am always disheartened when I see lies printed about NRA's concern for the safety of America's police officers.
The NRA will never support anything that endangers the lives of America's law enforcement personnel. No organization supports law enforcement like the NRA.
For the past 40 years we have been the only national trainer of law enforcement officers. Today, over 11,500 NRA-certified instructors train 450,000 policemen and policewomen annually. We are proud to count thousands of law enforcement officers among our membership including NRA President Kayne Robinson, former chief of detectives of Des Moines, Iowa.
In fact, 14 members of NRA's board of directors are current or former law enforcement officers representing such diverse agencies as the FBI, BATF, U.S. Border Patrol and the Texas Rangers.
Unfortunately, attempts to characterize NRA members as anti-law enforcement are nothing new. Richard North Patterson, a fiction writer and board member of the gun-ban group the Brady Center (formerly known as Handgun Control, Inc.), is the latest anti-gun elitist to attempt to mislead the American people.
Patterson twists facts and misrepresents laws to disguise his advocacy of gun bans. He then broadly accuses anyone who questions his draconian effort to suppress gun ownership as being "paranoid."
There is nothing paranoid about the restrictions groups like Handgun Control and social egalitarians like Patterson would place on law-abiding Americans. In fact, the U.S. gun-ban lobby has taken a page right out of the playbook of anti-gun fanatics in England and Australia, countries where laws adopted in the name of "safety," such as licensing and registration of gun owners, were ultimately used to strip away the rights of law-abiding citizens. These countries, over time, made restrictions more oppressive until they finally reached their ultimate goal- a total ban on firearms.
Unfortunately, those alleged wonderful "safety measures " have led to the worst crime levels in Britain's history. According to the London Daily Telegraph, street crime in England increased 47 percent between 1999 and 2000 alone. After the gun ban in Australia, the number of robberies with guns jumped 39 percent, assaults involving guns rose 28 percent and murders by 19 percent, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. This is a phenomenon that any experienced street cop could have predicted.
The truth is simple. The people of Great Britain and Australia forgot to use common sense; criminals by definition will not obey the law. Criminals do not stand in line to get a photo ID or register their illegal firearms before committing a crime. So, the criminals in England and Australia acquired firearms through their usual means of theft or the black market just as they always have, long after the honest citizens' firearms were confiscated and destroyed.
Perhaps American gun-ban groups have finally realized that they, not the good people of the NRA, are out of touch with mainstream America. Despite their attempts to put harsh restrictions on the rights of law-abiding gun owners, their efforts have met extreme opposition in Congress and the state legislatures, and rightly so.
Because of their repeated political failures, the gun-ban extremists have taken to the courts, filing frivolous lawsuits against the firearms industry in a backdoor attempt to ban guns in America through economic coercion. Firearm manufacturers are left with exorbitant legal fees and financially precarious conditions.
Legislation is now before the United States Senate to save the firearms industry from predatory lawsuits. It does not provide the industry blanket immunity. To say that manufacturers or retailers who break the law would not be held accountable is an outright lie. This is a true common-sense measure that passed the U.S. House by a better than two-to-one margin, enjoys 55 cosponsors in the U.S. Senate, and is supported by President Bush.
Despite their best efforts, the smoke and mirrors campaign of the anti-gun elites cannot deceive freedom-loving Americans. We will not stand idly by and allow our rights to be eroded away.
John Sigler of Dover is 2nd Vice President of The National Rifle Association