Wednesday, January 22, 2014
"When Did We Set Usage Requirements On Our Rights?"
In his latest commentary for NRA News, Billy Johnson takes apart the argument propagated by the New York Times and the gun prohibitionists that a so-called declining gun ownership rate in America is grounds for imposing more gun control. The New York Times is basing its argument that gun ownership has declined from 49% to 34% over the past 30 years on a survey conducted by the University of Chicago.
This decline in self-reported gun ownership comes in the face of all-time high gun sales. The University of Chicago's 2012 General Social Survey results are contradicted by other surveys. As Billy points out, many gun owners are not going to tell a survey taker that they own guns and will lie about it if asked.
Even if the survey results accurately reflect the level of gun ownership in America it is irrelevant: constitutional rights do not come with usage requirements.
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Was thinking about this yesterday. The gun-owning group most likely to have answered yes are non-prohibited possessors, in a permissive location, who trust the government. That being the case, the 40% of the population who admitted ownership are likely to fit a profile even the grabbers can't rationally impugn, non-criminal and non-"anti-government."
ReplyDeleteThere are then three likely under-reported groups:
1) Non-prohibited possessors, in a permissive locale, who -don't- trust the government.
2) Non-prohibited possessors, in a non-permissive locale (gun ownership denied by fiat), who don't trust the government.
3) Prohibited possessors, in either type of locale.
I'd bet 1 and 2 are a significant chunk of the remaining 60%.