Gun control advocates often claim the moral high ground. They accuse opponents of selfishly clinging to their guns and having cold hearts toward the victims of gun violence. That is exactly what happened on May 20 at a Congressional hearing on the issue.
Article by Brett Cooper and Dan Sanchez from FEE.
But Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) wasn’t having it.
“We care about victims,” he said in his testimony. “I care about the victims of gun control.”
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Massie then related how gun control victimized Nikki Goeser, one of his former staffers, who “watched her husband killed in front of her, because she followed the gun control laws, and her assailant—her stalker—did not. She left her concealed carry weapon in her car, because it was a gun-free zone.”
More than a decade ago, she and her husband Benjamin Goeser were operating their karaoke business at a restaurant in Tennessee when her longtime stalker confronted them.
“…I would usually carry my permitted concealed handgun with me,” she told Fox News, “But, at the time, Tennessee did not allow carrying in restaurants that served alcohol. While I obeyed the law, Ben’s murderer did not. He had no permit to carry, and he brought a gun into a gun-free zone.”
“In April 2009, the murderer shot my husband seven times in front of 50 witnesses. The whole attack was recorded by the restaurant’s security cameras.”
Ben Goeser was a victim of gun violence. But, he was also a victim of gun control. A gun control law prevented his law-abiding wife from saving his life from a law-flouting criminal.
In a tragic irony, his death contributed to gun violence statistics that are regularly used to argue for more gun control laws like the very one that sealed his fate.
An Essential Protection
Women are particularly vulnerable to being victimized by gun control. An estimated 1.9 million women are targeted and physically assaulted in the United States every year: a number of them by stalkers like the one who menaced Nikki Goeser and slew her husband.
Data show that every year, at least 200,000 women employ a firearm to defend themselves against sexual abuse. And studies have shown that armed women are highly effective in preventing rape and sexual assault with guns
With generally smaller frames and thus less capacity to fend off large attackers with their bodies alone, firearms provide women essential protection. As comedian Chris Rock has pointed out, guns are the great equalizer. “You got pecs? l got Tecs,” he quipped, referring to the Tec-9 automatic pistol.
This reality is too often lost on many who otherwise voice support for female empowerment and equality. By depriving them of essential protection, gun control disempowers, oppresses, and victimizes women on a vast scale.
When Time Matters Most
The specific gun control measures discussed in the May 20 hearing would only victimize women even more.
Gun control advocates want to eliminate a provision in the 1994 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act that allows gun dealers to proceed with a sale if the buyer’s mandated background check has not been completed within three business days. They blame it for enabling Dylann Roof to obtain the gun he used in the 2015 Charleston church shooting. Thus, they call it “the Charleston loophole.”
But in his testimony, Massie explained that Roof would have passed the background check anyway, so eliminating the provision wouldn’t have hindered him.
Who would it hinder? Women in desperate need of a gun to defend themselves and their loved ones from abusers or stalkers and whose safety can’t afford a lengthy waiting period. For potential victims in such situations, time is of the essence.
Also discussed at the hearing were “safe storage laws,” which advocates claim would prevent accidental gun deaths and suicides. But as Massie pointed out in his testimony, there is no evidence backing this assumption. Instead, safe storage laws only impair and inhibit people’s ability to use their guns defensively… as in the case of a home invader.
A survey conducted by the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention found that on average, Americans use guns to frighten away home intruders about 498,000 times per year, and in general, felons have reported that they avoid entering houses when people are at home because they fear being shot. If criminals know that guns are safely out of reach in locked storage, they will have less of a deterrent.
A Blind Eye
“One of the great mistakes,” the economist Milton Friedman once said, “is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.”
Another great mistake, explored by Henry Hazlitt in his classic book Economics in One Lesson, is to only consider a policy’s impacts on one group of people and ignore its impacts on other groups.
Gun control advocates are too often guilty of both errors. They dwell on their intentions and disregard the unintended consequences of gun control. And while accusing others of not caring about victims of guns, they themselves turn a blind eye to victims of gun control.
New Conservative Network Seeks Crowdfunding Help
They say we have to go big or go home. We’re trying to go big and bring the patriotic truth the the nation, but we need help.
Readers may or may not realize that over the past year, we’ve been bringing more conservative news and opinion outlets under our wing. Don’t take our expansion as a sign of riches; all of the “acquisitions” have been through sweat and promises of greater things to come for all involved. As a result, we’ve been able to bring together several independent media sites under a unified vision of preventing America from succumbing to the progressive, “woke,” Neo-Marxist ideologies that are spreading like wildfire across America.
The slow and steady reopening of America is revealing there was a lot more economic hardship brought about from the Covd-19 lockdowns than most realize. While we continue to hope advertising dollars on the sites go up, it’s simply not enough to do things the right way. We are currently experiencing a gap between revenue and expenses that cannot be overcome by click-ads and MyPillow promos alone (promo code “NOQ” by the way).
To overcome our revenue gap and keep these sites running, our needs fluctuate between $3000-$7000 per month. In other words, we’re in the red and hemorrhaging.
The best way you can help us grow and continue to bring the truth to the people is by donating. We appreciate everything, whether a dollar or $10,000. Anything brings us closer to a point of stability when we can hire writers, editors, and support staff to make the America First message louder. Our Giving Fuel page makes it easy to donate one-time or monthly. Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal as well.
As the world spirals towards radical progressivism, the need for truthful journalism has never been greater. But in these times, we need as many conservative media voices as possible. Please help keep NOQ Report and the other sites in the network going.
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Will America-First News Outlets Make it to 2023?
Things are looking grim for conservative and populist news sites.
There’s something happening behind the scenes at several popular conservative news outlets. 2021 was bad, but 2022 is proving to be disastrous for news sites that aren’t “playing ball” with the corporate media narrative. It’s being said that advertisers are cracking down, forcing some of the biggest ad networks like Google and Yahoo to pull their inventory from conservative outlets. This has had two major effects. First, it has cooled most conservative outlets from discussing “taboo” topics like Pandemic Panic Theater, voter fraud, or The Great Reset. Second, it has isolated those ad networks that aren’t playing ball.
Certain topics are anathema for most ad networks. Speaking out against vaccines or vaccine mandates is a certain path to being demonetized. Highlighting voter fraud in the 2020 and future elections is another instant advertising death penalty. Throw in truthful stories about climate change hysteria, Critical Race Theory, and the border crisis and it’s easy to understand how difficult it is for America-First news outlets to spread the facts, share conservative opinions, and still pay the bills.
Without naming names, I have been told of several news outlets who have been forced to either consolidate with larger organizations or who have backed down on covering certain topics out of fear of being “canceled” by the ad networks. I get it. This is a business for many of us and it’s not very profitable. Those of us who do this for a living are often barely squeaking by, so loss of additional revenue can often mean being forced to make cuts. That means not being able to cover the topics properly. Its a Catch-22: Tell the truth and lose the money necessary to keep telling the truth, or avoid the truth and make enough money to survive. Those who have chosen survival simply aren’t able to spread the truth properly.
We will never avoid the truth. The Lord will provide if it is His will. Our job is simply to share the facts, spread the Gospel, and educate as many Americans as possible while exposing the forces of evil.
To those who have the means, we ask that you please donate. We have options available now, but there is no telling when those options will cancel us. We just launched a new GiveSendGo page. We also have our GivingFuel page. There have been many who have been canceled by PayPal, but for now it’s still an option. Your generosity is what keeps these sites running and allows us to get the truth to the masses. We’ve had great success in growing but we know we can do more with your assistance.
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JD Rucker
