To the Editor;
A  while back there was a letter to the editor from James Gearhart and I wanted to respond right away but got busy.
To me it seems like the ultimate chutzpah to equate oneself to Martin Luther. But I guess it’s easier on one’s conscience to see themselves as a reformer rather than an apostate.
Several weeks ago (10/27/2017 Sentinel) Mr. Gearhart’s Letter to the Editor was published. While I could shred the entire letter, space constraints won’t allow that. I would like to take particular exception to his statement “Hiding behind antiquated gun laws while mass murders happen on an almost daily basis is antithetical to everything Christ stood for.” Since I believe Mr. Gearhart is ignorant of facts, history and human nature, I’d like to help him see the errors of his views.
As of 11/18/2017, there have been 11,270 homicides involving firearms. During that same time, there have been 18,349 falling deaths, 32,837 poison deaths and 40,087 traffic deaths. I daresay that traffic laws are much more recent than those “antiquated gun laws”. Apparently laws don’t prevent deaths.
As for history, we could look at why the Framers’ included the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights but considering that the British tried to disarm the colonists, it might seem self-evident to any rational person. But Mr. Gearhart doesn’t seem to belittle the keeping and bearing of arms in times past but rather in this more civilized and humane era. That civilized and humane era of the 20th Century where we witnessed such depravity of government that we had to coin a new word – democide. Democide – the murder of any person or people by their government. When we talk about the number of innocent people killed by their governments, we don’t talk about millions; we talk about hundreds of millions. And that wasn’t hundreds of years ago. That’s recent.
Now Mr. Gearhart may make some specious claim that this is the rest of the world but couldn’t happen in America. That would be because Mr. Gearhart doesn’t know, or refuses to acknowledge events in American history like when the Democrats disarmed Blacks so that when the Democrats donned their white hoods, those that hated and preyed upon would not be able to defend their lives. Or he may deny that the Democrats instituted Concentration Camps in this country. The Warsaw Ghetto uprising demonstrated to the entire world why civilians should be at least as well armed as the soldiers. Had the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto been as well armed as the Germans, the outcome might have been very different.
As far as human nature goes, all of recorded human history shows that those in power try to enslave and subjugate those who don’t have power.
“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
–Benjamin Franklin
Disarming the population has always been a step on the road to tyranny.
Coming back to Mr. Gearhart’s intimation that an armed populace is bad, in the same amount of time that 11,270 homicides occurred, guns were used in self-defense 2,136,988 times.
We repeatedly see that those cities with the most restrictive gun [laws] report high numbers of crimes involving guns including fatal shootings. The FBI reports violent crimes decreased by 50% over the last two decades even though gun ownership almost doubled in the same length of time. The problem isn’t guns, it is people. People who don’t value human life. People who have no respect for the law. People who have no moral compass. And for the record, I don’t hide behind some antiquated gun laws, I exercise my God given right to protect my life, my liberty and my property. And Mr. Gearhart, when your ilk comes once again to inflict genocide or some eugenics program, many will be there to stand in the breach.
Dan Bubis,
Rural Custer County