As legal gun owners, we have to act, and act quickly and decisively, if we want to retain our rights to own guns. There are already a number of bills in state legislatures around the country being proposed to ban so-called “assault rifles” and other specific types of guns and their accessories.
It’s time for gun owners to join the debates. We have to do something. Most of us already do everything we can to keep our own guns out of the wrong hands. Locking them in a quality gun safe is a good first step. Teaching our kids to respect firearms is another. But the time has come for gun owners to step up to the table and do whatever it takes to keep our rights to defend ourselves and those around us.
If we do nothing, public opinion will turn against us. We will go down the road Australia took, and the majority will vote to take our guns away from us. And that will do nothing but harm. No, we need to provide a solution that will actually work. It may require some compromise, and giving up some of the freedom we have to buy and sell guns as we’ve been doing for a long time. Any regulation of firearms will by definition prevent some people from being able to protect themselves, and that’s a travesty. But we need to have a place at the table to state our case so that we don’t get railroaded by the court of misinformed public opinion.
We can’t let laws like those proposed in Ohio and Oregon become the law of the land – laws that require all semi-automatics to be forfeited. But if we don’t come up with solutions that work, that’s what’s going to happen, folks. It’s time to step up and offer real solutions from a responsible gun owner’s perspective.
