From the daily rag of gun-haters everywhere:

The 2008 election of Barack Obamawas a boon to gunmakers. Now the gun lobby, gathered at theNational Rifle Association’s convention in St. Louis today, is using the prospect of his re-election to again stoke fear --which may be good for the industry’s bottom line but not for the country.

Oh really?  This isn't about what you think is "good for the country" (or your view of it), it is what the Constitution recognizes.

The triumph of a lobby devoted to expanding gun rights and increasing gun sales has created challenges for communities and states that do not share the National Rifle Association’s belief that an unfettered right to carry and use guns -- concealed or in the open, at church or at school, individually or in bulk, seated or standing one’s ground -- is the “essence of what being American is all about,” according to NRA Chief Executive Officer Wayne LaPierre.

The NRA cannot "expand" gun rights.  This sort of journalistic trick is all too common and it is time for all honest Americans to call these institutions out and put a stop to this nonsense.

A primer is appropriate here.

A right cannot be bestowed by a government.  All rights exist as a consequence of some inherent property.  The Declaration of Independence traces rights to our Creator (God, if you prefer, Darwin if you do not) and therefore declares the existence of rights.  It does not confer them because they are not the government's to begin with.

Bloomberg doesn't recognize this because Bloomberg (the man) and Bloomberg (the business rag) believes that government owns you and everything that happens around you.  It therefore may dispense privileges as it sees fit, up to and including the privilege to live when you are being assaulted by a murderous thug.

This devolves from the fact that Bloomberg heads one arm of said government.  His position and the position of his rag is that he is King.  Not a duly-elected figurehead to preside over a political subdivision that is charged with seeing that your rights are protected and enforce, but rather one that has dominion over every scrap of land and water within that subdivision and everything that occurs on, above or below it.

This is not civil government, it is tyranny.  It is in fact the very definition of tyranny.

And yet we have many in this nation who cheer it.

Rights -- as recognized by the Declaration and Constitution -- are yours to use as you see fit so long as you do not impinge on someone else's rights.  That is, you have a right to life.  From this right flows the Second Amendment -- the absolute authority in civil order to prevent your life from being taken by another through the use of the only technology available that equalizes all persons in personal combat: The Gun.

The Gun makes the 4'11" 90lb woman the equal of the 220lb 6' male who wishes to mug her.  It makes the 80 yr old feeble old man who used to be a 220lb 6' male able to stop his younger counterpart that likewise wishes to rob or brutalize him.  It makes even the odds between an 18 year old gay man and 6 homophobic teens who wish to pound his head in because he appears effeminate.   It equalizes the odds between a Korean shop-keeper and an angry mob that intends to burn his store because they're*****ed off at the verdict in a trial.  In short The Gun makes all men and women equal when it comes to the odds of outcome should one individual or group of individuals wish to assault another.  The Gun is therefore the primary and in fact only security mechanism for the first and supreme of all rights over others -- the Right To Life.

Guns are in fact used over a million times a year to stop violent felonies and in virtually every case no shot is fired.  Read that again folks: One million violent crimes are prevented or aborted even with the highly-restrictive firearms laws we have now.

Yes, there were 14,748 homicides and manslaughters in 2010 (latest data available) in the United States and the majority (70-some percent) involved a firearm.  But homicide didn't even make the 15 top leading causes of death in 2010.  You're far more likely to die of heart disease, cancer, chronic respiratory disease (read: emphysema), stroke, accident, alzheimers, diabetes, the flu, suicide, chronic liver disease (that is, drinking yourself to death), hypertension (high blood pressure), parkinsons or pneumonia than to be murdered.

And as "the gun lobby" has won, crimes have declined even though population continues to increase.  This shouldn't surprise anyone; the risk of being caught by the police is real, but the risk of being shot by your intended victim is real, personal and if it happens immediate.  There is no judge, no jury and no appeal nor do you get to claim a notch on your stick for having "gone to the big house" for a while.

When one considers that the FBI says there were 1.3 million violent crimes in total in 2010, The Gun, and its personal ownership, has literally reduced the incidence of said violent crime by half, and in nearly all cases the weapon is not fired.

There are also very ugly internal numbers in the data that nobody wants to talk about, but we damn well need to.  For instance (all according to the FBI):

• 77% of the murder victims were male
• 48.6% (nearly half) were black -- although only about 13% of the population is black
• Of the total number of victims of homicide 64% were from 13-39 in age.
• Of the total number of offenders, 46%, or almost half, were from 17 - 34 years of age.  By the time a man reaches the age of 45 he is only 20% as likely to commit a murder as he was at 20.
• From ages 13-16 blacks commit 42% more murders than whites, from 17-19 they commit 69% more murders, from 20-24 they commit 33% more murders and from 25-29 they commit 23% more murders.  It is not until 30-34 that whites, who are a far larger segment of the population, "catch up."

For this reason if anything black people should be demanding that they all be able to carry openly or concealed as they choose at all times, which is every person's right as guaranteed (but not granted) by The Constitution -- period -- as they are more-likely to be victimized by another black person than anything else and they are dramatically more-likely to be victimized on a per-capita basis than white people are -- by members of their own race!

Now let's face a few more facts that nobody wants to talk about.

The original gun laws were passed to keep freed slaves from owning arms.  Gee, I wonder why that was important to people just like Bloomberg?

The formula these people use is quite simple and has been repeated through out history in the 20th Century (and is now being repeated in the 21st):

• Stir up hatred (Trayvon Martin anyone?)
• Add Government (convert rights into "privileges", then withdraw them)
• Disarm the citizens through this campaign

Then kill them all.

Really.

Tired of this crap?

I sure am.  And so are the 170 million people killed during the 20th Century alone by this mechanism.

Do you think you should do something about it before you're next?

Continue your reading right here and "embrace your inner Jew."

No, you don't have to be Jewish, although if you're Christian you most-certainly came from there.