Gun Ownership As A Cost Of Health Care Reform

The National Institute Of Health (NIH) recently began studying the relationship between gun ownership and health issues.

At one time, this sort of research was done by the Centers For Disease Control (CDC) until Congress cut funding for the program, after it was found that the flawed research done by the CDC was shown to be biased against gun ownership.

Since it has been ten years since the CDC lost it’s funding for this program, why is there suddenly renewed interest in this type of research?

Some of us, (myself included) see this as yet another backdoor ploy by the “gun grabbers” in Congress and the Obama administration for yet another attack on the Second Amendment.

They will tout the implementation of stricter gun control laws as a means of reducing health care costs, due to the reduction in violent crime that would be the result of additional restrictions on firearms ownership.

They will attempt to make their case by presenting statistics showing that gun violence causes health care resources to be spent in ways that could be better utilized in other areas.

Of course, many of the American public will fall for this gibberish, not realizing that it is simply another ploy by the Obama administration to drum up support for an increasingly unpopular health care reform bill, while having the added bonus of being an assault on Second Amendment rights as well.

However, anyone who, rather than simply believe what they are told, would take the time to study the relationship between gun ownership and it’s resulting effect on health care costs would find quite a different answer than what they would assume to be the case.
Anyone holding the opinion that less gun ownership would result in less violent crime and therefore less of a strain on health care resources would learn that just the opposite is the case.

There is a direct correlation between an increase in firearms ownership and a decrease in violent crime.

Several countries that have enacted some of the strictest gun control laws in the world have seen their rates of violent crime increase.

Great Britain, after enacting laws banning the private ownership of handguns, saw their rates of violent crimes more than double.

Australia, after banning the private ownership of nearly all types of firearms, has seen their rates of violent crimes increasing by an average of nearly thirty percent per year.

Turning closer to home, the story is much the same here in the United States.

A study done by the Institute For Legislative Action, a division of the National Rifle Association shows that a 2008 study, using statistics from research done by the BATFE, the FBI and other agencies shows that increases in gun ownership lead to reductions in violent crime.

For those of you who feel that a report from the NRA is bound to be biased towards gun ownership, take a look at this synopsis of a study done by Harvard University explaing how, when it comes to restrictions on firearms ownership leading to less violent crime, and therfore reduced health care costs, the Harvard study comes to the conclusion that Gun Control Is Counterproductive.

Along with a link to the original Harvard University study, this report also mentions the overturning of the ban on firearms ownership in our nation’s capitol, Washington D.C., an area that, in spite of some of the strictest gun control laws in America, also had one of the highest rates of violent crime.

Yet everyone promoting health care reform will claim the fewer firearms will result in less violent crime, and thus treatment funds will be saved.

When all of the evidence is to the contrary.

Oh well, when has lying ever bothered anyone in the Obama administration?

To them, it comes as naturally as breathing.

  

Real Experts Speak Out Regarding Gun Control

For years, we have been subjected to numerous opinions on the issue of gun control.

On one side of the issue are those who believe that the “Right To Keep And Bear Arms” is an inherent American right granted to them by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

On the other side are those who feel that the Second Amendment only applies to an organized militia.

Which side is correct?

In the hope of bring some clarity to the issue of gun control, we decided to find out the feelings of some real experts:
(And pay particular attention to the thoughs of the final person we quote.)

“The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”  
Samuel Adams
                                                           

“The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.”
Alexander Hamilton

“Arms in the hands of private citizens may be used at individual discrestuion in private self-defense.”
 John Adams

“False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm those only who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.”
Cesare Beccaria

“Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. If we want the Arms Act to be repealed, if we want to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity. If the middle classes render voluntary help to Government in the hour of its trial, distrust will disappear, and the ban on possessing arms will be withdrawn.”
Mohandas Gandhi

“If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.”
 The Dalai Lama

“That rifle on the wall of the labourer’s cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.”
George Orwell

“There’s no question that weapons in the hands of the public have prevented acts of terror or stopped them.”
Israeli Police Inspector General Shlomo Aharonisky

“The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.”
Thomas Jefferson

Our final quote for today comes from the last person you might expect.
His brother spent decades as a legislator fighting for ever-harsher restrictions on the Second Amendment.

“By calling attention to ‘a well regulated militia,’ ‘the security of the nation,’ and the right of each citizen ‘to keep and bear arms,’ our founding fathers recognized the essentially civilian nature of our economy… The Second Amendment still remains an important declaration of our basic civilian-military relationships in which every citizen must be ready to participate in the defense of his country. For that reason I believe the Second Amendment will always be important.”
John Fitzgerald Kennedy