I am an ardent supporter of the Second Amendment, including the right to personally bear arms. As a gun owner, I defend the right to personally keep and bear arms. I support the right of all law-abiding citizens to use Constitutional carry to protect themselves and their loved ones. I also support the “stand your ground” self-defense. The personal right to keep and bear arms (PDF ) is fundamental to who we are in this country. The riots in Minneapolis demonstrate the need for citizens to have weapons to defend themselves and their property. Now they are saying you need to prepare to be robbed and raped!

Every elected official has taken an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies–foreign and domestic. Having taken that oath, they have the obligation to support and defend the Second Amendment–not eliminate it or diminish it. The solution to gun violence is to have an efficient death penalty and an armed citizenry—not gun control.

For example, a study identified the rate of homicides and suicides from firearms during the ten years preceding a background check law and the ten years following. The comprehensive background check for firearm purchasers has had practically zero effect on California gun violence. See Alvaro Castillo-Carniglia, et al.,California’s Comprehensive Background Check and Misdemeanor Violence Prohibition Policies and Firearm Mortality, 30 Annals of Epidemiology 50 (2019). The authors of the study confirmed that the findings are consistent with experiences in Indiana and Tennessee where ending background checks in 1998 did not change the rates of firearm homicide or suicide.

Judges, federal and state, are responsible for making it practically impossible to defend yourself. They have created doctrines that punish the victim if a firearm is used in the slightest way against their criminal-friendly rules. This is another reason why judges’ role in society must be completely revamped to limit them to administrative functions only and the jury reestablished to make all decisions on the application of the law. Federal judges, trial lawyers and bureacrats, though not elected, have far more influence on the direction of government than elected officials or even bodies of elected officials. That has to end if the nation is to survive.