Right Reason on Second Amendment Rights
Springfield, Illinois
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Sangamon
County Rifle Association Right Reason on Second Amendment Rights Springfield, Illinois |
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 Who's closed-minded and intellectually "challenged"? Jim Butler
President, SCRA November 2005 GunNews How many times have you heard news columnists, cartoonists, and the media in general expressing contempt and derision for the character of gun owners? Approximately 50 percent of Americans who own a firearm are dismissed as uneducated, intellectually and socially inferior, and often as bigots as well. Gun owners are systematically reviled as "gun nuts", "rednecks," vigilantes, wife beaters and insensitive brutes. In a study sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, Gary Kleck, Ph.D., a professor of criminology at Florida State University in Tallahassee contradicts this false impression of the typical firearm owner: .Middle and upper income people are significantly more likely to own firearms than lower income people. .Gun owners are not, as a group, psychologically abnormal, nor ... more racist, sexist, or violence-prone. .Gun ownership is higher among middle-aged people than in other age groups, presumably reflecting higher income levels and the sheer accumulation of property over time. . Married people are more likely to own guns than unmarried persons. .Most private weaponry is possessed for reasons of sport and recreation. .Relative to non-owners, gun owners are disproportionately rural, southern, male, Protestant, affluent and middle class. It is clear to those willing to look that only a tiny fraction of privately owned firearms are ever involved in crime or unlawful violence. As a rule, they are owned and used more or less exclusively for sport and recreational purposes, or for self-protection. Bigoted stereotypes displayed by the major media against gun owners would be denounced if directed against gays, Jews, African-Americans, or virtually any group. Gun owners, however, are fair game. Those who ridicule gun owners with unfounded, bigoted beliefs merely demonstrate their ignorance and prejudice for all to see. Statistics bear out that half of the American population is, a-hem, less intellectually gifted than average. If would seem that those who rely on prejudiced beliefs and emotions rather than facts, science and logic would fall into that not-so-mentally talented subset. As I See it Index Return to SCRA Home Page |