Americans are purchasing firearms and ammunition in record numbers, not because they believe 2009 will offer unusually good duck hunting, but because they fear the fallout from the coming economic storm and the state’s reaction to that fallout.

Michael Gaddy
Buy, Buy, Buy
January 5, 2008
[H/T to Say Uncle for the pointer. There will be more QOTDs from this piece over the next few weeks and months.–Joe]

I know people who don’t understand why anyone would have a gun. They don’t have guns, they didn’t grow up with them, and they assume people who did must be some sort of primitive barbarians.

Tom Palmer
Page 30, Gun Control On Trial by Brian Doherty
[Just like gays in the 80’s Silence = Death. We need to come out of the closet if we want to survive as a free people.–Joe]

A handgun is a gun that police use, that the military use but ordinary people do not use unless they’re out to kill somebody. There’s no reason to have a handgun.

…

The police should be able to, they see this guy standing in the street and they you know, looking at whatever, they should be able to frisk them and if they have a gun, that gun should be removed and they should go to jail.

Susan Martin
December 26, 2008
A conversation on gun control with Susan Martin, Mario Elia, Karen Ellis-Elia and Sean Daly
[Ignorant of the millions of incidents each year in the U.S. where handguns were used to protect innocent life Ms. Martin imagines a police state as being a better place to live. She lives in Canada where they already have censorship and a (never mind it has failed) gun registry. With those already in place she may get her wish sooner than she thinks. I think she should be careful what she wishes for.–Joe]

Update: They let my comment go through (comments were moderated):

I have a great deal of sympathy for those who have suffered such losses but there is Just One Question (https://blog.joehuffman.org/2004/12/14/just-one-question/) that needs to be asked before advocating more restrictions on firearms. That question is: “Can you demonstrate one time or place, throughout all history, where the average person was made safer by restricting access to handheld weapons?”
Until that question can be answered in the affirmative those that advocate for more restrictions on firearms are actually advocating for an unjustified taking of freedom.

Update2: I left another comment (12/30/2008):

I find it very telling that those advocating for more gun control claim it will reduce “gun violence”. This claim is doubtful (the counter example of the U.K. experience is just one reason to doubt it) but furthermore they do not claim it will reduce violent crime. But by carefully choosing their words they lump praiseworthy violence in defense of innocent live in the same category as criminal acts. Those same carefully chosen words also overlook that the total violent crime rate can (and frequently does) increase when people are prevented from using firearms for self defense.

And also telling is the same advocates for gun control repeatedly refuse to answer Just One Question, “Can you demonstrate one time or place, throughout all history, where the average person was made safer by restricting access to handheld weapons?”

Because they cannot answer this one question it shows that safety is not the objective of their advocating for increased restrictions on firearms. They have some other agenda which they are not sharing.