By Laura Schmitt Schwartzberg
Guns prevent an estimated 2.5 million crimes annually, typically without being fired. Eric Adams and I both know this. Upon any ominous thump in the night, my dad instantly appeared armed to protect me. Once a bullet grazed the top of his head leaving his hair with a perfect part! As a daughter of an NYPD detective, I viscerally know the duality of comfort and fear guns evoke. Yet, unlike Eric Adams, who carries his own revolver in addition to private security, I don’t believe the second amendment is meant just for me.
People point to Uvalde as proof that we need to ban guns, but evidently there are different needs. We need short and long term residential mental health facilities and better school security. Most chilling is the sad realization that we cannot always count on the people whose job it is to protect us. Business owners had needs during the 2020 riots. Standing in front of your shop with an AR 15 was often enough to encourage the mob to pass you by.
AR does not stand for assault rifle. It’s for the manufacturer ArmaLite Rifle. Assault weapon is meaningless. Anything can be used for assault. Semiautomatic weapons are not “weapons of war.” Automatics are. A semiautomatic is not a machine gun. It requires you to squeeze the trigger again for each round. A round is a single bullet. AK 15’s shoot only 5 bullets, unless illegally reconfigured. Criminals don’t follow laws. Restricting guns is akin to ending drunk driving by taking cars away from sober drivers. After passing NY’s heralded SAFE Act in 2013, gun crimes rose.
Our war on guns is as ineffective as our war on drugs! Democrat bail reforms and calls to defund the police created the current system of catch and release. In 2021 NYPD arrested 4,456 people on gun charges. Liberal justices dismissed 1200 cases and after 711 plea deals, there was only one actual trial conviction! Is SAFE what we needed?
Now NY lawmakers are congratulating themselves for passing 10 additional gun bills sure to perpetuate the unequal application of the law. The poster boy for background checks, Hunter Biden, committed a felony gun violation by lying about his drug use on his gun application. Hallie, his ex, added a second felony by discarding the gun in a dumpster across from a high school. Rather than holding him accountable, the FBI covered for him!
Embedded in the new bills are attacks on our first amendment and due process. It holds social media networks liable for “hateful” language and creates a new Task Force with unabated powers to investigate and punish. With the DOJ classifying misuse of pronouns as hate, questioning mandates or election fraud as national security threats, and PTA membership as domestic terrorism, what can go wrong? In Schumer’s words, “You take on the intelligence community; they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”
“The people will not understand the importance of the Second Amendment until it is too late”– Thomas Jefferson.
Tyranny is always preceded by a confiscation of guns. Even in democracies, tyrannical regimes emerge from the cancerous growth of power of unelected alphabet bureaucracy, and elections, stolen or legitimate. WE THE PEOPLE bestow powers to the government, not vice versa. The people’s power makes us exceptional. From individual sovereignty and self-determination flow an exchange of diverse ideas expanding creativity, ingenuity, and entrepreneurship. We are exceptional because, and as long, as we are free! Nowhere in the world do people have as much to defend. Each erosion of the Second Amendment upsets that balance, making us less free and our Republic more fragile. The Second Amendment is our fail safe, vitally protecting all rights.
