In difficult times, we fall back on basic principles. The basics begin with safety for ourselves and our loved ones. This is why gun sales are surging. Gun dealers, in fact, are seeing particularly high demand near the very major American cities that push the harshest gun-control policies on their residents.
To point out a cogent example, the Chicago Tribune ran an article on June 25 titled “‘Guns are flying off the shelf.’ Permit applications up more than 500%....”
Like New York City, officials in Chicago have long done all they can to outlaw the Second Amendment rights of their citizens. This legislative attack on the normal (legal) gun culture has created a disarmed class of people (average, law-abiding residents) and a lawless class (criminals, many in gangs). The result of this social experiment is tabulated with body counts.
As city officials in places like Chicago and New York City continue to blame freedom for the acts of criminals, people outside their reach are embracing their freedom in record numbers.
“[M]ore than 40,000 Illinoisans applied for a gun permit in a little more than two weeks this month, more than 500% over this time last year, according to Illinois State Police,” reported the Chicago Tribune.
The Tribune found that gun sales are surging, for example, at Mark Glavin’s gun shop in Elgin, which is located about 35 miles northwest of Chicago, “from an average of 10 [guns sold] a day last year to as many as 200 a day this year.”
From June 1 to June 17, the Illinois State Police received more than 42,000 applications for “Firearms Owner Identification” (FOID) cards. This is just over a 500% increase from the same time last year.
Even the Tribune noted that many of these new gun owners are not who the mainstream media thinks typically buys guns. Alexandra Filindra, an associate professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, told the Tribune that “there’s plenty of research and anecdotal evidence to suggest many of those white, first-time gun buyers may consider themselves politically progressive.”
One new gun owner interviewed by the Tribune, who didn’t want his name in print, categorized himself as “a very liberal Democrat” who for decades has been “for most forms of gun control politically.” However, like many, this person is now waiting for the state to approve his first gun permit.
“My views have recently changed, and I have accepted that the Second Amendment provides for the personal ownership and use of a firearm,” this person told the Tribune.
This article, which is worth quoting at length because it is not the kind of thing most big, urban newspapers would have published just a few months ago, even quoted David Lombardo, owner of Safer USA and a concealed-carry instructor, as saying, “I have seen the emergence of a new class of students seeking training: anti-Second Amendment liberals.”
Clearly, threats to their lives are teaching people of all political persuasions that trusting the state to be on the scene to stop a rapist, robber and/or murderer—however diligent and brave the police might be—is only a workable view for those who get police escorts.
Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, has clearly positioned himself against this fundamental American freedom, and has therefore placed himself in opposition to the peoples’ personal right to safety. As we get closer to the election on November 3, this needs to be made so starkly clear that when these new gun owners go into the privacy of a voting booth, they’ll know, in fact, they’ll feel as they would on a dark night when they are awoken by glass breaking, that Joe Biden doesn’t think they should be trusted with the freedom to protect themselves and their loved ones.
