Christians and Guns

By Jim Searcy

Jer 48:10b - Cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood.

The weapons of our warfare are not carnal; but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.

There are 3 ways for the saints of the last days. Some will take up the sword and die by the sword. Some will go into captivity. Some will evade and by God's protection endure to the end. Which is God's will for you?

"You can't license freedom"
How can a government appoint itself Supreme Dispenser of the very freedoms the writers of the Constitution said were God-given? It can't.
Are British people safer? Are Australian people safer? The facts say NO! The summaries of facts of what gun control did in theses countries are at the end of this study.
Crime rates are soaring in Britain. Crime rates in all countries where guns are outlawed are soaring. It is called war on the saints. More Christians have been martyred since 1997 than in all history. Just ask Jonathan Hansen.
The UN peace keepers go in and disarm the Christians in Africa and then let the Muslims, and Marxists slaughter them. Do not accept the antichrist notion and anti-biblical notion that any society should be disarmed until King Yeshua is back reigning on His throne on Mt. Zion. The people of God have always been armed since God brought them out of the bondage of slavery in Egypt. Harnessed means armed. Jesus told his disciples to sell their coat, if necessary, to be armed.
Usually, when the government passes a law that causes problems for people, the citizens can petition the government to change the law. Gun prohibition, however, does more than just endanger citizens by preventing them from protecting their lives and loved ones. All of God's creatures are expected to DEFEND themselves. Never reacting. NEVER VENGEANCE which is the exclusive domain of God.
Gun prohibition damages the whole society by creating a huge opportunity for organized crime to prosper. Even if the prohibition law is later repealed, the organized crime elements might be entrenched with enough money and power to get into other legal or illegal businesses. Political corruption, started during the prohibition, likewise will not just disappear when the laws are changed again.

"This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!" ---Adolph Hitler, 1933

That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well. For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously:

But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled; Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.

And it was given unto antichrist to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. If any man have an ear, let him hear. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.

Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.

Therefore, if someone comes to my door saying that they are going to round up all those who oppose the new world order, or Lucifer, I will resist. I will not only give them the best fight that I can; but, I will be calling upon the Lord to bring out the big guns. One of my favorites is "Lord God, in the Name of Yeshua, send the hornets." Another that I like to use is "If I be a man of God, let fire fall down from heaven," which has been proven to incinerate, instantly, on the spot, over 50 top gun special forces troopers at a time. Even though the fire from heaven is dramatic, and often leaves some nice conventional weapons behind, I still really prefer the hornets. Anyone who has ever been in one of those clouds of hornets would rather face a firing squad than ever have that experience again. In the first week this was published there were reports of 7 people being killed by swarms of African honeybees in areas of the world where Christians are being tortured and killed by Muslim government forces. Calling upon the Lord to send the hornets is a wonderful form of deliverance of an Almighty Creator.

If, however, they say that they are rounding up those who believe in Jesus Christ for execution, then I would go without resistance. Why? For a better resurrection.

We have the witness of many others who were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented;

If we are called to give our life as a martyr for Messiah, that is the highest call, and there is the assurance of a better resurrection. In that case, we must be constant, and persevere. The example of Christ is clear. We see this example also in all the sufferings believers endured throughout history in the great company of martyrs before us with Messiah as the supreme example. Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Always consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Such decisions can and should be made in advance, having the example of Messiah, and the apostles, and martyrs of all history to guide us. Only the apostate Laodicean church closes their ears, minds, and hearts to the glory of the call to be found worthy to suffer for His Name's sake.

We have not yet resisted unto blood, but it is coming soon. In these last days we should despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.

The one book the Pilgrims and the Puritans quoted more than any other, as they discussed civil matters was the book of Deuteronomy. That is where the Law of God is laid out and how it is to apply to govern the civil affairs of men.

One of the precepts of the Bible, that you find in Proverbs 25:26, states that, when the righteous gives way to the wicked, it is like a murky spring and a polluted well. In other words, it is disgusting , it's abominable, it's something that's not supposed to happen. And yet, what is the idea of our time? That we are just supposed to hand the money over to the bad guy. Let him have our wife. Just don't resist evil.

A civilized society, especially a Christian community, cannot allow itself to be reduced to being a doormat for the evil to walk over. If that happens, there's no society left, there's no civilization left, there's anarchy. And the civil government is not the alternative to that anarchy. Now, if you look in the case laws, following the Ten Commandments, in Exodus 21, 22, 23, you find in Exodus 22:2-3 a specific example of what is in mind for the legitimate use of lethal force. And in those two verses, we find out when you can take a thief's life, and when you can't - is essentially when your life is in danger. Then anything you do to defend yourself, even if it means taking the life of the aggressor, is acceptable, and there's no blood on your hands, there's no guilt. But if two weeks later, you happen to see him out on the street, and you start shooting at him and chasing him around, you've become also a law-breaker, even as he is a lawbreaker. That's the distinction. Because at that point, out on the street, two weeks later, it's up to us to turn it over to the civil magistrate. That's where he comes in, not to protect us.

The role of the civil magistrate is to take vengeance out of personal hands and put it into the hands of the state. The New Testament, Romans 13, deals with how the civil magistrate is supposed to be a terror to evil works and a comfort to those who do good, follows right on the heels of the last part of the preceding chapter that says, "Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. I will repay."

And then He has obviously established a civil government to do that repaying. Isn't it interesting that of all the things that our civil magistrates do in our day, it is hard to find anything resembling being a terror to those who do evil deeds. In fact, they encourage those who do evil deeds. Whether it's the taking of people's properties through the illegitimate and unconstitutional actions of the federal government or the condoning of promiscuity and homosexuality and abortion through various means of dissemination of either information and items to young people and others.

The government is actively engaged in many, many areas of our lives and none of those have any Biblical or constitutional warrant.

Let me just address one last idea in this area of the Biblical basis for the use of lethal force. There are even Christians who have come to the conclusion that there are some things in the New Testament, although you sure don't find them in the Old Testament, that indicate that Christ was preaching a form of pacifism a form of pietism that says, well, I'm holier than you because I really trust in the Lord for my protection. So I don't believe in carrying a gun. I don't believe in fighting back because, after all, didn't Jesus say, "turn the other cheek, when someone strikes you on one cheek"? And indeed, He did. What He was talking about was not taking offense. That we should always act rightly, taking right action and not ever reacting. We take right action. We do not react.

But now, like so many other things, let's go back and take a look at the context in which He said that. It's in the Sermon on the Mount, it's in the 5th chapter of Matthew, and in that sermon, one of the main objectives was to take issues with the religious leaders of the day. They had been twisting and turning and subverting and perverting the Word of God for their own particular purposes. You have replaced the Commandments of God with the traditions of men, He said elsewhere.

In this sermon His rebuke would often be, "You've heard it said but..." And that is the context in the case of turning the other cheek, it is written, a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. And indeed, that comes right out of Exodus 21. The section that many Pro-Lifers use to rightly interpret the scripture to condemn abortion. And it puts the issue to the civil magistrate.

It was the rule for the civil magistrate in determining whether that fight between the two men that resulted in the premature birth of the child; if the child was born alive, but damaged, then eye for an eye, but if dead, life for life.

The punishment is to fit the crime. What a novel idea. When was the last time, really, in any significant way we've ever seen the punishment fit the crime? Somebody steals something, and we put him in jail, so that the victim gets to pay for that, too.

When is there ever restitution back to the victim? If restitution is ever made it is made back to the state, as if the state were wronged.

The idea that Christ was getting across with turning the other cheek is a precept for the civil magistrate - make the punishment fit the crime. Instead, the religious leaders had taken this and had applied it as a matter of personal vengeance, so that if somebody slaps you on the face, Get Him!! And that's not the ticket. And that's why the rebuke, among several others that are in that passage. So there's no teaching of pacifism there, no vigilantism, no taking justice into our own hands, because that's not justice.

Similarly, when they went to the garden right before the arrest and conviction of Jesus by the religious leaders and subsequent crucifixion, Peter had a sword. In fact, if you look back in the account of Luke in the 22nd Chapter, Peter presumably was one of two guys who produced a sword when Christ asked if they had arms. Because He had told them to go buy one, if they didn't have one, even selling their cloak in order to do so. This was among His last instructions to His disciples, in the same breath that He was preaching on service; being a servant and He was the example of the servant. Presumably, then, there would have been a rebuke of Peter for having that sword on him, but that would have been totally inconsistent with what had just been said. The rebuke to Peter occurred when Peter cut off Malchus' ear, the temple servant, who came with the arresting band. And the rebuke was in the same vein as it had been earlier. On the earlier occasion, Christ had said, "Get thee behind me, Satan." This time He just said, "Peter, put your sword down, don't you understand," He said in the account of John, that I must drink this cup that my Father has given me.

None of the disciples really understood. They couldn't grasp the idea that God Himself had come into the world in order to die for sinful men who had no way of redeeming themselves. And they wouldn't understand that fully until Pentecost. So there was Peter acting with the arm of his own strength rather than any real discernment or wisdom which he subsequently had. Now, that's not a teaching of pacifism either. That's simply rebuking Peter for having used force which had been endorsed by the Lord three or four hours before, but he had used it inappropriately.

So the scripture, I think is consistent from beginning to end, that there is an appropriate place for the use of lethal force in self defense. And there are limits to it. Self defense is the limit. And when self defense is no longer the issue, then it is not appropriate for individuals to use force. Then we would be taking the law into our own hands. We are not to take the law into our own hands. There are those who say they will take the law into their own hands. That is wrong. We may only act in self defense.

That then was the Biblical basis for what the founders had in mind when they protected a God given right. Actually from what we've just discussed, I'd think you'd actually conclude it is not a right, it's a duty to be able to protect oneself. But, in any case, we use the word, right, for better or for worse.

We will be condemned for failure to join in the Lord's battle against the oppressive forces. Judg 5:23 Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the LORD, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the LORD, to the help of the LORD against the mighty. Jer. 48:10b Cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood. Being CURSED by the LORD is not something to rationalize, or theologize. We are not to resist evil however there does come a time when we must put our life on the line in battle. True that those who live by the sword will die by the sword. We do not make a living with the sword; however, there is no admonition against self DEFENSE. You don't live by the sword, but we have a duty to preserve life and self DEFENSE is always in order.

Exo 13:18 But God led the people about, through the way of the wilderness of the Red sea: and the children of Israel went up harnessed, (ARMED), out of the land of Egypt.

Exo 15:16 Fear and dread shall fall upon them; by the greatness of thine arm they shall be as still as a stone; till thy people pass over, O LORD, till the people pass over, which thou hast purchased.

AUSTRALIA: The Results Are In

The following is a synopsis of an interview conducted by Ginny Simone with Keith Tidswell of Australia's Sporting Shooters Association. It is interesting to see the correlation regarding the principles of G-d's word being verified by hard facts.

One year after gun-owners were forced to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed, including semi-automatic .22 rifles and shotguns, a program costing the government over 500 million dollars, the results are in...

A dramatic increase in criminal activity has been experienced. Gun control advocates respond "Just wait... we'll be safer... you'll see...".

OBSERVABLE FACT, AFTER 12 MONTHS OF DATA:

* Australia-wide, homicides are up 3.2%

* Australia-wide, assaults are up 8.6%

* Australia-wide, armed-robberies are up 44% (yes, FORTY-FOUR PERCENT)

* In the state of Victoria, homicides-with-firearms are up 300%

* Figures over the previous 25 years show a steady decrease in homicides-with-firearms (changed dramatically in the past 12 months)

* Figures over the previous 25 years show a steady decrease in armed-robbery-with-firearms (changed dramatically in the past 12 months)

* There has been a dramatic increase in break-ins, and assaults of the elderly

* At the time of the ban, the Prime Minister said "self-defense is not a reason for owning a firearm"

* From 1910 to present, homicides in Australia had averaged about 1.8-per-100,000 or lower, a safe society by any standard.

* The membership of the Australian Sports Shooting Association has risen to 112,000, a 200% increase, in response to the ban and as an attempt to organize against further controls, which are expected.

* Australian politicians are on the spot and at a loss to explain how no improvement in "safety" has been observed after such monumental effort and expense was successfully expended in "ridding society of guns". Their response has been to "wait longer".

Our Last Last Chance by Ed Parker - Posted:09.08.00

This is not America's darkest hour, but most of us won't live through America's darkest hour. This is not the fall of our Republic, I suspect it fell before the last of the Founding Fathers. This is not the epilogue to Tocqueville, it is the denouement of decadence.

What we're looking at here, is our last last chance slipping away.

The New World Order is here, and it's all over but the shooting. This unholy coven meeting in New York has declared it so, and the warlock from the White House has advised us not to resist it. We could have resisted it, peaceably, and lawfully. Sure we could have; a hundred years ago. We might have resisted it somewhat less peaceably, but still lawfully, fifty years ago, if our war and depression weary parents had seen the prosperity of the 1950s, not as a reaffirmation of the righteousness of the American Way, but as a diversion from the sorcery being practiced in New York. We should have resisted it in the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s, but by then we had forgotten the meaning of the word freedom, substituted its concepts with those of non-conformance, and sadly, pursued false happiness with a vengeance, abandoning all moral logic.

Our last last chance was this week, but each and every one of us knew we had no chance at all. Christians and American patriots, shell-shocked by the last decade of attacks on freedom, cowered by the superior firepower of a hostile government, and isolated and ostracized in every classroom, company and corporation across the land, have been reduced to a few disgruntled divisions of guerilla soon-to-bees.

There is no shame in it. Despite the denigrations of some of our front-line eyewitnesses to the evil sabbat in Rockefeller Temple, a Christian/patriot uprising there this week would have been ignored at best, and destroyed at worst. There was nothing to do there that could have been done, and few possessed the resources to get there, even if they had the will. Instead we watched as demon after demon was summoned forth, to declare victory for the beast system soon to present us with ol' 666 himself.

America is gone. Babylon is here. It's time to change strategies before the enemy can deploy. Forget protest, redress of grievances, writing your congressman, peaceable assembly. Forget educating your couch-potato neighbors, writing editorials for your

local papers, flying your flag upside-down. Forget your call-in shows, C-Span, petitions, videotapes, and conferences. Forget your Constitution.

Remember your Bill Of Rights. These rights didn't come from the Constitution, they came from the Creator. And remember to pray.

The uncouth horde has declared war on us, and it's time to fight fire with fire. We won't turn back Babylon, but we might slow it down a bit. As the foul forces of evil prepare to come after us, for our guns, our property, our children and our churches, we need to dig in and prepare for the siege. We need to fortify our "compounds" and identify their chokepoints. When they come to our towns we need to be prepared to repel them, harass them, and hurt them. When they fly over our streets, we need to be prepared to deliver enough flak to keep them off the ground- unless and until they hit it in burning heaps. When they bomb us, we need to be prepared to go underground, when they gas us, we need to be prepared to fight through it, and treat the injured. When they chase us, we need hiding places, and when they set up their command centers, we need to be able to hit them, hard, before they control the area of operations.

We can expect them to come by land, sea, and air, but we can also expect to outnumber them. We have seen that they are not heroes and they are certainly not martyr material. Not one of them has ever been called a martyr by their own, have you ever noticed that?

You've never heard of one of them giving their lives for the sake of the New World Order. I doubt that any of these evil elitists can even relate to the notion of a cause worth dying for. Even their mercenaries are motivated by money and career interests, not Christian ideals, and not by a Bill Of Rights. Knowing this, and knowing that we built our nation on a blood-soaked foundation of sacrifice to a higher cause, we can be prepared to take our own place on the battle line. We will have our martyrs, oh yes. Most of us will die a martyr's death. Yet hopefully, we will necessitate the purchase of multitudes of blue UN coffin flags, and evoke the tears of many of the mothers who gave birth to these mercenaries.

This will be a war of attrition, a guerilla war that will make Viet Nam look like choir practice, if we do it right. Yet step one, the first order of business, is to dispense with some fantasies that hurt, more than help our cause.

FANTASY NO. 1 We must take America back.

Dispensation: We won't. It's gone already. We won't restore Constitutional government and we won't rebuild a good system on the ash heaps of a bad one. The system was flawed inherently, and easily undermined by the conniving of godless men. The flaws and underminings were ignored by generations of more godless or apathetic citizens who now can't fathom this Bad New World.

FANTASY NO. 2 We can work within the system.

Dispensation: There is no system. There is an apparatus. The apparatus is designed to destroy us while we are scorned and ridiculed by politicians, police and the press alike.

FANTASY NO. 3 We can win.

Dispensation: We probably won't win. Eventually, Jesus Christ will put down this little global rebellion against His lordship, and he won't need any help from us, but WE probably won't win. The best we can hope for is to SURVIVE, to live free and die free, and to stand fast for His kingdom. We can fight like Americans and we can die like Americans, but our Republic is now an Empire, and like Rome, doomed to die an Empire's death, unless Divine Grace has other plans.

FANTASY NO. 4 The rapture will occur to get us out of here before it gets that bad.

Dispensation: No it won't. The "rapture" will occur only when Christ Himself is visible in the heavens, and we have already heard His great shout. That will happen at the end of the tribulation period, at the same time as the resurrection of the dead in Christ. The man of perdition will have already been revealed and the mass executions, by beheading, of the saints who refuse to take his mark will have already occurred. Read your Bible:

1Thes 4:16-17

16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. (KJV)

FANTASY NO. 5 It is wrong to kill the enemy, and if these are the times of the approaching Apocalypse, then it is wrong to resist the evil the Bible says will reign for a time anyway.

Dispensation: Murder is wrong. Self defense is not. Nor is defense of one's family, friends, property, town, city, state or nation. If such defense requires aggressive action against an approaching foe, it is still defense. You don't wait until the snake bites you before you shoot it, you don't let a scorpion sting you before you squish it. You are within your legal rights to shoot a knife-wielding attacker when he is yet twenty feet from you because it is recognized that he presents a lethal danger to your person. He is one and a half seconds from slicing you open at that distance. It's only murder if you go out to make murder. It's not murder if an enemy comes to you demanding your submission with the threat of death, injury or deprivation for refusal.

These fantasies relegated to their proper place in the outhouse, we can begin to figure out how we shall resist, and how we shall survive, and we can write our last wills and testaments for anyone who cares enough to read them after we are gone.

Sometime soon, something will happen, and shortly thereafter the troops will move in. In your towns, you must be ready for them. Hit those command posts, hit those checkpoints, harass that airpower. I am no late night comedy show host when I say: SNIPERS WANTED. The New World Order is here and we have to fight it. It is the price of our own decadence, sloth, and apathy. Victory may not be for us, but we can buy time until He gets back here, and stand firm for Him. Because Christ, unlike our Constitutional Republic, was and is incorruptible, and His word is as infallible today as it was on Mount Sinai. Christ said judgment will come upon an end times Babylon, which by all accounts and purposes must be the United States of America, or within our borders. More than likely judgment will take the form of an internal revolution, followed by an awful attack from beyond our borders, enough to destroy this Babylon "in one hour" (Rev 18:10, 17, 19). This time frame is so specific as to be reiterated three times in that chapter. Whether it refers to the destruction of several cities, or our entire landscape, from sea to shining sea, that will be America's darkest hour. Until that happens, until my last breath and yours, we have only one alternative to slavery, execution, and eternal shame: that is, to fight. Our last last chance to turn back imminent bloodshed went by unnoticed at the Millennium Summit this week. Now it's just a matter of where and when it starts.

God Bless-EP

From: JPFO and British Newspapers 3/25/2K
Common Sense - When guns are outlawed, only the outlaws will sell guns.
About three years ago, the British government all but outlawed private firearms ownership in Britain. Because one vicious killer used a firearm to commit multiple murders in 1996, victim-disarming politicians rushed to ban nearly all private gun ownership and possession nationwide.
The result? According to the January 16, 2000 edition of the Sunday Times of London, "up to 3 million illegal guns are in circulation in Britain, leading to a rise in drive-by shootings and gangland-style executions." How do the guns get into the "gun free" island nation? The Sunday Times reported: "Criminals have maintained a steady flow of smuggled guns from eastern Europe."
As predicted, when ownership of all guns becomes illegal, the buyers will shift toward the higher power weapons. "There is a move from the pistol and the shotgun to automatic weapons," British Detective Superintendent Keith Hudson told the Sunday Times. British criminals have all the guns they want. The Sunday Times thus reported: "Detectives say modern weapons are fast becoming fashion accessories among young drug dealers protecting themselves and their territory."
Are British people safer? Crime rates are soaring in Britain. The British Home Office, according to the Sunday Times, released figures showing that "overall, armed crime rose 10% in 1998" -- the year after national handgun prohibition began.
Usually, when the government passes a law that causes problems for people, the citizens can petition the government to change the law. Gun prohibition, however, does more than just endanger citizens by preventing them from protecting their lives and loved ones.
Gun prohibition damages the whole society by creating a huge opportunity for organized crime to prosper. Even if the prohibition law is later repealed, the organized crime elements might be entrenched with enough money and power to get into other legal or illegal businesses. Political corruption, started during the prohibition, likewise will not just disappear when the laws are changed again.
The British example shows how the ultimate "gun control" will likely work in America. Criminals will get rich selling illegal weapons to other criminals, and ordinary citizens will suffer a violent crime wave. The national "instant check" system and the "Brady Bill" won't even matter.
Americans must not give up their right to personal self-defense. We must not turn over the firearms industry to thieves and thugs. And we must not let Americans be so gullible as to believe the "dial 911" false promise of police protection, when actually we are legally responsible for protecting ourselves. (Get the facts for all 50 states from "Dial 911 and Die" -- available from JPFO and Amazon.com.)
Contact JPFO to join or order materials at www.jpfo.org, or call (800) 869-1884. Without exception, history proves that firearm registration ultimately leads to that inevitable knock on the door and the confiscation of guns. It has already happened (with tragic results) in England and Australia; it's under way in South Africa and Canada; and it's now a pet political refrain here.
But it's just the first step toward abolishing the Second Amendment. Every scheme in the gun-hater's law bag is promoted as an end in itself that might provide some perceived public good. When it doesn't, it always leads to another scheme and then another. This one must stop now. Licensing access to the Bill of Rights will never be acceptable to Americans who care about their freedoms.

FIREARMS FACT-SHEET (1999) by Gun Owners Foundation
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102
Springfield, VA 22151

Self-defense
A. Guns save more lives than they take; prevent more injuries than they inflict
* Law-abiding citizens use guns to defend themselves against criminals as many as 2.5 million times every year -- or about 6,850 times a day.
1 This means that each year, firearms are used more than 60 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives.
2 * Of the 2.5 million self-defense cases, as many as 200,000 are by women defending themselves against sexual abuse.
3 * Citizens shoot and kill at least twice as many criminals as police do every year (1,527 to 606).
4 And readers of Newsweek learned in 1993 that "only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The "error rate" for the police, however, was 11 percent, more than five times as high."
5 * Of the 2.5 million times citizens use their guns to defend themselves every year, the overwhelming majority merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers. Less than 8% of the time, a citizen will kill or wound his/her attacker.
6 * Handguns are the weapon of choice for self-defense. Citizens use handguns to protect themselves over 1.9 million times a year.
7 Many of these self-defense handguns could be labeled as "Saturday Night Specials."

B. Concealed carry laws help reduce crime
* One-half million self-defense uses. Every year, as many as one-half million citizens defend
themselves with a firearm away from home.
8 * Florida. In the ten years following the passage of Florida's concealed carry law in 1987, there were 478,248 people who received permits to carry firearms.
9 FBI reports show that the homicide rate in Florida, which in 1987 was much higher than the national average, fell 39% during that 10-year period. The Florida rate is now far below the national average.
10 * Do firearms carry laws result in chaos? No. Consider the case of Florida.
A citizen in the Sunshine State is almost twice as likely to be attacked by an alligator than to be assaulted by a

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GOA Fact Sheet-- 1999 Firearms Facts http://www.gunowners.org/fs9901.htm.