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Tue 10 Jan, 2012 06:46 pm
Updated: Monday, 09 Jan 2012, 7:42 PM EST
Published : Monday, 09 Jan 2012, 7:42 PM EST
HAMPTON ROADS, Va. (WAVY) - In the past few weeks, several victims in Hampton Roads
have shot their attackers in an effort to protect themselves.
Just last week, a clerk at a Virginia Beach 7-Eleven shot a teenage boy who was allegedly
trying to rob the store.
Blake Richardson later showed up at an area hospital later with a gunshot wound.
A new report says gun sales are surging in the state, but gun control
advocates say the numbers could be misleading.
The statistics used to gage the number of gun-sales in Virginia last year
are based on the number of mandatory background checks.
State police reported 321,166 gun transactions in 2011, processing
almost 42,000 in the month of Dec. alone.
Gun-control advocates say the transactions don't necessarily represent sales.
Josh Horowitz, Executive Director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence,
said, "...it's background checks. It really tells you very little about sales...for
instance, if you're in a situation where you put your money down to
buy a gun and the background check comes back negative, you can't
purchase that gun."
Horowitz says some of the so-called "gun transactions" have nothing to
do with purchasing a new firearm.
"...there's lots of license checks. So, when people either get a concealed
carry license or when the state checks them on a regular basis that
number comes out and that's about five, over five million," Horowitz explained.
Nationally, a record 16.4 million firearms background checks were processed last year.
Almost two million in Dec. alone, but, when you combine that statistic
with the fact that there have been three incidents in the last 11 days
of private citizens in Hampton Roads shooting alleged robbers you have
to wonder if there isn't a trend.
Virginia Beach Commonwealth's Attorney Harvey Bryant said, "I think a
lot of people have armed themselves to protect themselves. Ah, the law
has also provided protections for people in their homes."
A little more than a week ago, a man in Virginia Beach shot an intruder
in his home and no charges were filed.
"If a person comes in with a deadly weapon in an aggressive manner,
most people are gonna feel like they're in fear of serious bodily harm
and the law entitles them to protect themselves with deadly force,"
Harvey explained but, Harvey hopes buying a gun for protection isn't
a new local trend. He says these things usually come in cycles, but he
does not expect to see a wave of citizens suddenly gunning down criminals.
I have posted a lot of stories that included reference
to governments issuing licenses for carrying concealed defensive guns.
That is NOT to imply that I approve of any discrimination as to
any person's natural right and his or her Constitutional right to defensively bear arms.
Every person of every age has an equal right with all other citizens
to survive the predatory violence of man or of animals
and government has never been granted jurisdiction to discriminate
as to which citizens can freely defend their lives and which must be docile
in allowing themselves to be slaughtered, in the discretion
of violent predators, human or not.
Indeed, such power of discrimination was put beyond the reach of government
by the Instrument of its creation: the US Constitution.
It is the Supreme Law of the Land.
I support the Constitution's requirement of "equal protection of the laws."
David
As I have advocated in the past,
people who have proven (by their histories of convictions of recidivistic criminal violence)
to be intolerable threats to public safety, ought to be ISOLATED,
preferably by removal from the North American Continent,
and there shoud be concurrent jurisdiction for such removal
in both the federal and state governments.
David
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