The Rutherford Institute
By John W. Whitehead
August 12, 2019
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“It is often the case that police shootings, incidents where law enforcement officers pull the trigger on civilians, are left out of the conversation on gun violence. But a police officer shooting a civilian counts as gun violence.
Every time an officer uses a gun against an innocent or an unarmed person contributes to the culture of gun violence in this country.”—Journalist Celisa Calacal
Yes, gun violence is a problem in America, although violent crime generally remains at an all-time low.
Yes, mass shootings are a problem in America, although while they are getting deadlier, they are not getting more frequent.
Yes, mentally ill individuals embarking on mass shooting sprees are a problem in America.
However, tighter gun control laws and so-called “intelligent” background checks fail to protect the public from the most egregious perpetrator of gun violence in America: the U.S. government.
Consider that five years after police shot and killed an unarmed 18-year-old man in Ferguson, Missouri, there has been no relief from the government’s gun violence.
Here’s what we’ve learned about the government’s gun violence since Ferguson, according to The Washington Post: If you’re a black American, you’ve got a greater chance of being shot by police. If you’re an unarmed black man, you’re four times more likely to be killed by police than an unarmed white man. Most people killed by police are young men. Since 2015, police have shot and killed an average of 3 people per day. More than 2,500 police departments have shot and killed at least one person since 2015. And while the vast majority of people shot and killed by police are armed, their weapons ranged from guns to knives to toy guns. READ MORE HERE:
The PPJ Gazette 
Aug 13, 2019 @ 02:06:51
From Business Insider
Switzerland has a stunningly high rate of gun ownership – here’s why it doesn’t have mass shootings
Hilary Brueck Aug. 5, 2019
The Swiss have strict rules for who can get a gun, and take firearm training very seriously.
Having an armed citizenry helped keep the Swiss neutral for more than 200 years.
The Swiss stance is one of ” armed neutrality.”
Switzerland hasn’t taken part in any international armed conflict since 1815, but some Swiss soldiers help with peacekeeping missions around the world.
Many Swiss see gun ownership as part of a patriotic duty to protect their homeland.
Swiss authorities decide on a local level whether to give people gun permits. They also keep a log of everyone who owns a gun in their region, known as a canton, though hunting rifles and some semiautomatic long arms are exempt from the permit requirement.
But cantonal police don’t take their duty dolling out gun licenses lightly. They might consult a psychiatrist or talk with authorities in other cantons where a prospective gun buyer has lived before to vet the person.
Swiss laws are designed to prevent anyone who’s violent or incompetent from owning a gun.
Switzerland is also one of the richest, healthiest, and, by some measures, happiest countries in the world.
https://www.businessinsider.com/switzerland-gun-laws-rates-of-gun-deaths-2018-2#switzerland-is-obsessed-with-getting-shooting-right-every-year-it-holds-a-shooting-contest-for-kids-aged-13-to-17-1
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Aug 13, 2019 @ 01:51:00
The 2nd Amendment Really Is an Essential Safeguard against Crime and Tyranny
For millions of Americans, the Second Amendment and its guarantee of the right of the individual to bear arms appears irrelevant and practically anachronistic. It seems a throwback to those earlier days of the Wild West, when many men, far from the law and order provided by the town sheriff and circuit judge, had to protect their families and land from cattle rustlers and outlaw bands. Such people are wrong.
If in our contemporary world, where the law fails to do its job of seeing that the guilty pay for their crimes, we take solace in the fantasy of extralegal solutions. We imagine that somewhere there is a Clint Eastwood on a metropolitan police force who uses some “magnum force” to see to it that the perpetrator of a crime doesn’t go unpunished. Or we want to think that there is a Charles Bronson occasionally roaming the streets of a large city at night fulfilling the “death wish” of the street criminal whom local law enforcement is not able to punish.
Revolts Against Tyranny
The likelihood that government will feel secure in undertaking infringements on the freedoms of Americans would be diminished if it knew that any systematic invasion of people’s life, liberty, and property might meet armed resistance by both the victim and those in the surrounding areas who came to his aid because of the concern that their own liberty might be the next to be violated.
America was born in revolt against the ideas of the “old world”: the politics of monarchy, the economics of mercantilism, and the culture of hereditary class and caste.
We need not and indeed should not fall victim to one more of the European ailments: the disarming of the people under the dangerous notion that the private citizenry cannot be trusted and should not be allowed to have the means of self-defense against potential private and political aggressors in society.
https://fee.org/articles/the-2nd-amendment-really-is-an-essential-safeguard-against-crime-and-tyranny/
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Aug 13, 2019 @ 01:29:35
Bill of Rights of the United States of America
Amendment II
A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
https://billofrightsinstitute.org/founding-documents/bill-of-rights/
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