Guest Commentary
by David Chong
I have had several earnest inquiries in 
the past couple weeks from open-minded people who don’t own guns, asking me why a person like me (whom many perceive as gentle, kind and jovial) is so strongly committed to the right to keep and bear effective, powerful firearms. This article summarizing two scholarly and peer-reviewed studies is an excellent illustration of my reasoning.
In our modern, civilized, first world American society, very few of us have had to literally face the threat of great bodily harm from other people. It is therefore understandable for the majority of people to develop a sense that personal defense isn’t really relevant to them, leaving the only exposure they have to guns being news stories about tragic uses of guns by unlawful people committing evil acts.
This “I’ve never needed one” attitude doesn’t work for fire extinguishers, and it doesn’t work for guns, either. Both are tools; both have been misused and employed in a manner to cause great bodily harm to innocent people. Yet the studies linked above show that every year, guns are used defensively for protection approximately one million times every year in the U.S., with some studies (with weaker methodology) placing it over three million. In the majority of cases, nobody had to be shot; the mere presence of the gun in the hands of the would-be victim(s) was enough to stop the attack.
The need for the tool outweighs the dangers of its potential for misuse. Ten times more Americans die from vehicular accidents than guns every year; automobile use is more widespread, accidents occur in both, drunk driving claims more lives than gun murders, and yet still the need for the tool outweighs its potential for misuse.
I defend the 2nd Amendment because I love people. Laws will never remove evil from the world; Cain used a rock to kill his own brother. All people deserve the means to defend themselves effectively, not just the physically powerful. Should the time come to do so, God forbid, they shouldn’t be forced to do so with the least offensive-looking gun loaded with politically correct magazines.
David Chong owns AO Sword Firearms in El Cajon, and serves as the President of the La Mesa-Spring Valley Board of Education.
Comments 3
Nice brief article! Well stated!
Cosign.
I recommend all read The Origins of the Bill of Rights by Leonard Levy and published by Yale University Press. It explains how we arrived at our Bill of Rights, including the Right to Bear Arms. Here is the review:
“Americans resorted to arms in 1775 not to establish new liberties but to defend old ones, explains constitutional historian Leonard W. Levy in this fascinating history of the origins of the Bill of Rights. Unencumbered by a rigid class system, an arbitrary government, or a single established church squelching dissent, colonial Americans understood freedom in a far more comprehensive and liberal way than the English, Levy shows. He offers here a panoramic view of the liberties secured by the first ten amendments to the Constitution—a penetrating analysis of the background of the Bill of Rights the meanings of each provision of the amendments.
In colonial America, political theory, law, and religion all taught that government was limited. Yet the framing and ratification of the Bill of Rights—in effect a bill of restraints upon the national government—was by no means assured. Levy illuminates the behind-the-scenes maneuverings, public rhetoric, and political motivations that led to each provision. The omission of a bill of rights in the original constitution presented the most serious obstacle to its adoption, despite Federalist claims that a bill of rights was unnecessary. Opponents of the Constitution claimed that inclusion of only some liberties—such as the right to habeas corpus and freedom from ex post facto laws—meant that all other liberties would be lost. But, Levy demonstrates, the people of the United States, aided by a persistent James Madison and by traditions of freedom, had the good sense to support both the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.”