The Georgia Legislature and governor are considering a bill to allow Georgian’s with a Georgia Weapons License to carry their guns on school campuses. This has created an uproar by the anti-gunners.

If you hear someone ranting that it is stupid to allow teenagers to carry guns, especially on school campuses, you can be sure of two things. One, they do not know what they are talking about, or two, they are intentionally misleading you with lies. Or it may be both.

The law is very specific. To “legally” carry a gun on campus you are required to have a Georgia Weapons license. To get one you must be at least 21 years old and go through a fingerprint background check.

Even if you ignore that most people that want to harm others with guns pay no attention to laws and carry a gun wherever they want, it is silly to worry about an adult that has gone through a carful background check.

In addition, I have to laugh about how terrible it is to allow teenagers to carry guns. It seems the US military is fine with 18 and 19-year old’s carrying actual full automatic assault weapons, not the civilian semiautomatic versions of them.

My daddy always said “Never elect an honest man, holding an office will just make him a crook.” I guess that influenced me a lot. I often think that anyone wanting to run for office should be automatically disqualified. Why would anyone want to hold an elected office where every voter expects something in payment for their vote, and no matter what you do you are going to have about half the people mad at you all the time.

I am a one issue voter. I will never vote for anyone wanting to pass laws to restrict my 2nd Amendment rights. I have owned guns since I was six years old and got my first BB gun. My guns have provided me untold hours of fun shooting targets, have provided me food all my life and have given me the comfort of knowing I can take care of myself.

None of my guns have ever harmed another person, and they never will unless used to protect myself or someone else. So how does restricting my rights make a difference? If laws kept illegal things out of criminals’ hands, we would have no cocaine or heroin on our streets.

The election this year is a problem. Donald Trump has never been a gun rights person until recently. He says he has changed. Hillary Clinton has been anti-gun all her life. So do I vote for Trump and hope he does what he says about guns, or vote for Hillary and hope she does not do what she says she wants to do. To do that I would have to ignore everything else.

Recently Hillary said she wanted the same kinds of laws in the US that were passed in Australia. There, after a mass shooting in 1996, the government confiscated all semiautomatic rifles, pump and semiautomatic shotguns and almost all pistols. They said they would pay you if you turned in your banned gun by a certain time but after that they would just take it.

In 1988 25 percent of households in Australia had a gun, by 2005 only six percent had one. That is what Hillary wants for us.

Has it made a difference? The murder rate there dropped from 1.9 per 100,000 in 1993 to 1.3 in 2007, a tiny drop of six tenths of one percent. And it has not been a steady drop, in 2002 they had the highest number of murders there in 26 years. But in Australia, just like here, the murder rate had been dropping for years before they confiscated guns.

Some gun banners argue that confiscating guns will reduce mass shootings, like it did in Australia. But in this study – http://www.cjcj.org/uploads/cjcj/documents/Mass_shootings.pdf – the authors found there were so few mass shootings before gun confiscation that no before-and-after study could be done. They did compare New Zealand and Australia, two similar countries with very different gun laws, and found no difference because of the law. So, because of one mass shooting, a country confiscated over 600,000 guns, a high percentage of all guns in the country, and it has had no effect.

If Hillary got her way, the government would confiscate almost all my guns. Four they would take would be the Winchester Model 1893 pump 12 gauge my father inherited from his father and passed on to me, the Ithaca pump goose gun my father-in-law gave to me, the Browning semiautomatic long barreled 12 gauge my daddy shot doves with all his life and the Remington short barreled semiautomatic 12 gauge he shot quail with before passing them on to me. The government taking those guns away from me would really help with crime.

I will never support anyone wanting to follow Australia’s gun ban and confiscation law.

When I was six years old I had my tonsils taken out. As a present for being such a “big boy” during the surgery I got a BB gun, my first gun of many. I was extremely proud of that gun and it was my constant companion for the next two years, carrying it almost everywhere I went. It was a great way to learn gun safety and prove to my parents I could handle a gun responsibly.

During the next two years I got my second gun, a semiautomatic Remington .22. That rifle had a tubular magazine that held 16 high power Long Rifle bullets. The boxes those bullets came in had the warning “Danger, range one mile” printed on them.

I was not allowed to take that gun out of the house unless an adult was with me. Daddy took me out to shoot it fairly often, and I killed my first squirrel with it when, at eight years old, I saw one in the woods across the road from the house after school one day and got Gladys, our housekeeper, to go out with me since nobody else was at home.

My parents accepted that I had learned gun safety at that point and I was allowed to go out with my gun, only if alone or with an adult, for two more years. At ten years old I was finally allowed to go out with my friends. For years we hunted together during season and carried our rifles every where we went, even when no season was open.

No one gave a second look to three 12 year olds walking into town with our rifles, propping them by the door of Mr. John Harry’s store and going in to buy a coke and pack of crackers for a nickel each and a box of bullets for our rifles. A box of 50 Long Rifle bullets was 62 cents, if I remember right.

The summer I turned 18 I graduated from high school, was accepted at the University of Georgia for that fall, registered for the draft and got a job making roof trusses for a pre fab construction company. One day that summer a few weeks before my 18th birthday I went to buy some .22 bullets at Mr. John Harry’s store and he told me he could not sell them to me since I was not 18 yet.

Although I knew automatic guns and sawed off shot guns were illegal, that was my first run in with so called “common sense gun control laws.” It took five years after President Kennedy was killed with a mail order rifle for congress to “do something” and pass a law that banned mail order sales of guns, as well as sale of rifle ammunition to anyone younger than 18.

That gun control law was supported by the NRA, because it was just the start of the long history of “doing something” that always ended up restricting gun owners rights while doing nothing to have any impact on crime. It sounded somewhat reasonable and didn’t restrict gun owners rights much so it was not opposed. The NRA and I have learned the camel in the tent proverb now and oppose such silly laws since we know if you let a camel get his nose in the tent you will soon be sleeping with a camel.

In the 48 years since that law was passed every time someone uses a gun illegally and makes the news the knee jerk reaction is to “do something” that involves restricting gun owners rights. So now I and many other gun owners oppose all such silly “do something” bills.

Right now the big push is to renew a 1994 law banning some guns because of the way they look. The “assault weapons” ban lasted ten years and was allowed to expire in 2004 because facts showed it had absolutely no effect on gun crime. But now gun banners are trying to bring back such a totally ineffective law.

Rifles of all kinds are hardly ever used in crime. And the way they look had no impact on the way they work. For example, the 1994 law banned the sale of a common gun called an AK 47. So the foreign manufacturers of the AK 47 took the working metal parts of the gun, put them on a different looking wooden stock, and sold it as a MAK 90.

I bought one, mostly out of protest for the stupidity of a law banning guns because of fear. It is fun to shoot, bullets are cheap, and even with a 30 round magazine it has never committed mass murder. I also own an AR 15. It sits quietly in my gun cabinet with its 30 round magazine loaded and attached, and has never jumped out to go shoot somebody. It only comes out to go out to the farm and the only thing it has shot is some paper and a couple of deer.

Another big push is to close a myth, the “gun show loophole.” Since it is a federal felony to sell guns without a FFL unless it is your personal firearm, and any FFL seller must run a background check, there is no loophole.

Expect to hear calls and see childish actions like a sit in shutting down the government because you don’t get your way. Just remember any new law will be as effective in lowering gun crime as the law that stopped me from buying .22 bullets, bullets I had been buying for six or seven years, when I was 17 years old.

I read the cute little Joseph Cotton editorial on guns in the April 27 Griffin Daily News with bemusement. In it he tried to convince gun owners that those wanting to ban guns are really patriots, just with different views. He even goes so far as to say the 2nd Amendment must be preserved and he wants us to compromise with gun banners.

All he and the other “patriots” on his side want to do is ban a bunch of guns because they don’t like them. He sees no reason he and his fellow “reasonable” gun banners can’t use the power of the government to ban all guns they can classify as “assault weapons” because of the way they look. That’s like banning big soft drinks because you think others should not have them.

I might be more willing to listen to folks like him if they would just pay attention to facts. According to a Congressional Research Service report less than two percent of all crimes were committed by rifles, of which only a small subcategory could be classified as “assault weapons” by anyone’s definition. In 1994 there were an estimated 1.5 million “assault weapons” in civilian hands based on liberal Slate magazine. In the past seven years sales of semiautomatic rifles what the gun banners usually call “assault weapons” have increased dramatically.

In the first four years of the Obama administration there were an estimated 67 million gun sales. And almost every month for the past three years gun sales have set new records. Yet during that same time gun crime had fallen every year.

So if “assault weapons” are almost never used in crime and overall gun crime has decreased while gun sales, including “assault weapons” have increased dramatically, what sense does it make to ban any guns?

For the gun banners, compromise means do it my way. Their goal is incremental gun bans. Its like the old saying about once the camel gets its nose in the tent it won’t be long before you are sleeping with a camel. Banning guns will not affect crime in any way, so why let the camel in the tent?

Politicians don’t tell the truth. Its just the way of politics to tell people what you think they want to hear. Exaggerations, misleading statements and similar things are the rule. But sometimes politicians tell such blatant lies it is hard to understand how anyone can listen to them.

Hillary Clinton is constantly telling lies about gun laws, the gun business and why you and I own guns, all the time trying to make it harder for us to own a gun while she is hiding behind armed guards. The current lie of the day is that gun manufacturers and sellers are not liable for their product the same way other business are for their product.

The stated goal of the anti-gun groups is to put gun manufactures and retailers out of business by suing them when a gun is used in a crime. That is like Rosie O’Donnell suing spoon manufacturers because she is fat. Or it is like suing a gas station and Shell oil because someone buys a gallon of gas and uses it to burn down a house.

The law suits got so ridiculous a few years ago that our elected representatives passed a federal law that gun manufacturers and retailers were not liable if their product was misused. That is the way it is with every product made but liberal judges were singling out the gun industry. And they still are doing that, trying to put them out of business.

A state judge in New Jersey ruled last week a suit against Remington could proceed, even though there is federal law against such lawsuits. That lawsuit says Remington should not have made a gun for civilian sales that is a military weapon. Anyone knowing anything about guns knows the multiple fallacies of that claim.

Gun banners can’t get laws passed that they want because there are too many gun owners and other rational people opposing them. So they try to go through the courts to accomplish their goals. They can’t stand the thought of a law abiding citizen having something they personally don’t approve of so they try to ban it for everyone.

I had to “Laugh Out Loud” when I saw an editorial from the Atlanta Constitution reprinted in the Griffin Daily News on Friday, March 4 and saw it had to do with guns. The editorial board of that paper has never heard of any kind of gun ban or control law they didn’t support and they have opposed any kind of law that lessened any restriction of our 2nd Amendment rights.

The editorial was about the proposed law doing away with the restrictions of anyone over 21 years old who have passed a fingerprint background check and have a Georgia Firearms License to possess a gun on college campuses. I knew without reading it they opposed that law, and that they would make wild claims that have never come true anywhere the citizens have a right to carry on campus.

That editorial board ignores the fact you can’t get a Georgia Weapons License unless you are 21 years old and have to get a fingerprint background check. They ignore the fact that criminals see “gun free zones” as free fire crime zones where only they have guns. And they ignore the crime sprees caused by this on many Georgia college campuses.

It is not even safe to go to the library on the Georgia State campus because of all the robberies there. And why would the criminals worry – nobody is around to stop them and protect themselves or any other innocent folks.

Although they claim in the editorial to know the 2nd Amendment is a right, they support any effort to restrict it. I wonder if they would have the same attitude toward the 1st Amendment.

Laws do not affect criminals. Restricting our rights does not protect the law-abiding.

Not long ago the gun banners were crowing that gun deaths now outnumbered traffic accident deaths for the first time, proving guns should be banned. They ignored a lot of facts like that gun deaths are mostly suicides and car deaths had recently dropped due to higher cost of gas, and gun deaths were on a long term downward trend. They used this change to push their gun ban agenda.

Their gun control propaganda fails to come true just a few months later.

Some rational folks predicted that car deaths would increase again if gas prices dropped and people drove more. A news article in the Griffin Daily News on page A-7 on Friday, February 19 proved them right. The headline: “2015 Motor vehicle deaths increased by largest percent in 50 years.”

Do you think the gun control folks will admit to this change? I won’t hold my breath.

In Georgia one of the biggest gun controversies this legislative session has been making it legal to for citizens in our state with a “Georgia Firearms License” to carry their gun on college campuses. Campuses are a free fire zone, also known as a gun free zone, right now.

There have been many robberies on college campuses, especially Georgia State. The new law would allow people like me, who have gone through a fingerprint background check and have no criminal history or mental problems and are 21 years old or older, to carry their legal gun on campus.

Those against it come up with all kinds of weird excuse why it would be dangerous. They claim youth should not be able to carry guns, ignoring the fact the law only applies to those over 21. And they say college students are not mature enough to carry a gun, totally missing the fact that many 18 year olds are in the military and carry dreaded “assault” weapons daily.

When I was in college a long time ago I had my Marlin 30-30 lever action assault weapon in my dorm room from the time I started at 18 years old. It never shot anyone. I know times have changed, but gun free college campuses do nothing but keep law-abiding students from protecting themselves.

Anyone thinking the current law keeps thugs from carrying a gun on campus ignore the armed robberies regularly in the news. And they ignore the fact that some states already allow students to carry guns and there has never been a problem caused by them.