Does Owning a Gun Make You Safer?

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The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) had long been criticized for generating questionable studies that gun control organizations have used in defense of their cause.   So imagine people’s shock when the CDC, after analyzing 51 studies in 2003, concluded that the “evidence was insufficient to determine the effectiveness of any of these [firearms] laws.”

Regardless, even though the research doesn’t support gun control, its advocates still clamor for more firearms restrictions under the thinking that maybe it will “save just one life.”

But what if it can be shown that gun control can cost lives?

In March of 1991, Bonnie Elmasri of Wisconsin inquired about getting a gun to protect herself from a husband who had repeatedly threatened to kill her.   She was told there was a 48-hour waiting period to buy a handgun.

Unfortunately, Bonnie was never able to pick up the gun she needed for self-defense.   She and her two sons were killed the very next day by that same abusive husband (of whom the police were well aware).

Contrast this horrible tragedy to another woman's story that ended much differently.

Marine Lance Corporal Rayna Ross of Virginia bought a handgun to protect her child and herself from a stalker in 1993.   Shortly thereafter, the predator entered her home in the middle of the night and attacked Ms. Ross with a bayonet.

She shot and killed the attacker in what the local prosecutor ruled to be a justifiable homicide.

Thankfully, Ms. Ross was not disarmed by a dangerous waiting period.   She survived because, unlike Bonnie Elmasri, her right to protect herself was not put on hold by some government bureaucrat.

Whether it’s a waiting period or a total gun ban, firearms restrictions have done nothing more than put good people’s lives in jeopardy.