by Tony Zore
Waking up early on a vacation day, I shoveled out my car from the newly fallen snow and drove to the Statehouse Office building in Concord this past Feb. 13th to stand up for our 2nd Amendment Rights. On a day where Maine had cancelled all of its public testimonies and New Hampshire had cancelled a number of its testimonies, the powers that be decided to still hold session for all the measures regarding guns.
Parking garages packed and sidewalks full, I parked two blocks down and walked in to find a floor packed with people. I don’t know if I just happened to speak at the right moment or if what I said really did stand out against all the other testimonies, but I found my name featured in NHPR, Conway Daily Sun, Eagle-Tribune, and InDepthNH.
Shortly after this, I was featured in a comic for the Conway Daily Sun:
I wrote a letter to the Editor, in response to the comic, and two days later it has yet to be printed. I’ll give them a week before I’ll say for certain that they won’t print it, but I’m not holding my breath. Granite Grok heard my story and was kind enough to offer me the opportunity to post my response:
To the Editors:
I appreciated the cute depiction of myself in the Conway Daily Sun the other day almost as much as I appreciated the news item cited within that depiction: a story highlighting that cops are not guaranteed to come to your defense. In fact, assuming cops take swift action we’re talking about a person located randomly throughout the community stopping what they’re doing and heading to the area. According to the National Sheriff’s Association, the average police response time is 18 minutes while the average school shooting is finished in 12.5. So perhaps a more accurate depiction would feature an attacker wheeling their gun freely as an Everytown supporter stands in the way of someone on scene trying to stop them.
Even the authors of the two bills that would ban guns on school grounds admitted that the law would have no impact on someone bringing a gun to a school with the intent to attack. Instead the primary argument we heard at the testimonies was, “this will give kids peace of mind.” Interesting that these same advocates don’t say that we should stop drills at school which may alarm the kids. It seems that there’s a singular theme and it’s not about stopping shootings or easing fears, it’s about restricting our right to defend ourselves with up-to deadly force if necessary.
I often hear the naïve argument that an average person couldn’t stop an attacker. The FBI says that of the 19 mass shootings in 2016/17 that were stopped by lethal force, 8 were civilians killing the attacker. That’s roughly half the time both figuratively and literally because those instances feature someone not responding from across town, but someone who just happened to be there.
The issue is simple: If there is a serious threat that an attack may happen, we have a right to defend ourselves. If there isn’t a serious threat that an attack may happen, there’s no need to worry about people carrying guns. In either case, these laws seek to use fear to legislate away our rights. They do nothing to disarm someone seeking to commit an attack and use police to disarm the very people that help stop one if such a horrible thing should ever happen in our community.
Sincerely, Tony Zore
GraniteGrok commentary: Is it any wonder that, in a 2018 Gallup poll, 62% of Americans felt that there is “much misinformation, bias and inaccuracy” in today’s media. But this lack of trust doesn’t just materialize out of thin air – it comes from the very real and concerted effort on the part of the Media to sell, support, prop up the ideas of today’s Leftists.
And as we see in this very case, if an ordinary citizen dares to use logic and reason to speak against this machine, they will be isolated, ridiculed and shut out, denied the chance to defend themselves in the arena.
Righteousness welcomes truth. Deceit requires distortion.
Featured Image: Alpha News Minnesota
