It may be said America has a gun culture, but does one person in 100 understand firearms? That small percentage falls off sharply among our political representatives.

How many understand what foot pounds means, feet per second, trajectory, rate of twist, cyclic rate, FMJ, HPBT and other terminologies? Most don’t have a clue.

The Second Amendment was not written into our Constitution to grant hunting and target shooting. It was another check and balance by our founding fathers to the citizens of the United States to prevent their government from being tempted toward tyranny. 

Socialist governments like England, Australia and France — to name a few — greatly restrict their citizenry to have private firearms.

“Of the people, by the people and for the people” is a concept that doesn’t work with socialism. “Of, by and for government” describes socialism. The Democratic Party in America has socialist leanings and that party is ever pushing for new gun laws.

Democrats frequently use the “fresh graves” of gun violence as their podium to advance their agenda against guns.

Their pursuit, however, is not about saving lives.

It’s their DNA as socialists to disarm citizens for self preservation.

President Bill Clinton rammed through his 1994 assault weapons ban when FBI uniform crime reports provided solid evidence that assault weapons are the least used in criminal activity.

Clinton’s gun ban was classic example of a socialist agenda presiding over necessity.

Criminals, generally, are not weapons experts, but many opt to use high capacity/ assault-style weapons to carry out mass killings.

Democrats point to this calling to outlaw these military-type arms trying to sell the gun-ignorant public that lives would be saved to outlaw these arms.

Aaron Alex recently proved one does not need an assault rifle for mass murder. Alex took an ordinary pump shotgun and killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard.

Assault weapons bans will not prevent the killings. Democrat politicians know this.

Outlawing assault-style weapons is just a stepping stone. The goal of taking all weapons at once would spark revolution. Outlawing one type at a time over time has a chance.

This tactic is called creeping aggression.   

Guns get a black eye when misused against innocence.

A statistic that can’t be tallied is how many lives guns save. How many people are alive today because a criminally minded person failed to act fearing a gun?

An indignant President Barack Obama recently implied that voters need to think about where candidates stand on the gun issue.

Indeed they do!

Karl Schmidt, a Maryland native, moved to Farmville in 2004. A quadriplegic, he recently wrote a book, “Sticking to my Guns,” about dealing with life from a wheelchair. His email address is tenbears@centurylink.net.