Grab My Gun? Get a Grip!

related: A Horrible Evil - Echoes of Port Arthur
Martin Bryant Port Arthur Killer
Port Arthur Massacre 1996 Pt 1, Pt 2




August 6, 2012
Holly Deyo
standeyo.com/

Stan and I are Second Amendment proponents. Full stop. If people choose not to avail themselves of this right and find themselves in bloody knot, then likely they'll have a "gun toting" neighbor to thank for help. Due to financial and staff cutbacks plus increasing calls for assistance, police take too long to respond. It's up to civilians to protect their own.

A couple of months ago much to our shock, a "Stan fan" showed up on our doorstep, unannounced, uninvited at 9 p.m. on a Friday night. This was weird and unnerving especially in light of recent home invasions in neighboring Colorado Springs.

The only defense between these two unknown men and me was a newly installed secured storm door – and a firearm in Stan's hands. Peering through the door's wrought iron, they were clearly no one we knew. Behind my back I frantically motioned to Stan to come to the door to see what they wanted. The younger person, a clean-cut, handsome and well-built blonde man said he'd come to help Stan with his research. (Really? Seriously? Don't know you from a bar of soap and you come here at night?)

After a short interchange, Stan walked outside to talk with them and found that this man hailed from Dallas and he'd gotten a wild hair – with no money whatsoever – to board a bus and land on our doorstep. They weren't leaving so I called the police. Two hours later, all 4 were still in our driveway with cops unsure how to proceed since the man had no $$. They didn't know where to take him. The second man, we later discovered, was his taxi driver.


WEIRD, THE NEW NORM

More frequently in local news, we hear of forced break-ins and home invasions. Make no mistake, if someone chooses to do this in our home, I'll have zero qualms about dropping them should they try to harm family – that includes 4-legged members. Ditto for Stan. Intruders obviously aren't the Welcome Wagon so if they barge in intending harm, continuing without retreat despite fair warnings... hmmm well, women have pretty good aim. They didn't have any business or right breaking in in the first place.

Things are entirely too crazy these days and when the expected soon-to-occur economic implosion hits, panic, fear, chaos, anger, frustration and blowback will surface against those who appear to "have" what they do not. Of all impending scenarios, an economic breakdown will have the most wide-ranging, the most impactful and hurtful consequences in the shortest amount of time. Remember during the Great Depression all the people who took swan dives when suddenly their financial portfolio registered "0". Because we are a global economy – for the present – multiply that scenario around the world and throughout the U.S. People will be shocked, devastated – and angry. Very angry.

We saw this brink-poised implosion coming for years now and opted out of the stock market more than a decade ago. It doesn't make people as much money, but as the saying goes, some of something is better than all of nothing. We aren't stock brokers or financial advisors, but encourage you to take those funds and invest them in hard goods – things you can eat or use when everything is in the dumper.


BITE MY GOLD

While having some precious metals is a good interim hedge, you can't eat them, wear them, drink them or use them as medicines or shelter. The most often overlooked problem of precious metals is how do you know what you're holding is real? When it gets down to bare minimums, pretty as gold is, it won't save your life or fill your belly. It will be just another hunk of metal. Further, if the Internet goes down, let alone other communication services, how would you sell it? People often make the mistake thinking that when things go south, life will still function normally. Full implications of "normalcy down" haven't penetrated. That is reality disconnect.

In the mid- to late 1800s, people bit gold coins and if it left a tooth impression, they were pretty much assured the metal was real. That's not the case today. Clever people drill out gold bars, keep the precious metal and fill them with tungsten knocking down their value by 75% while socking innocent buyers for the full amount. OR, they simply plate tungsten bars with a thin layer of gold. Unless you have assay equipment at your fingertips, how would you know? How could you check?


PROTECTION – PEACE OF MIND

Firearms will be worth their weight in gold and then some. When the SHTF, people who have stockpiled goods for their households yet have no self-defense are most at risk. You might as well lie down and die because you will be dead shortly and so will your family without protection. When things get desperate, people act crazy. Cops will be overloaded with calls and you likely won't be on the top of the heap. This isn't NEOCON rhetoric or right-wing, cling-to-your-Bible mania (thank you Obama for that little quip-ism). It is fact. It is survival.

Photo: Eyewitness Jacob Stevens, 18, hugs his mother Tammi Stevens after being interview by police outside Gateway High School where witnesses were brought for questioning Friday, July 20, 2012 in Aurora, Colo. A gunman wearing a gas mask set off an unknown gas and fired into the crowded movie theater killing 12 people and injuring at least 58 others, authorities said. (The Denver Post, RJ Sangosti)


PORT ARTHUR MASSACRE

While residing in Perth, Stan and I lived through this exact same massacre scenario most recently replayed in Aurora, Colorado. In 1996, this nightmare hit Hobart, Australia. Like nothing else, it should prod every Unisom-induced slumber-loving American wide awake, with ears on fire.

On April 28, 1996, 28-year-old Martin Bryant, shot and killed 35 people and injured another 21, most at an outdoor cafe in Tasmania. Geographically, Tasmania is an island state directly south of Victoria about 380 miles over water or 1 hour 15 minutes by air.

Here's what happened:

"Just north of the township Bryant entered the home of a local couple he knew. Inside, he shot and killed them both. He then drove to and ate a meal on the deck of the Broad Arrow Café. He re-entered the café, which was crowded with lunchtime customers, took a rifle from his bag and began shooting. In the first 90 seconds, 20 people died and 12 were injured.

"The man then moved into the adjacent car park, where he shot and killed 4 more people and wounded a number of others.

"After shooting indiscriminately at people in the grounds of around Port Arthur, he got into his car and drove up the former main entrance road to the original toll booth. In this area, 7 more people were killed in 2 separate incidents, during which he stole a victim's car and abandoned his own.

"The man then drove north. Outside the General Store he killed 1 person and took another hostage. He drove back to the house where the first killings had taken place, firing random shots at vehicles along the route and injuring a number of people.

"At the house, Bryant set fire to the stolen car, then took his hostage inside. Through the afternoon and night, shots were fired at police officers on the scene. At some point during this time, Bryant killed the hostage. In the morning, he set fire to the house and was captured by police as he fled from the burning building.

"After initially pleading "Not Guilty" to all 72 charges, some days later Martin Bryant changed his plea to "Guilty" to all charges. He was therefore sentenced to life imprisonment with no eligibility for parole on all 72 charges, including 35 charges of murder. State and Federal Governments passed new gun control laws that are among the strictest in the world. 1


Like the Aurora Colorado shooter, Martin Bryant was lonely and isolated, and frequently bullied. He, also, did not state a motive. To date, no one knows what went on in the Aurora shooter's mind or in Bryant's.

As horrid and devastating as this event was, and I've presented it as real as possible so you don't think it's being glossed over, do not confuse a single incident with how normally sane people behave. This was a one-off circumstance. When gun control and gun confiscation go into effect, it is forever. The taking of lives, as abhorrent and evil-inspired as it is, is but a brief moment in time. Your right of self-protection, though, if relinquished in a rash of conscience/fear/guilt is forever banished. It's like taxes and abandonment of freedom, once in place, you'll never see relief or personal rights reestablished.


LIKE TAKING CANDY...

Within 6 MONTHS – nearly to the day – the Australian government pushed through the gun buyback plan (doesn't that sound so much nicer than gun confiscation? – same difference as it was mandatory, except for money exchange), which took effect Sept. 30 in that same year. Citizens, faced with the horror of this massacre, were more than acquiescent and handed over their weapons like zombie-robots. People even turned in collectors' firearms that had been in families for decades. One neighbor down our dirt farm road did just that even though his guns were probably exempt. If Stan and I had had weapons, we'd have told them to go pound sand.

Still the penny didn't drop. Mind boggling. Australians were set up, conditioned, disarmed and now – vulnerable. God help them when the Indonesians invade.

Stan and I stood with mouths agape chewing over the shortsightedness of Aussies. These good-hearted souls didn't consider that the "bad guys" would still have weapons. It just looked safer to them, the right thing to do.

Australians were some of the first can-do people beginning as a penal colony in the late 1700s so they had to "do it" for themselves or else. They were social outcasts and left to die or survive by the Brits with nothing but their ingenuity and clothes on their backs. They were the original independents and of the "screw you government" mentality. England had dumped them on vacant land about the size of CONUS and they had no one but themselves to depend on. Sink or sail, they survived and thrived. Now they are a part of the socialist "give-me" programs like many Americans. What the heck happened? If you think this is far-fetched, look what is happening in America. It is happening here, now! Wake up!

As I commented on a story linked on our site Friday, some nutty Chinese guy killed 9 people with a knife. When there's a will, they'll find a way. Removing guns does nothing except aid the perpetrator as he/she will find the means. You, the law abiding citizen, will not.


GUN STATS AND FIREARMS REMOVAL

Gun stats cited by many over the last decade are likely those from a World Net Daily article. At the time, when we still lived in Perth, those stats were mined exactly 1 year after the Port Arthur incident, 1997, by their equivalent to the NRA, Sporting Shooters' Association of Australia. It is not recent data. Some of these stats applied specifically to Victoria, not the entire country. Others did. That said, it does NOT negate their importance or implication. When guns were recalled / confiscated in Australia, violent crime shot up in Victoria and throughout the country. You can see these 1997 numbers here.

As we were members of the SSAA, I still have the original document showing those firearm stats. Despite Australia's best efforts, look how crime skyrocketed in subsequent years. Australia managed the buyback at a cost of nearly $500M – and for what? The exception is homicide, which even after the buyback in 1996, continued to climb and hover at elevated numbers through 2003. How does the government explain that?




A ROSE IS STILL A ROSE, AND AN ATTACK IS STILL ALL THAT

From a woman's and secondarily a man's point of view, does it matter whether you're raped or assaulted at gun or knife point? Hardly. If someone slams you overhead with a boulder, jabs you with an AIDS-infested needle or slashes you with a boning knife, you still end up just as dead. The best defense a firearm gives a would-be victim is the advantage of distance. Even the best pepper spray still puts an attacker within 10 feet and in that short a distance, they can be on you in a heartbeat. Often just fixing that little red dot on a possible assailant is enough to send them running. So thank-you, I'll keep my gun.


JUST PLAIN MAD

Take the proved-position of a good defense is a good offense or MAD – mutual assured destruction - you kill me, I'll kill you. 50-50 odds are a better bet than 100 to nothing. That will be the case when weapons are taken away from citizens. We'd have little defense against intruders and assaults. There will be no defense against a military, ours or foreign, being conditioned to take arms from and turn against civilians, those who are not Oathkeepers and believe government's lie and mind control. Who in their right mind would ever fire on unarmed fellow Americans?

If you don't think the United Nations doesn't have their big fat toe in this, think again. They did in Australia, just as they're trying to do with the Global Gun Ban Treaty waiting for a second attempt in a year-end vote in America. It's yet another case of what politicians say, vs. what they mean. UN Global disarmament is a long-range plan and they are patient like Islamists waiting, waiting to achieve their objective.

The UN Gun Ban Treaty was narrowly defeated 'when a bipartisan group of 51 Senators signed a letter to President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton opposing any treaty that infringes on our rights. The letter stated:

'As the treaty process continues, we strongly encourage your administration not only to uphold our country's constitutional protections of civilian firearms ownership, but to ensure--if necessary, by breaking consensus at the July conference--that the treaty will explicitly recognize the legitimacy of lawful activities associated with firearms, including but not limited to the right of self-defense. As members of the United States Senate, we will oppose the ratification of any Arms Trade Treaty that falls short of this standard.' "2


Just 130 of the 435 House members strongly opposed this UN arms ban. All it needs is another tragedy or two and the next likely vote, conveniently after elections, may push it through. If Obama is re-elected, kiss your 2nd Amendment rights goodbye as well as many others. With Romney, there is much less chance of passage. Weigh that as carefully as the jobs issue when at the ballot box.


WILL THIS BE THAT TIPPING POINT?

Could it be too convenient that someone shot 6 people dead at a Sikh temple yesterday in Oak Creek, Wis.? The perpetrator, 40-year-old Wade Michael Page and Army veteran is possibly a "white supremacist" based on tattoos. Officials quickly labeled the act "domestic terrorism", which clamps down on information published. Control the information, direct the spin. David Rockefeller jabbed his finger squarely on it stating, “We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.”

Quoting the SSAA, "79% of gun deaths are not caused by another person - they are self-inflicted."3 Gun removal has less to do with crime, but is all about control and making people vulnerable.

Don't buy into it, not for a second! Lose your rights, lose your life.




ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Holly Drennan Deyo is the author of three books: bestseller Dare To Prepare (4th ed.), Prudent Places USA (3rd ed.) and Garden Gold (2nd ed.) Please visit she and her husband's website: standeyo.com and their FREE Preparedness site: DareToPrepare.com.



1 A Brief Outline Of Events, Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority, 28 April 1996, http://www.portarthur.org.au/index.aspx?base=2594

2 NRA Stops U.N. Arms Trade Treaty
http://www.alipac.us/f9/u-n-arms-trade-treaty-defeated-261635/

3 SSAA ACT facts on firearms and suicide, http://www.ssaa.org.au/research/1998/1998-08-11_ssaa-act-facts-firearms-and-suicide.html

© Holly Deyo, 2012, https://standeyo.com/NEWS/12_USA/120806.get.gun.get.grip.html