By Tim Andrews, SCOPE President

“What came first, the chicken or the egg?” 

An age-old philosophical question with no easy answer.  Here’s another philosophical question that has a much more obvious answer. What came first, violence or the gun?  Obvious right? Violence has been around since Cain and Abel.  Cain may have used a rock or perhaps a club to kill Abel. Through the millennium man has conceived a multitude of ways to perpetrate violence upon their fellow man.  Rocks, clubs, swords, bombs, motor vehicles, lethal chemicals, bare hands and yes, firearms to name a few.  Regardless of the implement used there is a common thread among all violence against innocent people, and that is evil.  Guns are not the cause of violence any more than a motor vehicle that ruthlessly crashes into a crowd of people.  It is very simplistic to believe that passing more gun control laws will result in less violence. In fact, gun control, because it only impacts law abiding citizens, usually results in more violence against the innocent because it tips the balance in favor of the criminal.  There’s plenty of examples.  The most obvious are “gun free zones.”  If gun free zones worked we should never have a school shooting.  The facts are that since the invention of gun free zones, school shootings have increased and why wouldn’t they?  The progressive left, the gun grabbers, have created safe areas for depraved killers.  The late Senator Fred Thompson use to say, “why do they call it common sense when there is so little of it?” At the risk of being accused of cynicism by anti-gunners, it’s fair to wonder why someone would push for something as ridiculous and obviously as dangerous as a gun free zone.  Some, and I am one of them, have wondered if the advocates of more gun control welcome these mass shootings?  After all, note how quickly they mobilize their very orchestrated agenda when one of these shootings take place, usually within hours.

You need another example?  Remember the Obama administration’s Operation Fast and Furious that allowed criminals to buy an estimated 2000 firearms, some that were linked to homicides including the killing of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.  We may soon learn more about this because Agent Terry’s family has finally convinced President Trump to release the records on this program. Why would our government sell 2000 firearms to known criminals?  It’s a fair question and one that deserves answers.

Will we ever get them?  Given what we know, these questions are not cynical and they are not out of line.  The American people are owed answers to these questions, especially when the results of such inexplicable policies have resulted in the injury and deaths of many innocent Americans, including the victims of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida.  One final point pertaining to the Parkland Florida shooting.  If ever there was an example of how your safety first and foremost was in your hands this was it.  It’s incredible the number of government failures that occurred that led to this tragedy.  From the school district, the local sheriff’s department and the FBI, all these agencies failed the victims of Parkland, Florida.  And what’s the solution from gun grabbers and most in the media?  Yep, you got it.  More gun control.  The laws and the tools were in place that could have prevented this tragedy.  Any tools or laws are only as good as those put in charge of carrying them out and enforcing them.  That is where the focus needs to be, not on passing more restrictive gun control like gun free zones that only make the innocent more vulnerable.  Here in New York, we have a crucial gubernatorial election coming up this November.  Lately, I’ve noticed a lot of discouraged gun owners on pro-gun social media.  I’ve read comments like, why vote we can’t win, we can’t overcome the vote out of New York City, we can’t trust the Republican candidates and so on and so forth.  Some espouse we support a third-party candidate.  How many of you have ever competed in a competitive sport or other activity? Facing a tough opponent, can you imagine your coach in his pre-game speech telling you, “look this opponent is just too good, there’s no way we can win, rather than play and maybe suffer an injury we should probably just forfeit the game.” I recall the locker room speech of Herb Brooks, the coach of the 1980 U. S. Olympic hockey team.

They faced a seemingly impossible task. No one gave them a chance to beat the Russians.  Brooks told his team, “this is your time, not theirs.” They went out and seized the moment and won in probably the greatest upset in the history of sports.  Cuomo is in trouble, one of his closest aides Joseph Percoco, an individual he described as a brother, has been convicted of three felonies, involving fraud and bribery.  Cuomo could be next who knows where this will go.  In any case, this is not helpful to his reelection. I urge you to shake off the negativity. We’re not quitters, we can win this.  This is your time.  We need everyone on board. There are a couple of good Republican candidates, such as Senator John DeFranciso and Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro.  Once the GOP picks their candidate let’s get behind him/her and defeat Cuomo in November.  In the January/February Firing Lines, I erroneously referred to Rick Lazio as the 2014 Republican candidate for governor.  Of course, he was not, Rob Astorino was the 2014 Republican candidate for governor.  I apologize for the error.