According to many media reports, Indiana Governor Mike Pence has been chosen by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump to be his running mate. Pence served for 12 years as a member of the House of Representatives before winning the 2012 Indiana gubernatorial election.

Trump’s record on the Second Amendment includes support in 2000 for the ban on so-called “assault weapons” that Bill Clinton pushed through in 1994. This had been a weakness for Trump in the primary.

Governor Pence has been very strong on Second Amendment issues. In 2005, he voted to pass the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which halted lawsuits against firearms manufacturers. Gun-grabbers had sought to hold firearms manufacturers financially responsible for the criminal misuse of firearms, and used the threat of the lawsuits to force through policies that had been rejected by state legislatures and Congress.

Then-Representative Pence also supported efforts to roll back Washington, D.C.’s onerous laws, to pass concealed carry reciprocity, to allow veterans to register war trophies from overseas, to remove antiquated laws governing the sale of firearms, and to commend the NRA’s Eddie Eagle firearms safety program.

Giving up his Congressional seat to run for governor, Pence continued his strong pro-Second Amendment track record after winning the governorship, including signing S.B. 229 in 2014, which not only ended the risk of gun owners becoming accidental felons and prohibiting the use of tax dollars for gun buybacks. As governor of Indiana, Pence signed pro-hunting legislation as well.

In the wake of the terrorist attack on a Navy recruiting station in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Governor Pence allowed National Guard personnel to carry firearms for personal protection. Pence told Indiana lawmakers in the 2016 State of the State speech in front of the Indiana Legislature, “In the wake of the terrorist attack on a recruiting station in Chattanooga, Tennessee, I’m proud to say that Indiana was among the first states to allow our National Guard to carry firearms at all recruiting stations. Hoosiers know firearms in the hands of law abiding citizens–including our National Guard–makes our communities more safe not, less safe. Indiana will always defend the right to keep and bear arms.”

Governor Pence routinely received A and A+ ratings from the National Rifle Association’s Political Victory Fund in his campaigns. This past May, he addressed the NRA-ILA Leadership Forum during the NRA Annual Meetings in Louisville, Kentucky. He also addressed the NRA’s Celebration of American Values in 2010.

If personnel are policy, then Donald Trump has sent a very strong signal in support of the Second Amendment with the selection of Governor Pence.

See the story: http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/14/governor-mike-pence-on-the-second-amendment/

It has become a common scenario to target firearm owners after a mass shooting and it is no different with the recent shooting at a gay bar in Orlando. Mainstream media and politicians fall over themselves promoting the urgency of more gun control laws, using buzz words like “gun violence,” “assault rifles,” “AR-15” and “semi-automatic weapons.” The latter three phrases are often used interchangeably to create the illusion that are all the same. This strategy works well to scare a largely ignorant population into thinking that drastic measures are needed to prevent people from getting murdered with firearms.

Of course there is no such thing as “gun violence.” Firearms are not violent, people can — and often are — violent and they use whatever means they have to commit murder or harm. If you look up the FBI statistics about murder rates by weapon type it turns out that a large number of homicides are not carried out with firearms but with an array of other weapons too. The knife, for example, ranks the highest after firearms. Next are blunt instruments (baseball bat, crowbar and such). Yet, nobody in their right mind would use the phrase “knife violence” or “baseball violence.”

The simple truth is that stricter firearm laws do not lower violence. Here in Canada we had a very strict gun control law for over ten years: the $2 billion firearms registry. When the conservative government finally abolished it there was a big outcry with fears fueled by the media that now “gun crime” would rise. Statistics show that this has not happened. The crime rate involving guns did not rise in fact it went down. Even the RCMP, in charge of gun control and enforcing the law, had to admit that not a single registered firearm, of the millions of guns on the registry or their owners, was involved in any firearm related criminal activity. England, next to Germany, has the most restrictive firearms control laws in Europe, they even banned carrying a knife, and yet the man who murdered British MP Jo Cox last month did so with a firearm and a knife. In China civilians can’t own any firearms whatsoever, even the police officers must store their firearms at the police station at the end of their shift, yet China experiences a relatively high number of violent crimes involving firearms.

If stricter laws don’t work to reduce violent crimes then what is the problem? The system is the problem! In several interviews Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, points out that the system is broken, more specifically the information exchange between law-enforcement agencies. For example, in the case of the Orlando shooting the FBI knew for the two years that Mateen was a radicalized individual and put him on a “no-fly” list. However, according to Sherriff Clake and others, the FBI did not pass that information on to other law-enforcement agencies in the country. Neglecting to pass information on made it possible that Mateen could legally purchase a firearm. The firearm store owner checked Mateen’s name — and it came up clean.

We don’t need more laws; we need to fix the broken information system, enforce the laws we have and enforce them to the fullest extent instead of making up the usual excuses for criminals. Above all, let law enforcement do their work uninterrupted by politically correct agendas. With issues like gun control I am always reminded of a line I read a few years ago “For every problem there are hundreds of people chopping away at the leaves and branches, but nobody tackles the root of the problem.”

For a better understanding let me explain the terms “assault rifle,” “semi-automatic firearms,” and “AR-15.” Knowing the difference may make you less vulnerable to the lies and myth you hear and read.

An “assault firearm” is capable of select and serial fire, meaning, by the flick of a switch it can be turned from a single shot into serial fire capability. Serial fire capability lets the shooter pull the trigger once and the weapon keeps on shooting, like a machine gun, until the trigger is let go again or the magazine is empty. There is no need to ask for a ban on assault firearms because they are already forbidden to own, sell and purchase, even in America.  However that does not stop the anti-gun lobby from suggesting that these types of firearms are legally owned by private citizens.

A “semi-automatic“ firearm (also called “self-loading firearm”) uses recoil or gas from the spent cartridge energy to automatically load a new cartridge into the chamber. Unlike the ‘assault rifle’ the shooter must pull the trigger each time to fire the gun. Many hunting firearms are semi-automatic, including shotguns and .22 caliber sporting rifles. The much maligned AR-15 rifle is also a semi-automatic rifle but cosmetically dressed up to look like an assault rifle, the “AR” stands for ArmaLite Rifle, not — as often deliberately described by mainstream media — for “assault rifle.”

On a closing note I suggest that people should not give too much credit to the constant spread of deliberate misinformation and outright lies about firearms and lack of firearm laws. And finally, we don’t solve problems of escalating violence by vilifying and discriminating against the millions of law-abiding firearm owners. Problems are solved by targeting the root of the problem, not by looking for scapegoats.

Othmar Vohringer lives in the Nicola Valley. He is an animal behaviourist and outdoor writer for hunting magazines in Canada and the U.S. www.othmarvohringer.com.

See the story: http://www.merrittherald.com/vohringer-firearm-owners-targeted-after-orlando-shooting/