/ world today news/ USA and Bulgaria are two extremes. And as you know, extremes usually lead to trouble. An example is two events of recent days. In the US, an individual, well known to the authorities as a clinical case, entered a school in the state of Florida and began shooting meat at his peers, killing 17 people. In Plovdiv, a normal person, a father of two children, a respected specialist in his field, in self-defense shot a person who wanted to rob him in his own home, causing him bodily harm. The person simply did not want to follow the fate of another grandmother Tsanka from the village of X, who was robbed in her home for 20 hidden leva and a jar of lutenitsa, and then killed in a brutal way. Because of this, Ivan Dimitrov goes to prison.
In any case, it is about human lives lost. In one case, it is about murdered children. In the other, it is about a person whose existence can be wasted in prison because he dared to fight for life, property and dignity. In the third case, we are talking about the old men in the villages who have become statistics, who fell victim to developed bandits. In this case, extremes also ruin lives – and there is no difference between the value of the lives of grandmother Kitsa, Ivan Dimitrov and Johnny Johnson.
And the reason for the loss of life is different. In the US, it is too easy to give firearms to people who even have a criminal record and ties to terrorists (Omar Mateen of Orlando) or are just obvious sociopaths around them (Nicolas Cruz is known to the police and has spent time under the supervision of a psychiatrist ), while in Bulgaria the problem is that weapons are not given even to completely innocent and responsible people living in a criminal environment, for whom the possession of firearms is sometimes life-saving.
In the modern world, there is a tendency to limit people’s right to arms more and more. The media constantly inundates the public with horrific stories of bloody murders, and in all these stories a firearm is necessarily present or assumed to have been used in the crime. As a result of this well-planned campaign, anti-gun sentiment is growing in society, voices are increasingly being heard calling for a complete ban on the sale of weapons, to outlaw them. Such requests are understandable and understandable. Often they are spoken by people who are genuinely concerned for the good of society, but not so well informed, basing their opinions on emotions rather than facts.
Let’s look at how things are in other countries. In North Korea, the right to own and bear arms is clearly prohibited by the country’s constitution. The state, led by the totalitarian party, has assumed the responsibility of defending against external and internal dangers. In “democratic” Japan, the law on the possession of firearms and explosives begins with “No one shall have the right to possess a firearm or a sword”, with the only exception being made for smoothbore hunting weapons, and then after a long, tedious and expensive bureaucratic procedure requiring re-registration monthly. At the other extreme are countries like Switzerland (where, according to a 1997 law, every adult citizen has the free right to a firearm), the USA, where the right to bear arms is the so-called second amendment of the constitution. It is really difficult to get a firearm in Bulgaria, with the last document for acquisition being the motivation for owning a weapon. Unfortunately, the argument “Well, I live in a modern suburb of Sofia” does not apply. And yes. If a bunch of drug addicts come up to you with knives and clubs, you can’t go out with a gun because that way you’re going beyond inevitable self-defense. The lesson of history is: You have no right to defend yourself, you have the right to be knocked to the ground and kicked, you have the right to be dragged out of cars by gorillas with clubs, you have the right to be kicked out at bus stops by savages.
In Russia, in this evil, anti-democratic and unfree country, there are currently tendencies to liberalize the ownership of firearms, and the legislation regarding unavoidable self-defense is much better thought out than the Bulgarian and European ones.
Of course, in many countries with strict gun control, there is a parallel, black market where guns can be purchased. The interesting thing is that when people talk about the need to restrict personal firearms, they always think of the mass shootings in the US, forgetting that there are practically none in Switzerland.
Very often those who stand against the idea of civilian ownership of firearms point out that in today’s civilized age it is not necessary to own one. Once the state has armed police and they protect the civilian population, then they themselves will not need weapons to defend themselves from danger. However, the police, especially in Bulgaria, do not respond immediately after a report of danger by citizens. There is often a wait of many minutes in cities and hours in rural areas for the police to respond. According to statistics, the average duration of interaction between a criminal and his victim is about 90 seconds. This means that at best a person can be robbed, killed, maimed, raped and wait at least another 10 minutes for help to come. The police usually come after the crime has been committed and the criminal has left the scene of the crime. The police arrive within minutes, while the question of survival is sometimes answered in a matter of seconds. The authorities cannot be everywhere, and they are also not always competent enough, even if they are in place, to intervene adequately. Bai Kiro, who has no weapon, dies from this work in Bulgaria, and Doctor Ivanov, who managed to defend himself, may end up in prison.
An example of the fact that it is good for a civilian population to be armed is the so-called Kardzhali period in the Ottoman Empire at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. The empire in this period was in deep decline and uncontrollable banditry appeared, which the central government could not cope with alone. A period of complete anarchy ensued. Villages and cities are subjected to robbery by robber gangs, some numbering hundreds of ruffians, thousands of peaceful villagers are killed. The Sultan’s troops usually reached the attacked villages only after they had been plundered and burned to the ground, and all the local Qadis could do was to write a report to the High Gate. It was only in the first decade of the 19th century that the Bulgarian population received permission to own weapons and form militias, which alone, without the help of the Sultan’s Nizams, could deal with the Kardzhalian gangs. Thus, a problem quickly becomes a thing of the past.
An argument made by those who oppose the civilian use of firearms is that banning them will stop the murders. This is wrong – people are driven by rational impulses. The fact that a certain type of weapon is banned does not mean that it can reduce the number of murders. For example, in Great Britain, a country with a really restrictive firearms law introduced in 1996, it did reduce the number of murders, but only those committed with firearms. However, the total number of murders and crimes remains constant – murders with cold weapons are increasing. It happens that the tool of the crime becomes the kitchen knife or the baseball bat. But no one in Britain has yet called for them to be banned from sale on the grounds that they have been used by criminals. It doesn’t matter to the victims exactly how they were liquidated. A gun is a tool for killing, but unemployment, social ostracism and hunger can also be killings.
They believe that if everyone has a gun, it will lead to constant shootings in the streets, to anarchy and to massacres similar to what was done by Anders Breivik in Norway or by Nicholas Cruz in the USA. This thesis can be answered with a question: “Why is it that when countries have armies and weapons there are no constant wars”. The answer is logical. The people, and hence the states made up of them, are rational. The nation-state knows that if it pulls out a knife first, it can also die from a knife. The issue is even more stark with the possession of the atomic bomb and other weapons of mass destruction. There are them all over the world, but precisely because there is no monopoly on their possession in the world, World War III has never broken out. As the chancellor of the FRG, Willy Brandt, said – “He who presses the button first will die second”. Likewise, a rational, responsible gun owner knows that his gun is for self-defense, that it’s not a good idea to pull it out and aim it down the street for no reason. It should be known that one of the most common reasons people die is as a result of traffic accidents. But no one is fighting to ban the car trade. In the case of an accident resulting in the loss of human life, the person driving the car is blamed for what happened, not the car itself. In the same way, it is logical to treat the people who took up arms with a criminal purpose and that they bear all the severity of the law.
The following metaphor can be made. No one would waste a fire extinguisher for no reason, but they would really appreciate having one on hand if needed. Thus, a reasonable person would not want to have to use his weapon for self-defense as intended. The fire department usually comes after the house has burned down, the police after the murder.
For a religious or pill-crazed maniac, the circle with the scratched gun is just a piece of paper. Controlling firearms does not limit the number of crimes, on the contrary, it makes them easier to commit – a law-abiding citizen will not own a firearm if it is prohibited, while a criminal will not mind adding another offense to existing once he has crossed the limits of the law
Many believe that one of the reasons Anders Breivik carried out the massacre on 7/22/2011 was the relatively liberal regime for taking firearms from civilians in Norway. Yes indeed, anyone can walk into a place with unarmed people and shoot them. The camp on the island of Utoya, where the bloodshed took place, was a “Gun-free zone” – a place where even the guards were unarmed, and this is one of the leading reasons why the number of victims reached 69. Mass shootings and massacres by of this type are committed against unarmed persons. If Breivik had walked into the meeting of the members of the Norwegian Association of Hunters and Anglers (NJFF) and started shooting at its members, he would not have committed a massacre. That’s how Omar Mateen entered the Gay Club “Gun-free zone” and simply shot unarmed and innocent people. If he had joined the club of Texas homosexual bears who love their pistols (I don’t mean what you think).. Maybe there would have been significantly fewer victims (and one of them would have been Breivik, shot with a hunting rifle rifle in self-defense). Many massacres of meek and defenseless people could be prevented if the latter were not so defenseless. In this way, the countries of the world always have armed forces. Not to become aggressors, but to defend themselves from aggression.
There is concern that the liberalization of the regime for the possession of a firearm will lead to its constant use, for example to settle personal accounts. A rebuttal is the fact that it is abundantly clear to a rational person that there is an opportunity to respond with a firearm as well if he draws his first
Limiting the right to small arms often leads to circumvention of the law even by law-abiding citizens. In Bulgaria, there are often cases in which landowners, usually elderly people, frustrated by the slow response of the police to the robberies in villages that have become more frequent in recent years, some of which are accompanied by violence, bypass the law and illegally acquire weapons on the black market or create DIYs. Thus they become criminals while defending their right to property, livelihood and life.
And here is the solution for both the USA and Bulgaria. Allowing firearms ownership accompanied by registration and robust background checks. Accompanied by safety and handling courses. Is it that complicated?
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