Guns Save Life netted some publicity across the pond at the British Broadcasting Corporation yesterday, with the posting of a video and story on Guns Save Life’s activism defending American’s right to defend themselves.

UPDATE:  Actually, we’re mentioned on the BBC News’ homepage.  Twice.

Here’s the link to the story.

Would more guns save more American lives?

[Our apologies, we are unable to embed the video.]

(BBC) – The mass shooting at a US school which left 20 children and six teachers dead has provoked a national conversation about guns.

But in Illinois that debate was already under way.

On 10 December – just days before the tragedy in Connecticut – a US federal court struck down the country’s last remaining law banning concealed weapons.

Lawmakers in Illinois were given six months to come up with an alternative piece of legislation. Now gun control advocates and gun rights activists are trying to shape that new law.

Journalism professor Charles Ledford had been speaking to people on both sides of the debate before events at Sandy Hook Elementary School. He visited a local group called Guns Save Life, whose members are arguing for more permissive gun laws, as well as the mother of a victim of a previous mass shooting.

The video featured in the BBC story is an edited version of the video that first was published in The Atlantic here in America a couple of weeks ago.

Here’s that story and that video.

‘Nothing Says Peace on Earth Like a Handgun for a Christmas Ornament’

Meet the folks at GunsSaveLife.com, an Illinois nonprofit

John Boch, the president of GunsSaveLife.com, isn’t joking about his Christmas tree decorations. He and the members of the organization firmly believe more firearms in the hands of trained citizens are the route to a safer society. Based in Illinois, the nonprofit is dedicated to protecting the rights of gun owners and promoting education around gun safety. On the GunsSaveLife.com blog, Boch concurred with recent remarks from the National Rifle Association’s Wayne LaPierre, focusing on gun-free zones as the problem, not the solution to school shootings.

Judging by the amount of mail we’re receiving, the story has certainly hit a nerve with those who advocate additional racist, classist and sexist gun control laws.

For example, here’s one of many received today.

Sir,

Your core belief that guns save lives is seriously flawed. I mean, SERIOUSLY flawed. Guns TAKE lives. That is their prime purpose.
It seems that all pro-gun people subscribe to the theory of ‘fighting fire with fire’. Wrong ! All that does is create a fire twice as big. 

In one corner, we have Criminal Loonies with guns. In the other corner, NRA-approved Law-Abiding Loonies with guns. They do not cancel each other out, they just double the problem. Think of all the accidental killings that occur. I’m a Brit, so I remember this one : Several years ago a Scots tourist driving through America had a little problem. Car-trouble, or he got lost, I can’t remember.
He walked to a nearby house to ask for help, & got shot dead without warning by the owner. The Scotsman did not kick down the door, shouting ‘Give me all your money & valuables, you Mother-Effing Wanker !’. He knocked politely, & waited.

Loonies With Guns are Loonies With Guns, whichever side of the law they’re on.

It is no longer an excuse to hide behind The Second Amendment. Seriously, do you really believe that US citizens still need to maintain a local militia to repel marauding Indians ?

Consider this radical scenario : You won’t need to protect yourself from a Bad Guy if he’s not allowed to have a gun either.
If all guns were banned across the board (apart from specifically allowed exceptions), & seriously heavy punishments given to offenders, the level of gun crime would soon diminish.

I can’t remember the exact figures, but the murder rate per head of population in the UK is miniscule compared to the USA. Over here, the vast majority of us believe that is because gun ownership is illegal for the average citizen.

I fully realise that this one email will cause not a ripple to your core belief, but look on it as one more small stone on the growing rock-pile of public outrage against guns. Thank you.

Yours

Tony Clarke

He calls us lunatics for pointing out the obvious.  Well, Tony, this immediately came to mind when we read your missive:

Here’s GSL President John Boch’s quickly composed reply.

You wrote: “You won’t need to protect yourself from a Bad Guy if he’s not allowed to have a gun either.”

The only thing flawed in your email is your intellect, sir.

Bad guys don’t play by the rules. We don’t allow them to rob, rape or murder, but bad guys do so anyway.  That’s why we call them “bad guys”.

You really are a special kind of mentally challenged, aren’t you?

We’ve tried a time in history when the common man was debarred the use of weapons.

It was known as the Medieval times.

It was a time when the strong dominated and victimized the weak, the old, the very young and the women. It was a time of tyrannical oppression.

Americans today have no desire to recreate the oppressive times of the past.

But thanks for playing.

John