Brad Edmonds

Brad Edmonds of Montgomery,
AL is the July recipient of the
CCRKBA Gun Rights Defender of
the Month Award.
Edmonds “has become a prolific,
analytical and articulate cyberspace
proponent of the individual
Second Amendment civil right
of law-abiding American citizens
to keep and bear arms,” said John
Michel Snyder, CCRKBA Public
Affairs Director. “As communication
generally, and as constitutional
communication specifically,
becomes more and more
connected with this new technology,
it is essential for the success
of our cause that more and more
pro-gun rights proponents begin
to use and develop the cyberspace
technology in promoting our side
of the issue. Edmonds already is
doing this very well. He is providing
an example which others may
well be advised to follow. It
would be most appropriate for
him to receive this award.”
Edmonds holds a Master of Science
in Industrial Psychology and
a Doctorate of Musical Arts in
Composition. A banker with
Online Banking in Montgomery,
he writes regularly for www.
LewRockwell.com and www.
MissouriLeague.com, and on rare
occasions at www.Mises.org. He
spent a year in operations training
with the Central Intelligence
Agency and more than a year as
the secretary/administrator at a
Methodist church.
In one of his most incisive recent
articles, Edmonds pointed
out that, “if you are not armed,
and the government is armed,
you’re at the mercy of the government
and of the common hoodlum.
Likewise, if you and I and
everybody else own guns, there is
no chance that we are collectively
at the mercy of anyone.
“Common criminals are at the
same time the most immediate
and the most trivial reason to own
a gun. The most important reason
you should own a gun is government.
You are neither free nor safe if you
are helpless, and only government
has the resources to take away your
ability to defend yourself from criminals,
from invasion, and from the
government itself. And only government
has the resources to kill by the
millions.”
In another column, Edmonds outlined
some good reasons for gun ownership.
“Guns,” he stated, “are protection
from the government. The
Founding Fathers knew it. The Federalist
Papers (29 and 46, for example)
tell us it’s a good thing for the citizenry
to outgun the national government;
that the United States would be
unique in world history in having an
armed, and therefore truly liberated,
populace. Court cases following the
abolition of slavery established that
black Americans, having been freed
from slavery, would not be truly free
unless their gun-ownership rights
were the same as everyone else’s.”
Edmonds stated also that, “guns are
safe. Bill Clinton told us just last year
that 12 children are killed by guns
every day in the United States. Brace
yourself: He lied. The number is 12
only if the definition of ‘child’
reaches up to age 24 and includes
gang members killing each other
(mostly in New York and California).
If you look at children aged 10 and
younger, 72 were killed in 1999 by
accident, or three children every two
weeks in a nation of 280 million. That
means 72 terrible tragedies, but it also
means that when we adjust statistically
for the number of guns against
the number of everything else, guns
are safer for children than wading
pools, bathtubs, bicycles, and cars.
Part of this is because 99-pointsomething
percent of parents don’t let
children play with guns, and most
children know that real guns aren’t
toys. And guns don’t go off by themselves.
I can find many cases where
an armed robbery or murder was
committed without a gun. Show me
one where a gun did it without a
criminal.”
He writes that, “guns make people
less violent. The first time I bought
a gun, I knew I had a dangerous
weapon and should act accordingly.
I read the owner’s manual carefully,
and the language of it was enough
to put anyone in awe of these devices.
Further, any gun owner’s
manual is packed with invaluable
safety information. It is a primer on
responsible behavior in general.
This feeling of responsibility extends
beyond shooting…The great
thing about guns is they have this
effect on most all law-abiding gun
owners: Choose any state you want
that issues concealed-carry permits
and you’ll find that civilians with
concealed-carry permits are less often
accused of violent crimes than
are the police in that state.”
Edmonds believes also that, “guns
are good for other things…Guns, in
their own right, are enjoyable to inspect…
“It bears mentioning that there are
one to two million incidents per
year in the U.S.A. where lawabiding
people use guns successfully
to defend themselves or stop
crimes. In over 90 percent of those
cases, the gun isn’t even fired. Even
radical pacifists should love this.
But even if guns weren’t interesting,
even if they weren’t safe, even if
they didn’t impose a calming effect
on owners, and even if they didn’t
protect us from criminals…
protection from the government…
the only entity legally empowered
to use lethal force to get whatever it
wants – is enough. I’ll keep mine,
thanks.”