Those who are entrusted with the responsibility to create American weapons of human destruction have sent a message to the American people. They have told mothers who seek to protect their children, police forces who long for safer streets, hunters who want to protect their families and millions of others that they are simply not patriotic. This is certainly a new twist.

In a graphic commercial where the only visual graphic is a man cutting apart the American flag, they lambaste as anti-American those who have worked hard to make the guns in our communities safer, trying to equate safety locks with the desecration of our most precious symbol.

The whole time they are connecting themselves with those who fought at Gettysburg, Normandy and the Mekong Delta.

In fact, they were so intent on making this commercial effective in changing popular opinion that they used the brother of Martin Sheen, Joe Estevez, to be the voice over. The choice of Estevez was made because his voice is very similar to Sheen’s, who is a supporter of gun safety regulations, therefore causing some viewers to believe that it was actually Sheen who did the commercial.

I am willing to admit that I do not have the intestinal fortitude to watch that ad more than once.

The question here is why would an industry deem it necessary to blackball a huge chunk of the population by making this type of claim? What audacity to call people like James Brady (the former governor who sponsored the Brady Bill to regulate automatic weapons) anti-American!

The answer lies in the knowledge that gun manufacturers realize that they are 10 feet from the firing line themselves.

More important to the gun industry than the commercial’s connection between gun safety laws and enemies of the State is the commercial’s attempt to equate gun safety laws with the complete disarmament of American citizens. This, of course, is unconstitutional, since taking guns away from citizens would prevent us from fighting against a tyrannical regime or from protecting our rights to life and personal possession.

But it is important for us as Americans not to be fooled into following the gun industry’s faulty thought process. Putting locks on triggers will not prevent us from fighting like the colonists did against the British in the late 18th century.

Keeping guns out of the hands of people who would be dangerous with them, through the use of safety courses and expanded background checks, will not prevent us, average law- abiding citizens, from protecting our bodies, our families or our stuff.

It is necessary, in order to truly protect our society from crime, that we dismiss the gun propaganda for what it is: lies.

Guns are a very potent and real force on our streets, and attempts at making them safer so that they can be used for legal forms of protection and sport is not violating any of our inalienable or American rights.

And it is because the public is coming to that realization that the gun lobby has to lob this desperate and misleading shot at Americans concerned with gun safety.

In Texas, a report recently landed a nearly crippling shot at those who argue that concealed weapons are not only safer, but highly beneficial, when the study showed that more than 3,300 violent felonies were committed by individuals who had legally obtained a concealed weapon permit in the state of Texas since only 1996. The crimes included premeditated murder, homicide, manslaughter, kidnapping, rape, assault with a deadly weapon, burglary and sexual assaults.

Texas has been widely considered the proving grounds for concealed weapons laws.

The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that a poll of high schoolers around the country found that an overwhelming majority favored gun control measures.

Nine out of 10 supported mandatory safety classes for gun purchasers, licensing of all guns and background checks.

Even more, 96 percent, supported registering weapons so they can be traced. This was probably in response to numbers the same study showed which reported that one in four of those students said that they or someone close to them had been shot in a situation outside of military combat.

So the people are getting the message. They know that they can defend themselves better against crime by taking the weapons away from criminals, instead of arming themselves and their children to the teeth.

In light of that, the gun lobby feels that they have very little going for them, especially since the President of the National Rifle Association, Charlton Heston, is currently undergoing rehab for an alcohol addiction. That could make it tough for Chuck H. to get a new gun any time soon.

Mayors across the country are suing in order to obtain equal time with the inflammatory commercial to defend the attack on the patriotism and to ease the minds of Americans everywhere that making responsible decisions about the safety of our people is far from being anti-American.