A Commentary by Doug Draper
(At least some of our readers on the Canadian side of the border may wonder why Niagara At Large is weighing in on the gun issue in the United States at a time when people in that country and around the world are mourning the murder – by rapid gunfire – of young children and their teachers in a small-town school in Connecticut.
Canada’s Harper government blows away national gun registry in deference to gun lobby.
Those readers may say it is one thing to share our prayers for the victims and their families, but what business do Canadians have addressing the issue of guns in America?
Well, for starters, there are a number of us on the Canadian side of the border who have friends and relatives who live in communities like the one in Sandy Hook, Connecticut and to that extent, searching for ways to prevent further blood baths like this is one we should all share.
At the very least, many Canadians travel across the border to shopping malls, movie theatres and other places where random gun murdering like this is now occurring far too regularly and that, at the very least, should tickle our interest.
To bringing the whole thing closer to home, our own police departments in the Greater Toronto Area have estimated that about 70 per cent of the guns now being used in violent crimes here are likely being smuggled across the border from regions in the United States where gun controls are so lax.
Finally, we have a Conservative government in Canada, headed up by Stephen Harper and supported full heartedly by his justice minister, Niagara Falls MP Rob Nicholson, who celebrated the gutting of a gun registry most police forces in Canada supported as an important crime-fighting tool. And who knows how many concessions Harper, Nicholson and company will continue to make to a lucrative gun industry in the United States and its National Rifle Association affiliates, determined to grow markets in Canada for its killing-edge weaponry in Canada.
Now let’s move on to the commentary.)
“Happiness is a warm gun.” – from a song by the late Beatle John Lennon who was gunned down in America 32 years ago this September by someone who had a record of mental illness and yet was able to purchase guns and ammo without any background checks.
Like many of us this past Friday, December 14, I turned on the television to scenes of adults with horrified looks on their faces, clutching young children near an elementary school in a sleepy little New England town in Connecticut.
Inside the school lay the bloodied, bullet-ridden bodies of 20 children ages six and seven, and seven adults, including the school’s principal and the 20 year old who, hours earlier, had blasted his way in with two fast-firing pistols and a rifle. As of the December 15 date of this writing, they are the latest in what has become a long and all-too-familiar scenario in America – a young and troubled person, armed to the teeth with weapons designed for use by police and soldiers in combat, bursting onto the property of a grade school, a college campus, a shopping mall, a temple of worship or a movie theatre and blowing away people at random.![qqUS%20Guns[1]](https://niagaraatlarge.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/qqus20guns1.jpg?w=300&h=191)
As news of this travesty unfolded on the screen, and as I heard one person after another, from reporters to people in the community, say how “shocked” they were that something like this could happen, I found myself filled with a mixture of grief for the victims and amazement at how anyone could be shocked at the possibility of this kind of slaughter occurring in the United States any more.
After all, mass killings involving troubled young men with rapid-firing guns have become an all-too-regular story in America and if U.S. President Barack Obama, who has just won a second term in office and does not have to worry about running again – doesn’t finally take advantage of this opportunity to do something about the all-too-easy access to weapons in his country that have nothing to do with hunting or target shooting, we can all look forward to turning on the television to more horror shows like the one that has occurred in Sandy Hook in the future.
“No one, no matter where they live or what they do, can be certain who next will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. Yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours. Why?”
Those words could have been spoken by President Obama at a vigil he attended in Sandy Hook this December 16. But they were the words of U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy during a statement he delivered in Cleveland, Ohio the day after civil rights leader Martin Luther King was struck down by a bullet in 1968. Two months later, he was shot to death following a speech to supporters during his presidential run.
Following those two assassinations, which occurred less than five years after President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas, there was a flurry of discussion over the need for some form of gun control in the country, but it didn’t last. The National Rifle Association, a powerful U.S. lobby group in the pockets of gun manufacturers was right there, pressing American politicians with its dollars and clout to shut the discussion for gun control down. That despite the fact that a Harris poll in the spring of 1968 showed 71 per cent of Americans were in favour of tighter controls over the sale of guns.
Tea Party queen Sarah Palin and darling of the NRA panders to extremists in the gun culture
“The success of the National Rifle Association in blocking gun controls demanded by the great majority of American people is a national scandal,” wrote Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., an American historian and former aid to John and Robert Kennedy wrote at the time.
The NRA, like a grim reaper casting its ghoulish shadow across the landscape, continues to blow its rancid gas and bluster, and have most of the congressional lawmakers in America ‘shivering in their boots’, as some of their braver, pro-gun control colleagues have charged – even after one of their own, now former U.S. congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, was shot through the brain two years ago this coming January, in a shooting spree that she barely survived but that took the lives of a number of others that came out to meet her as a representative of a state of Arizona that has among the weakest controls on gun ownership in the nation.
For decades now, the NRA has kept spewing out the same tired old crap that only someone as dead in the brain zone as Sarah Palin could believe – “It is not guns that kill people, it is people who kill people,” and most recently, ‘If more people had guns, there would be less crime like this.’ In other words, have everyone go in to the movie theatre armed, and if someone stands up and shoots, let everyone else draw their heater from their holsters and fire back. We’ll see how it works out when the gun smoke drifts away.’
There is also this rancid group’s old saw that if all guns were banned, criminals would get their hands on them anyway. And that, to some degree, is not doubt true. But why can’t we (and I say ‘we’, because we are having the same argument with gun lobbyists in Canada) try?
And why can’t we at least try keeping guns – especially fast-firing and assault weapons that have nothing to do with deer or duck hunting – out of the hands of troubled members of families who may blow others in their home away, or move on to shoot adults and children in shopping malls, schools, a public square or their place of worship randomly.
Let’s hope that this killing of young children and their teachers in Sandy Hook, Connecticut is the last draw. Let’s hope that finally leads to a much sounder and saner interpretation of the second amendment right to bear arms for the first time since Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were shot through the head more than four decades ago.
You who have been following the news on the massacre in Sandy Hook may note that the American cable channels are rightfully identifying how much some of the teachers in that tragic school behaved as heroes as they tried to protect the children in their classroom against the flying bullets. Will lawmakers in Washington, D.C. now have the courage to finally stand up against the NRA?
I want to leave you with what I believe were some powerful words stated in the hours following the massacre in Connecticut by the Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg. They just about say it all.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is one of America’s strongest voices for tougher rules on gun possession
“With all the carnage from gun violence in our country, it’s still almost impossible to believe that a mass shooting in a kindergarten class could happen. It has come to that. Not even kindergarteners learning their A,B,Cs are safe. We heard after Columbine that it was too soon to talk about gun laws. We heard it after Virginia Tech. After Tucson and Aurora and Oak Creek. And now we are hearing it again. For every day we wait, 34 more people are murdered with guns. Today, many of them were five-year olds.
“President Obama rightly sent his heartfelt condolences to the families in Newtown. But the country needs him to send a bill to Congress to fix this problem. Calling for ‘meaningful action’ is not enough. We need immediate action. We have heard all the rhetoric before. What we have not seen is leadership – not from the White House and not from Congress. That must end today. This is a national tragedy and it demands a national response. My deepest sympathies are with the families of all those affected, and my determination to stop this madness is stronger than ever.”
(Niagara At Large now invites any of you who dare to share your real and first name with your views to state them below.)
Niagara At Large 
I’m sorry but I don’t think any of them (the President, congressmen, etc.) have the courage to finally stand up against the NRA. These elected officials will wilt in the face of the all powerful gun lobby. I hope I’m wrong for the sake of all of those who have been killed by guns.
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From what I understand, it’s far too easy for Americans to get hold of assault rifles and other weapons. But where there’s a will, there’s a way, and if someone wants to, they can make a weapon out of fertilizer and motor-racing fuel. They have a serious problem down there, but I’m not sure what the cause of it is. Americans have always had guns, and apparently they’ve always had school shootings, long before the media sensationalized it. And remember Ecole Polytechnique, Concordia, Dawson College and W.R. Myers? These all happened in Canadian schools. Nor can mental illness be the cause, as some have suggested. I’m no fan of guns, but there’s something else going on here…
Is it the attitude that might makes right? If you have a problem with someone, blow them away? The U.S.A has a long dark history of this. Is it ingrained in its citizens? Religious history doesn’t help either. Someone’s on your land that God wants you to have? Slaughter them. Someone believes differently than you? Slaughter them. Someone wrongs you? You get the picture. Both Canada and the U.S. were British colonies. One got its independence peacefully, one violently. We’ve never had a “civil” war, nor have we ever invaded anybody. I don’t have the answers. Just a lot of questions…
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We Canadians , in recent times, were involved along with the United States and France in the kidnapping and exile of a duly elected (EX PRIEST) populous Leader and family to pacify the demands of the elite (whose corruption was finally controlled) in a Very poor Island country
Our RCMP Trains the police who it is stated were once basically the private vanguard of a disposed corrupt Dictator…So in essence the Canadian Hierarchy does not have clean hands and is guilty of transforming our arm services from the important and proud role they once were famous for “Peace Keeping” to a now warring role.
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Usually when this issue comes up, my first and only thought is that the Americans should have the same gun laws we have here in Canada. It doesn’t matter if its the gun or the person that does the killing. What the gun does is empower people and there’s a lot less need for having them than Americans realize.
I suppose if you really hate the Conservative party and want them to loose the next election, you could see this as an opportunity to vilify our own government. Perhaps we could be a little more honest about things however, There was his little fact about the gun registry that seems to be missing in this article.
“Auditor General Sheila Fraser reveals that the gun-registry program is more over budget than previously thought and that Parliament was ignorant of some of those escalating costs. Fraser reports that the bill for gun registration would reach $1 billion by 2005, with registration fees offsetting that by only about $140 million.
Fraser blasted the federal government, run by the LIberals at the time, for exceeding its estimated budget, saying that by the time the smoke cleared and all gun owners and their guns were registered, the program would have cost taxpayers more than $1 billion. Opposition critics were quick to point out that figure is 500 times more than the original $2-million estimate”
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2009/10/06/f-gun-registry.html
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Nobody needs a gun that fires 30 or 60 rounds a minute. The only reason the theatre shooter didn’t kill more was he had to reload and was then subdued. You can’t hunt with them because all that would be left of Bambi would be a hoof. You don’t have to pulverize a home invader. Concealed guns are ridiculous. They’re even allowed in some schools and in National Parks! Let the jerks have hunting guns, you don’t need death machines. Now they want to arm teachers. Sure, arm the kids too. They just cannot seem to see the corelation between their gun death stats and guns. Some people I have talked to in the US even deny that there is a problem and refuse to discuss it. One said the US was 4th in gun deaths after places like Thailand as if that was something to be proud of!!! To me, the refusal to help remedy the problem makes them as guilty as the shooters. Acknowledging there is a problem carries the moral responsibility to do something about it. The NRA does not want to do that. When this happens they go out and buy more guns. It’s like shi!!ing your pants after eating 10 bran muffins and drinking a gallon of prune juice and saying “Gee, I think I’ll do it again and see what happens!” One even used 9/11 as an example of mass murder not due to guns. Fewer that 3ooo were killed there. Since then over 30,000 have died by guns in the US!
This is a cultural thing. The US has always been a violent nation. They have been in a state of war for 30 of the last 60 years. Their independence was by war and they have been at war in some state for much of their history and are the most militarized nation on the planet. Presidents and crusaders have been shot. Not in Canada. Their attitude is all about personal freedom and not (like Canada and Europe) about collective cooperation for the benefit of all as is, for instance, demonstrated by their health system (I have friends who “don’t want to pay for other lazy bum’s health care” ) and the NRA and gun lovers’ insensitivity to the gun deaths. This is a major cultural difference that will be hard to reverse ie personal freedoms re general welfare.
I have been debating on care2 for days about this and some gun supporters only mention their right to bear arms and never once mentioned the victims in dozens of postings. That is absolute selfishness. Their right to bear arms which was actually the right to maintain a people’s militia 3 centuries ago and is totally irrelevant and antiquated now but contorted to suit their purpose and sadly reinforced by the judiciary and legislature under pressure from the gun lobby.
The same selfish attitude of gun ownership rights crosses into the universal health care debate. “I can afford it so screw you”. If the US spent less on its military or if the NRA would use some of its lobbying funds to promote improved mental health care fewer of these people would slip through the cracks. Is it only me that sees the irony in the fact that the mother had guns for self defence and because she liked them and yet died by those same weapons? The US is the most paranoid nation on earth. Friends who come here to their cottages tell me they relax, roll down the windows as soon as they cross the border and leave their cottages unlocked. Some of these same people have guns in the US! How awful it must be to be frightened all the time.
The NRA has refused to make a statement “until all the facts are out”. Well, here are the facts, 20 dead childre, 8 dead adults. Weapon a gun. OK, where’s your statement?
I’m afraid the cultural gun mindset will continue because it is so ingrained but I hope if anything can bring about change, this will be it. Americans are basically good folks and deserve much better. It is an odd country where gun ownership is a right but health care a privilege.
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When will those afraid of firearms wake up to the fact that preventing crazy people from doing terrible things isn’t possible?
When will those afraid of firearms wake up to the fact that the REAL problem is that ALL of the whackjob murderers were on anti-depressant medication?
When will those afraid of firearms wake up to the facts that cars don’t cause crashes, spoons don’t cause obesity, and guns don’t cause crime?
When will those afraid of firearms wake up to the fact that they’re focusing on inanimate objects instead of human behavior?
When will those afraid of firearms who keep quoting the the Kellerman study BS (guns in the home are more likely to result in the death of the homeowner) wake up to the fact that his study was so flawed Professor Kellerman lost his position when the truth came out?
When will those afraid of firearms realize that since private firearms were banned in the UK gun violence trebled, as the Brits say?
When will those afraid of firearms wake up to the fact that there are no school shootings in Israel?
When will those afraid of firearms wake up the the fact that firearm owners aren’t demanding everybody get a gun?
When will those afraid of firearms wake up to that fact that demanding everybody give up their firearms is not only irrational, but also encourages criminals?
When will those afraid of firearms realize it’s THEIR OWN FEAR that is the problem?
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When will those afraid of firearms wake up to the fact that criminals and psychotic individuals only attack in gun-free zones?
When will those afraid of firearms wake up to the fact that criminals and psychotic individuals never attack police stations or armories?
When will those afraid of firearms wake up to the fact that without gun control, no dictator would have been able to become one?
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When will those afraid of firearms wake up to the fact that without private firearm ownership, Jean Crouton would have strangled that protester who was half his size, and nobody would have been able to do anything about it?
When will those who think Canada is such a civilized country that no politician would dare to seize power… just like those who lived in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Turkey, Armenia, Russia, China, Cambodia, Viet Nam, and many more countries thought when they willingly gave up their rights to firearm ownership, in the name of public safety?
When will those afraid of firearms wake up to the fact that wealthy 1% hypocrites like Michael Bloomberg, Dianne Feinstein, Chuck Schumer, and Mario Cuomo hide behind armed bodyguards while actively working to disarm everyone else?
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Once again we see the left dancing on the graves of innocents to myopically pursue the same tired themes and failed agenda. Blah blah blah, Stephen Harper is evil, blah blah blah the gun registry was the only thing saving us from ourselves, what’s next? Oh yes, Harper “stole” the election, is selling out to big oil and the Americans (or is it the Chinese this week) and doesn’t understand what it means to be a “real” Canadian. Do you really believe you hold the patent on “Real Canadian?” With regard specifically to gun control, it’s evil wrong and seditious for the NRA to be remotely interested in what’s happening in Canada (they actually can’t spend any money – including research dollars or salaries- on anything outside the US, it’s against their constitution) but when IANSA pays for lobbying and provides salary dollars for Wendy Cukier of CGC, that’s just good organization. The constant cry that the Conservative party pays too much attention to the “gun lobby” in Canada pales in comparison to the hundreds of thousands of dollars paid directly to the CGC by previous Liberal governments for it to lobby… the Federal Government of Canada. Let’s face it, you’re just another Liberal shill hoping for a communications job if the Liberal Party of Canada ever manages to find a leader who doesn’t place both feet in his mouth at once. As far as my name goes – please be sure to spell it correctly, it’s only seven letters, you should be able to manage that.
Ian Dodd
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Doug Draper, how do you feel about spending a day in prison with lunatics like Lanza Breivik or Holmes? They dont have guns there…would you feel comfortable? IDo you honestly believe that child murderers and someone who can kill and step over his mothers dead body was disturbed because of the presence of guns? Give your head a shake! You wouldnt be caught dead with the likes of these monsters even with a gun in your hand for protection knowing who and what they are capable of!
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Must every tragic mass shooting bring out the shrill ignorance of “gun control” advocates?
The key fallacy of so-called gun control laws is that such laws do not in fact control guns. They simply disarm law-abiding citizens, while people bent on violence find firearms readily available.
The most poignant factor in the Sandy Hook massacre was that the murderer was unstopable; only someone else with a gun could stop him. The carnage would have been just as high is he had used any modern repeating firearm.
As with the Sandy Hook elementary school, Canadians are permitted to lock their doors, but forbidden to sensibly prepare for use of force should a criminal break in. This policy facilitates the occurrence of many rapes and murders, and it comes from politicians who often are cocooned with as many guns, and gunfighters, as they wish. The progressives have taken us back to the times of kings and serfs.
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All anybody has to do here is look at the stats comparing countries with and without gun restrictions. Harder to kill somebody with a pointy stick.
PS now let’s arm firemen since a few got blown away. Sure it was by a criminal, duh! He murdered his grandmother. Why was he not in prison for life? The US is a violent nation. End of story.
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To paraphrase your own question aboive, why must every sensible advocate for better (not more) gun control be treated as ignorant by those who keep themselves armed? If the NRA’s (and your’s John) plan to arm every guard in every school are you willing to pay the price?. Suppose you’re a new teacher reporting to your school? You try to get in and cannot, the guard investigates and finds you’re not on his list, does he a) shoot you, b) pull his weapon and threaten you to make you leave/ or c) puts the school in lockdown until you leave? If you want to take the risk, I do not and would much rather prefer to have tighter restrictions on who may obtain a firearm licence and no one, absolutely no one needs an AK47 or Sig Sauer for hunting purposes
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Your look at the stats is superficial at best. There are numerous countries, such as Mexico and Jamaica with the strictest bans on guns and much gun violence. If all the guns were magically removed from the US, it would still have relatively high murder rates because it is a relatively more violent society.
The oldest continuing company in the history of the world is Beretta, an Italian gun manufacturer. Do you think these gun companies started up because robbers and wife beaters were clamouring for better weapons? They came into existence because good people didn’t want to be dominated by the strongest brute, or gang of brutes, that decided to prey on them.
It’s harder to kill someone with a pointy stick, and it’s just as hard to defend yourself with just a pointy stick, especially if you are small, weak, old or infirm.
Another thing you don’t seem to be aware of is the degree to which you are deliberately lied to and the extent of the demagoguery and invective being heaped on the innocent. The above article is dripping with such, it would take pages to point out all the falsehoods, but just let me point out one glaring example. The author goes on about the power of the gun lobby by citing how nothing came from the political assassinations of the 60’s. Yet there was major federal legislation passed, the Gun Control Act of 1968, on Oct.22 of that year. The US has over 20,000 gun laws. Why did the author deceive you? He needs the public to be gun ignorant and gun law ignorant the way a car needs gasoline.
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Holy cow…the ignorance actually hurts.
The three top massacres in history…only ONE involved guns….but all involved psych problems. Go ahead, wave a wand and make all guns disappear…..then wonder why people are still dying.
OR
Focus on the hard problem (which politicians HATE to do) and work on the ONE commonality in ALL massacres: mental health… And actually make a difference.
Do you guys blame te car or the alcohol for the thousands (yes THOUSANDS!) of drunk diving deaths? Or do you think that maybe….cuts maaaaaybe it *might* be the driver?
Wow.
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Tragedies like this make people want to *do something*. Banning guns fits well with this need, on the surface it seems like a noble flag to wave — but it’s a knee-jerk reaction, and poorly thought out.
Why? Because guns exist and they’re here to stay. There is no technological magic behind their manufacture, unlike a cell-phone or an iPod. Someone could conceivably go to Canadian Tire, buy some steel pipe and various readily available items and build a working firearm in their garage. You cannot ban centuries-old technology. There are over 300 million guns floating around in the US… so let’s *accept* that guns exist, and that they exist in large numbers, and they will always exist in the foreseeable future.
So, given that they exist in large numbers — and along with that fact we must accept that bad people will get their hands on them whether we like it or not — then it makes absolute sense to allow good people to own them too, otherwise they become exclusive to bad people (“good people” means no criminal record, pass various tests and checks, and are licensed) .
Overly-restrictive gun control means that the non-law-abiding criminal has no one to counter him, because by definition only the good people will adhere to those restrictive laws.
It is always in the gun-free zones that the murderous bad guy can shoot unchallenged, where victims die like fish in a barrel without the ability to fight back.
Anti-gunners talk about gun owners not “needing” this or that firearm.
Two responses: first, if we only had permission to own what we needed, then we’d only have bread, water and maybe a change of clothes. In a free country, one individual should not propose to know much less dictate the needs of another.
Second, to maintain our freedom against potentially oppressive or tyrannical governments, we do in fact need to maintain our arms.
Remember that for our southern neighbours the 2nd Amendment was *not* put in place to simply facilitate the arming of an antiquated militia as some uninformed anti-gun people might argue.
It was put in place to insure against an oppressive government. An armed populace or militia would be the best guarantee of preventing a tyrant from assuming power, and this is what the founding fathers had in mind, and this is well-documented in various historical letters.
Furthermore, the type of firearms to this end would by necessity have to match those of the modern government’s army. So if the armed forces under a tyrant’s control had AR-15’s, then so should the free people defending their democracy.
The first thing any dictator has always done historically was to disarm the people. As American founding fathers wrote, the best distinguishing characteristic between a free man and a slave is the right to bear arms.
If all that comes with a price, then so be it. Our job now is not to moan about it, or to undo the constitutional safeguards that ensure freedom from oppression, but rather to deal with the deranged killers by stopping them, using lethal force if need be.
The anti-gunners are oblivious to this most important facet of the 2nd Amendment. They should be thanking every gun owner for protecting their liberal freedoms from potential tyranny.
If they don’t want to give thanks, then at least stop getting in the way.
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These are all interesting points, and I certainly don’t have all the answers. People have argued that deranged would be killers won’t go to places where there is armed opposition. But Virginia Tech HAD armed guards, yet remains the USA’s worst mass shooting. Let’s say that it’s true though, that armed security guards in schools would deter mass shootings. Wouldn’t potential killers seek out other places to do harm, like buses, trains, libraries, theaters, day-care centers, churches, funerals, shopping malls, grocery stores, etc.? Is the solution to have armed guards on every street corner and every public building in America?
And what if the founding fathers were wrong about the 2nd Amendment? They were, after all, just men, and not infallible. Could they have foreseen AR-15 assault rifles in the hands of common citizens? Is it just a coincidence that the United States has the highest rate of gun related injuries of all developed countries? By keeping guns to prevent a government from being too oppressive, children are being slaughtered at schools and everyday citizens live in fear. The US is sounding more and more like a third world country war zone. Maybe there’s a better way.
Just a few of the gun-related incidents that took place Christmas Day:
12/25 – Oakland parishioner struck by stray bullet from shooting outside church. The Christmas Eve gunfire wounded a 17-year-old male outside the church. Inside, a 38-year-old woman was struck by a stray bullet while shielding her 7-year-old twins.
12/25 – 1 dead, 1 critically in Pasadena shooting
12/25 – Billings Montana shooting leaves 1 dead, man arrested
12/25 – A man was shot and killed by a woman while three children were in the upstairs apartment of a Grand Rapids house.
12/25 – A 25-year-old man was shot and seriously wounded this afternoon in the Hermosa (Chicago) neighborhood on the Northwest Side.
12/25 – MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Memphis police say a 10-year-old boy has died from what they believe was an accidental shooting.
12/25 – Pregnant woman, boyfriend injured in drive-by shooting in Boynton Beach, FL
12/25 – TABOR CITY – Lawmen are investigating two unrelated shooting deaths that happened less than 24 hours apart near Tabor City. (NC)
12/25 – 1 killed, 1 hurt in Christmas Day Westwood shooting (Cincinnati)
12/25 – Fatal Shooting Christmas Night in Norristown (PA)
12/25 – Bed/Stuy – Police Looking for 3 Men in Shooting, Kidnapping and Robbery on Jefferson St
12/25 – Amarillo police are investigating a Tuesday morning shooting that left one man dead (Texas)
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You don’t seem to have considered the details relevant to the points you are making. First, the murderer at Virginia Tech was a student there and would have been aware of how many armed guards there were, how they were deployed, and how much time he would have before they got to him. It is a large campus with many buildings. What he was assured of was that the people he specifically set out to murder could not shoot back, and that he would be unstoppable until someone with a gun showed up.
Obviously, society can’t afford to have hundreds of thousands of armed guards to occupy all public spaces. But there is a solution, it’s been adopted and is proving successful. It’s issuing qualified citizens permits to carry concealed handguns. The left will always counter this proposal by saying how hundreds will be pulling out guns and shooting in panic, making the situation far worse. The truth is that only a small percentage of eligible citizens get carry permits, usually 3% to 5%. Furthermore, that is all that is needed.
This is because it is the deterrent effect, not any feat of arms in a real gunfight situation, that is the big life saver. Criminals are much more reluctant to prey on victims when they know it might be the last act of their lives. I don’t know what present statistics are, but about 15 years ago I read that 25% of all NYC police shootings involved police who were off duty, wearing civilian clothes but carrying their duty handguns. It seems to reason the criminals involved assumed everyone in the area was a civilian and thus defenseless.
Another point is that those who choose to get carry permits are very likely to be recreational shooters and have a high degree of gun handling competence, usually better than the average constable. There is also the fact that even in a justifiable shooting situation, the good guy is placing him or herself in grave judical jeopardy, and may face a nightmare of post-incident litigation.
As for your points on the 2nd Amendment, the evidence is completely against you. While the left bemoan the “ambiguity” of the 2nd, the papers of the people who wrote it are unmistakenly clear. How does the Sandy Hook school murderer (you notice I didn’t use a name) stack up against Pol Pot, Idi Amin or Mao.
The following is a link to an article which explains rather eloquently how it is you are wrong about the 2nd. Amendment.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/lawrencehunter/2012/12/28/gun-control-tramples-on-the-certain-virtues-of-a-heavily-armed-citizenry/
As for the shootings and gun deaths at the end of your comment, how many were drug related, how many criminal on criminal or by people banned from having guns? America is a violent society, with or without guns. In the US, for every life illegally taken with a gun, 60 are saved.
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Good points John…
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