Mass Shootings & Terrorist Attacks are increasingly common... but what is the answer?
Wiki:: On June 12, 2016, a mass shooting terrorist attack and hate crime occurred inside Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, United States. Fifty people died, including the gunman, who was killed by Orlando police after a three-hour standoff. An additional 53 people were injured.
In the past decades these types of mass attacks are on the rise. Not just from Islamic Terrorists, but from disaffected students, and discouraged employees "Going Postal".
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| Amy Truter | Gun Control |
More Gun Control?
People wanting to cause damage and dangerous situations need not use guns. On February 18, 2010, Andrew Joseph Stack III deliberately crashed his single-engine Piper Dakota light aircraft into and IRS building in Austin Texas. On April 19, 1995. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols set off a bomb and destroyed one-third of a Federal office building.
In these instances an armed citizen would not have been able to prevent the attack, because they would not have known about the attack to stop it.
Still... guns are the most common form of mass attack. They are the easiest to wield (no learning bomb techniques, just point and shoot).
So would stricter gun laws help?
California has some of the (if not the) toughest Gun Laws in the US, and yet the San Bernardino shooters brought legally obtained weapons to their mass shooting.
Imagine, for a moment, that you are a deranged psychopath; and you are determined to kill lots of people.
Where would you go?
To a biker bar full of armed Hell's Angels biker gang members?
No.
You'd go to a place where your victims cannot shoot back. These are called "Gun Free Zones", such as schools, federal offices, and private businesses with no-gun rules, etc.
- "Gun Free Zone" actually means "Victim is Defenseless Zone"
The safest place to be is a place where multiple people around you are carrying weapons, and you don't know which ones.
Government vs We The People
Common Sense says that we should not put dangerous things into the hands of people who cannot wield it responsibly.
We should not allow an 11 year old to buy alcohol, he/she is not ready for it yet.
Likewise, we may need to admit that some type of process could be helpful in determining who should be able to own a weapon. Should an 11 year old be able to buy one without a parent's involvement? I think not.
Aside from a few common sense things, like age restrictions, do we need more? What's the purpose of gun ownership anyway?
Freedom FROM the government, is the most important part of our Constitutional rights.
The right to bear arms has nothing to do with hunting, sports, or collectors activities. The Right to Bear Arms was established to keep the Government from forcing you out of your home and murdering you. As often happened just prior the founding the USA.... and still happens in some other countries today (Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc...),
This is the PRIMARY reason for the 2nd Amendment:
The people of the United States of America should be armed and ready to defend themselves from the Military of the United States of America.
That means any and all weapons used by the Military should be allowed in the hands of the people. Tanks, Automatic Weapons, Rocket Launchers, all of it.
Would you want a gun if you were a Jew in 1940's Germany?
Politifact (here) demonstrates that Nazi Germany actually loosened gun laws for ordinary citizens, but seized weapons from Jews, Political Enemies, and "Unreliable Persons".
They conclude that German Citizens could have stopped the Nazi's (as most were armed) but they chose not to because the Nazi's enjoyed great support.
But Politifact draws the wrong conclusion.
It was the very fact that ANY citizen was disarmed that allowed the Holocaust to happen. If Jews and Enemies of the States were not disarmed, the Nazi's would have had a harder time. The very fact that anyone was disarmed is always problem when it comes to preventing Tyranny.
Armed Citizens Prevent and Stop Attacks
Shockingly, the Washington Post actually put out a decent article (for once), citing several examples of citizens stopping mass shootings by being armed with concealed weapons (here).
When it comes to Mass Shootings... there is only ONE answer to stopping them.
The victims must shoot back.
- Prevention: The shooter is likely to pick a different target, or not go at all, if he knows the victims will shoot back.
- Stopping the Attack: A determined shooter will go anyway. The amount of damage he causes will be determined by how quickly he is stopped. Only if multiple people in the room are armed and shoot back, will it stop quickly. You do not have time to wait for "police", he must be stopped in seconds not minutes.
Here's my new Smoky the Bear slogan:
"Only YOU can stop a mass shooting... are you armed and ready?"
- Thoughts? Agree? Disagree? Comment .
Darrell
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