Each time there is a tragic shooting, including an incident Friday at an elementary school in Connecticut and another Tuesday at an Oregon mall, you can count on two things.
One is the shock and outrage over the fact someone would dare prey on innocent victims in public venues near and dear to Americans’ hearts: places where we go to school and shop, in the case of the latest tragedies. This response is certainly in order, given that more than 20 people might have died senselessly in Friday’s shooting and three in Oregon, including the shooters at both locations.
The other thing you can count on — not as welcome, in my book — is that gun-control advocates will come out of the woodwork even before the smoke has cleared and use the latest catastrophe as political fodder to further their goals.
On the surface, they always seem to target assault rifles or weapons that hold large numbers of rounds. But there is an undercurrent that makes you believe that if the staunchest gun-control advocates had their way, no one would be allowed to own any firearms whatsoever.
Certainly none of us like to see these violent events occur, particularly during the Christmas season. Even sadder is the fact they happen so frequently nowadays we have come to lose count of them. Plus, there is the feeling in the back of everyone’s mind that at any given time they are out in public, another madman might strike.
However, would outlawing guns prevent such incidents, or allay our fears?
I will answer that question with another one: Did Prohibition keep people from drinking alcohol?
Not only did Prohibition fail in preventing liquor consumption or the harm it can cause, it also created a set of new problems even worse. First and foremost was the birth of organized crime and all the murder and mayhem that has resulted from it to this day.
Just as making drugs illegal hasn’t kept them off the streets, outlawing guns would not prevent the possession of them as well. People would simply get weapons through black-market channels.
As is the case with most anything else, tighter gun regulations would affect only the law-abiding citizens in making it harder for them to own firearms for legitimate reasons including self defense.
Study after study has shown that gun ownership lessens violent crime rather than increases it, as those in favor of more regulation would have you believe.
One such analysis in Colorado was based on news stories published between October 2003 and November 2011 in the wake of that state passing a concealed-carry law in 2003.
In response to that provision, Colorado State University opted to allow concealed weapons on its campus, while the University of Colorado prohibited firearms. Colorado State subsequently experienced a rapid decline in reported crimes, while crime at the latter did just the opposite. Since 2004, incidents there rose 35 percent at the same time they fell by 60 percent at Colorado State.
Not only do those figures indicate that guns don’t undermine safety, they would seem to promote the aim of safety since thugs are less likely to victimize someone they think might be armed.
It almost goes without saying that persons with a criminal mindset inherently do not obey laws. So more gun regulations would seem to have no effect on those people, who simply would find other ways to secure weapons. Meanwhile, good folks would be deprived of a means to protect themselves against the bad.
The anti-gun forces are additionally misguided in targeting the tools that someone uses to cause mayhem rather than the human behavior that’s responsible. Along with shooting rampages, there have been well-publicized cases of people driving cars into crowds and causing deaths, but I haven’t seen anyone call for a ban on motor vehicles in response to that.
Persons who have a desire to harm others will find some way to do so. In the days of cavemen, clubs were used and later on came knives and swords and bows and arrows. Now it’s weapons of the powder and lead variety, but in the future ray guns or lasers probably will be employed.
Rather than focusing on guns, and restricting law-abiding Americans who own them responsibly, why not concentrate on some of the societal ills that promote violent acts?
One is the deplorable justice system that recycles violence criminals in and out of prison, which we see all the time in Surry County with the same people committing crimes again and again. Why not lock up some of these individuals until we’re sure they won’t cause further problems, or until they’re too old to do so — whichever comes first?
And while there’s no excuse for someone murdering another, I would think that the decline of the family, the deterioration of our educational system and general moral decay also is to blame for the recent rash of gun violence.
But the solution is definitely not more anti-gun legislation, so lawmakers should look elsewhere for the answer.
Tom Joyce is a staff reporter for The Mount Airy News. He can be reached at 719-1924 or tjoyce@heartlandpublications.com.
Luckily, some years ago, two famed economists, William Landes at the University of Chicago and John Lott at Yale, conducted a massive study of multiple victim public shootings in the United States between 1977 and 1995 to see how various legal changes affected their frequency and death toll.
Landes and Lott examined many of the very policies being proposed right now in response to the Connecticut massacre: waiting periods and background checks for guns, the death penalty and increased penalties for committing a crime with a gun.
None of these policies had any effect on the frequency of, or carnage from, multiple-victim shootings. (I note that they did not look at reforming our lax mental health laws, presumably because the ACLU is working to keep dangerous nuts on the street in all 50 states.)
Only one public policy has ever been shown to reduce the death rate from such crimes: concealed-carry laws.
The effect of concealed-carry laws in deterring mass public shootings was even greater than the impact of such laws on the murder rate generally.
Someone planning to commit a single murder in a concealed-carry state only has to weigh the odds of one person being armed. But a criminal planning to commit murder in a public place has to worry that anyone in the entire area might have a gun.
You will notice that most multiple-victim shootings occur in “gun-free zones” — even within states that have concealed-carry laws: public schools, churches, Sikh temples, post offices, the movie theater where James Holmes committed mass murder, and the Portland, Ore., mall where a nut starting gunning down shoppers a few weeks ago.
Guns were banned in all these places. Mass killers may be crazy, but they’re not stupid.
If the deterrent effect of concealed-carry laws seems surprising to you, that’s because the media hide stories of armed citizens stopping mass shooters. At the Portland shooting, for example, no explanation was given for the amazing fact that the assailant managed to kill only two people in the mall during the busy Christmas season.
It turns out, concealed-carry-holder Nick Meli hadn’t noticed that the mall was a gun-free zone. He pointed his (otherwise legal) gun at the shooter as he paused to reload, and the next shot was the attempted mass murderer killing himself. (Meli aimed, but didn’t shoot, because there were bystanders behind the shooter.)
In a nonsense “study” going around the Internet right now, Mother Jones magazine claims to have produced its own study of all public shootings in the last 30 years and concludes: “In not a single case was the killing stopped by a civilian using a gun.”
This will come as a shock to people who know something about the subject.
The magazine reaches its conclusion by simply excluding all cases where an armed civilian stopped the shooter: They looked only at public shootings where four or more people were killed, i.e., the ones where the shooter wasn’t stopped.
If we care about reducing the number of people killed in mass shootings, shouldn’t we pay particular attention to the cases where the aspiring mass murderer was prevented from getting off more than a couple rounds?
It would be like testing the effectiveness of weed killers, but refusing to consider any cases where the weeds died.
In addition to the Portland mall case, here are a few more examples excluded by the Mother Jones methodology:
– Mayan Palace Theater, San Antonio, Texas, this week: Jesus Manuel Garcia shoots at a movie theater, a police car and bystanders from the nearby China Garden restaurant; as he enters the movie theater, guns blazing, an armed off-duty cop shoots Garcia four times, stopping the attack. Total dead: Zero.
– Winnemucca, Nev., 2008: Ernesto Villagomez opens fire in a crowded restaurant; concealed carry permit-holder shoots him dead. Total dead: Two. (I’m excluding the shooters’ deaths in these examples.)
– Appalachian School of Law, 2002: Crazed immigrant shoots the dean and a professor, then begins shooting students; as he goes for more ammunition, two armed students point their guns at him, allowing a third to tackle him. Total dead: Three.
– Santee, Calif., 2001: Student begins shooting his classmates — as well as the “trained campus supervisor”; an off-duty cop who happened to be bringing his daughter to school that day points his gun at the shooter, holding him until more police arrive. Total dead: Two.
– Pearl High School, Mississippi, 1997: After shooting several people at his high school, student heads for the junior high school; assistant principal Joel Myrick retrieves a .45 pistol from his car and points it at the gunman’s head, ending the murder spree. Total dead: Two.
– Edinboro, Pa., 1998: A student shoots up a junior high school dance being held at a restaurant; restaurant owner pulls out his shotgun and stops the gunman. Total dead: One.
By contrast, the shootings in gun-free zones invariably result in far higher casualty figures — Sikh temple, Oak Creek, Wis. (six dead); Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va. (32 dead); Columbine High School, Columbine, Colo. (12 dead); Amish school, Lancaster County, Pa. (five little girls killed); public school, Craighead County, Ark. (five killed, including four little girls).
All these took place in gun-free zones, resulting in lots of people getting killed — and thereby warranting inclusion in the Mother Jones study.
If what we care about is saving the lives of innocent human beings by reducing the number of mass public shootings and the deaths they cause, only one policy has ever been shown to work: concealed-carry laws. On the other hand, if what we care about is self-indulgent grandstanding, and to hell with dozens of innocent children being murdered in cold blood, try the other policies.
Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that’s it.
In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.
When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gangbanger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.
There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we’d be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger’s potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat–it has no validity when most of a mugger’s potential marks are armed. People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that’s the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.
Then there’s the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser. People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don’t constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level. The gun is the only weapon that’s as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weightlifter. It simply wouldn’t work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn’t both lethal and easily employable.
When I carry a gun, I don’t do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I’m looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don’t carry it because I’m afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn’t limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation…and that’s why carrying a gun is a civilized act.
To steal some of your words:
Rather than focusing on drugs, and restricting would be-law-abiding Americans who use them responsibly, why not concentrate on some of the societal ills that promote drug addiction?
The anti-drug forces are additionally misguided in targeting the tools that someone uses to cause mayhem rather than the human behavior that’s responsible.
Regardless of the event, regardless of the tragedy, right-wingers continue to amaze by looking no further that the bathroom mirror.
You are brain damaged.
I work in the gun business. I have coached many women as they fired a gun for the first time in my store’s gun range. I have also sold a lot of them their first firearms. Their primary reason for deciding to purchase a gun is usually the same: they don’t want to be easy targets. It is sadly ironic that Nancy Lanza was killed by her own son with her own firearms, but it doesn’t change the fact that guns are used defensively millions of times a year according to a widely cited study conducted by Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck. Nancy’s situation was anomalous.
I have become acquainted with many women who protected themselves and their households with a legally owned firearm. Just a couple of weeks ago a would-be home invader tried to break into the home of a young housewife I know. She yelled at the man and told him to go away, but he completely ignored her. His pants were around his ankles and her daughter was sleeping in the other room. Her husband was also asleep and did not hear her screaming. She fetched her nine millimeter handgun and pointed it at the perpetrator through a window. The man quickly fled and was later caught by the police. The moral of the story is that it is unwise to threaten a mother and her children when she is holding a Glock.
The Newtown massacre is a horrific and unusual counterexample of that situation. All of the victims were unarmed women and young children. This is the kind of situation that sickos like Adam Lanza usually look for. They want easy targets and high body counts. Texas Governor Rick Perry pointed this out when he suggested allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons. Perhaps this solution is too extreme for a majority of Americans, but I personally wouldn’t have a problem with it. It wouldn’t have helped Nancy very much, but it might have saved the lives of many of Adam’s other victims. At the very least I would argue that placing more armed security guards or police officers in schools across the country might be a step in the right direction.
Like most murderers, Adam Lanza was a man. In fact, most violent crimes are perpetrated by men. That means women involved in violent crimes are, of course, usually victims. Unfortunately, women are more often than not at a natural disadvantage in physical confrontations with men. Fair or not, it is the truth. Nevertheless, the playing field is quickly leveled when a woman pulls a concealed handgun out of her purse and points it at her would be attacker in self-defense. It is a very effective way to turn the tables, and it at least means an even fight if the attacker is also armed.
I am confident that almost everyone reading this knows at least one woman who has been the victim of a violent crime (i.e. assault, battery, rape, murder, etc.). Women who survive violent crimes are often left with heavily damaged psyches, and aggregately this undermines efforts to create any kind of social equality between the sexes. Guns empower women with the ability to defend themselves against violent attacks, which is why the right to bear arms is a critical women’s rights issue. Sadly, there are still too few American women out there who realize this. In many countries around the world women are brutalized and sometimes even murdered with near impunity on a daily basis. I wish every single one of those poor women could shoot their attackers dead, but they don’t have a “Second Amendment” which makes that possible.
If the headlines are any indication, single women are uniquely at risk of becoming targets for would be attackers. Their assailants often include jealous ex-boyfriends, creepy strangers in bars, stalking coworkers, and the like. A beautiful, intelligent single lady named Heather recently informed me that she decided to purchase a firearm from my store after her ex-boyfriend began stalking her, even after she’d applied for a restraining order. He followed her home one evening and accosted her as she was trying to enter her apartment. Heather barely managed to ward him off with a knife, get inside, lock the door and call the police. He was gone by the time they arrived. The news is chock-full of stories like this that didn’t end quite so fortunately. Personally, I am elated that Heather is now a gun owner.
Liberals deride conservatives for waging an imaginary “war on women” that is centered mostly around access to free birth control and abortion services. That is, to quote Vice President Biden, a bunch of “malarkey.” Conservative men do in fact care deeply about women, especially when it comes to their safety, and certainly believe they should be empowered. I know this is true every time I see a loving husband, boyfriend, father or brother bring his wife, girlfriend, daughter or sister to my gun store to obtain a concealed carry permit or buy a gun. I know this is true every time a female shooter smiles at me when, after heeding my patient tutelage, one of her bullets rips through the bullseye of a paper target for the first time. If you ask me, liberals seem to care more about evading the potential responsibilities of parenthood than empowering or protecting women.
Banning rifles with certain features, which is by itself a feckless endeavor, will likely be the first of many steps the left will attempt in order to gradually implement a de facto ban on firearms in the United States. Liberals make little effort to hide their intent to accomplish this. One need only look at gun laws in liberal bastions like Chicago or New York City, places which have no shortage of violent crimes involving guns despite comprehensive restrictions on gun ownership, to see what their ultimate goal is. In the end this leaves American women at the mercy of an overburdened criminal justice system instead of empowering them to defend themselves and their children with firearms that they are constitutionally entitled to own. Politicians in Washington have all the armed security they will ever need thanks to taxpayers. Most women in this country can’t afford such a luxury.