Countdown

19 April, 2007

More gun laws are not the answer

Given the recent events in Blacksburg, VA this week, one might be quick to say that we need more laws to control the possession and use of firearms in this country.

Without turning this into a 2nd Amendment discussion, I would have to whole-heartedly disagree.

Anyone who says otherwise either hasn't thought it through, is just plain ignorant.

First of all, do you think that Cho Seung-Hui was concerned with the law when he gunned down 30+ people on campus Monday?

Would another law have prevented the tragedy? In a word, 'No'.

Sure, it may have slowed him down, but as hell-bent on destruction as he was, he would have found a way to secure weapons to fulfill his manifesto.

If the gun dealer had not legally sold him guns, he could have gone to many urban street corners to pick up a Saturday night special, or he could have gone into a garden center, and picked up a bag of ammonium nitrate and a Ryder truck like Timothy McVeigh did 12 years ago today.

Despite your stand on the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, the more restrictions the government places on it's law-abiding citizens, the less protected the citizens become.

One thing that I don't hear being mentioned is the comparison to the shooting in Trolley Square in Salt Lake City two months ago. No one has stopped to say how much worse that tragedy could or would have been, had Kenneth Hammond (an off duty police officer) not been there with his legally registered hand gun, how many more innocent lives would have Sulejman Talovic taken if he wasn't stopped by a citizen with a gun?

Let's apply that hypothetical to the Va. Tech. scenario. If one of the students in the engineering building (or in the dorm for that matter) had been allowed to carry a gun, how many of those 30 people killed would still be alive? Given this, one could hypothesize that gun laws exaggerated the casualties.

In full disclosure, I am a member of the NRA, and a gun owner.

As always, I welcome, and invite your thoughts and comments.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Good for people to know.