Gun control? Maybe we all should be rootin’ and tootin’
April 21, 2007, 3:39 pm |
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By Andrew L. Jaffee
I’m not exactly NRA, but I certainly support the Second Amendment. Sure, look at what a madman did at VA Tech. But our urban centers are filled with out-of-control neighborhoods where dawgs are constantly tagin’ each other (so much for our welfare patronage). You know how many shootin’s we have per day in my hometown? Wanna spend a warm summer night listening to the gun-shots? Ya’ think the thugs get their guns legally? Normal citizens need to be able to protect themselves, their friends and families. And what if Islamo-fascists take root in some part of the country? Here’s a righteous elder who has no problem with the Second Amendment — she “sold war bonds and her picture was adorned on a B-17 that made missions over Germany in World War II:”
Miss America 1944 has a talent that likely has never appeared on a beauty pageant stage: She fired a handgun to shoot out a vehicle’s tires and stop an intruder.
Venus Ramey, 82, confronted a man on her farm in south-central Kentucky last week after she saw her dog run into a storage building where thieves had previously made off with old farm equipment. Continues below…
Ramey said the man told her he would leave. “I said, ‘Oh, no you won’t,’ and I shot their tires so they couldn’t leave,” Ramey said.
She had to balance on her walker as she pulled out a snub-nosed .38-caliber handgun.
“I didn’t even think twice. I just went and did it,” she said. “If they’d even dared come close to me, they’d be 6 feet under by now.”
Ramey then flagged down a passing motorist, who called 911. …
Full Virginia Tech/Cho Seung-Hui Coverage:
- Thinking too much about Ismail Ax
- Virginia Tech: Mendacity!
- Virginia Tech and Adolescence
- Lessons from Virginia Tech: We Had Better Learn Them
- Ideas for Virginia Tech killer Cho Seung-Hui
- The true measure of a man
- When PR supersedes safety
- Hollywood hasn’t raised concerns?
Related: Society, Virginia Tech Shooting
April 21st, 2007 at 3:52 pm
My sentiments exacltly. If a couple of the teachers and or students who were legally licensed to carry a concealed weapon had their’s with them, maybe only 1 or 2 people would have died before the gunmen could have been stopped.
April 21st, 2007 at 3:58 pm
I saw an interview with an ex-CIA dude who said the easiet marks for Cho were the people who turned and ran. He said those most likely to survive in such a dire situation were those who actively did something. On the other hand, there are those who died so that others would live. One can only admire this:
April 23rd, 2007 at 8:46 am
The argument against gun control in the U.S. quite apart from a constitutional amendment interpreted tomean everyone has as much right to own guns as to breath is that people are entitled to have protection from criminals or people such as the Virginia Tech murderer.
Those who say that had the Virginia students been packing, Cho would not have chosen to vent his anger through the barrel of a gun or that he would have been blown away before he had a chance to make the body count more then several, engage in a facile fallacious argument.
Cho virtually obtained his guns for the asking.
Gun control laws that put people through a far more rigourous investigation into their backgrounds at their own expense before a gun permit is granted could keep some of the crazies and potential crazies who could use the gun to kill and injure people from bothering to apply or could detect and deny those who do.
The potential for reducing risks and increasing the chances that some lives would be spared is good reason to consider gun control laws that make it far more difficult to get a gun permit.
Gun shows should be monitored and those who wish to sell and to purchase guns there should be subjected to rigorous background checks. Guns whose only purpose is to kill people should be banned.
Again, gun control laws should be aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of the crazies and thus contribute to the public good. Any success in that regard would make alleged infringment on the peoples’ right to bear arms a justifiable infringment.
The alternative of course is to encourage all Americans to have and to carry guns on their persons at all times and to adopt as on of their life’s mottos “be prepared”.
April 23rd, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Who’s advocating “encourag[ing] all Americans to have and to carry guns on their persons at all times?” The U.S. already has a 7-day waiting/investigative period for gun purchases — granted with some glaring loopholes.
The point of my article is that “gun control” is not the answer. Guns don’t jump into people’s hands and force them to do anything. Conversely, their availability certainly makes it easier to commit violent crimes.
My point is that our welfare state has created an out-of-control class of people who solve their problems violently. The Left is not willing to take this issue on. They ascribe violence to poverty and discrimination. The problem in reality is a class of people who have no parents and believe they can do no wrong, because it is always someone else’s fault.
You come and live in my town. Listen to the gun-shots on a warm summer night. Gun-shots fired by people who have obtained their weapons illegally. Then tell me I can’t protect myself and my family.
Eliminating the chance of all crazies getting guns is unrealistic. Look at the recent Montreal, Canada shooting, where “One woman was shot to death and 19 people were injured, at least six of them critically.” What happened to Canada’s gun laws? What happened to gun law’s in Germany, Japan, Yemen, and Scotland?:
April 23rd, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Obviously no amount of government anti-handgun legislation and regulation is alone going to keep people from acquiring guns legally and illegally and using them for illegal purposes.
Your pointing to the shooting spree in Montreal last year that saw 1 killed and 19 injured is no evidence to suggest that Canadian anti-hand gun legislation and regulation are unwarranted.
In Canada and Britain which do not allow the purchase of handguns except within strictly defined limits and purposes, the number of violent crimes committed by using handguns is less per capital then in the States, if my recollection of statistics is correct.
A recent article published in Reason magazine noted that while use of handguns in commission of crimes was down in Britain, British crime was growing and the suggestion was that there was more overall crime per capital in Britain then in the U.S.
I suspect that most of those who do acquire guns legally have no illegal motives at that time of obtaining those guns. Things happen that give people reason (in most cases reasons that are no good or just insane) to use those guns for an illegal purpose.
Several years ago, you may recall a story, I think out of Texas, about a young Korean male who was not fluent in English was out for Halloween. A homeowner for some bizzare reason claimed he felt the fellow in costume somehow posed a threat to him. He took his shotgun to the door and blew the fellow away. I think the fellow’s defence of self defence from a perceived threat shockingly carried the day.
In my view, making hand guns far less available legally, prohibiting the sale of any automatic weapon or weapon that can easily be modified to become automatic, making penalties stiffer when a handgun is unlawfully used, etc. etc. would have the potential to ultimately have the effect of making American streets safer.
I find specious all arguments that guns do not kill, people do and that imposing strict gun controls will not keep those intent on having guns to kill and injure people from somehow getting them.
The question America needs to address is how is America to lessen the chances of crazies like Cho or people under extreme stress from whatever resorting to finding and usuing guns to kill and harm others to satisfy their perverse way of thinking.
Gun control alone is not the answer. There have to be other efforts at identifying potential killers and education of the public to change attitudes tried in conjunction with gun control.
The goal should be to make America safer. It will take time to determine whether such efforts do make America safer.
Whether it will or not cannot be determined by a bunch of egghead statisticians, social scientists and the like sitting around their computers to monkey around with various models of behavior and the like.
The measures have to be put in place and time must be allowed for determining whether such measures work in the real world.
April 23rd, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Who said “that Canadian anti-hand gun legislation and regulation are unwarranted?”
April 23rd, 2007 at 2:45 pm
You didn’t.
My point was to counter yours against “gun control”. In my view the measures I advocate are an answer to be tried that requires patience to wait and see whether the desired result has been achieved.
Your statement “The U.S. already has a 7-day waiting/investigative period for gun purchases — granted with some glaring loopholes.” is one American effort at gun control, so the concept is not entirely foreign to Americans.
I am advocating however far more rigorous restrictions and qualifications for persons to purchase hand guns and automatic weapons or weapons that can be modified to be automatic along with other legislation and regulation in related areas as well as a national educational initiative.
The NRA and gun manufacturers will be none too pleased and a number of gun manufacturers might even be put out of business if a new gun control program I am proposing ever got going. That does not distress me.
April 23rd, 2007 at 3:18 pm
I have no problem with “more rigorous restrictions and qualifications for persons to purchase hand guns and automatic weapons or weapons that can be modified to be automatic.”
Every time we have a gun-related atrocity of VA Tech’s magnitude, the gun-control hard-liners come out of the woodwork. Many of them want to eliminate guns completely. These are the types that will not do anything to deal with the enormous welfare class who are doing most of the shooting. This is unacceptable.
Our Founders created the Second Amendment so that citizens could protect themselves from, and possibly overthrow, a government gone crazy. And then there are the Islamo-fascists…
April 23rd, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Distilling things down Drew, we are on the same page.
Unfortunately, American politicians, be they Republicans or Democrats are not.
Politicians are fearful that by advocating stricter gun controls, they would be perceived by NRA members and pro- gun fans as seeking to place an unwarranted limit on the constitutional right to have weapons and because of that, politicians would be greatly risking a loss of support.
Something Bush said in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre was in keeping with that fear.
The reason why gun control hard liners come out of the woodwork in the wake of tragedies such as this, is because their voices are generally not being heard. They understandably therefore look for the right moment to get their views across and accepted. What better opportunities are there than gun massacres such as this recent one at Virginia Tech?
There is an uneasy and unhealthy status quo balance between the freedom to bear arms and gun controls being maintained in America by the pro gun voters and the politicians fearful of losing those pro-gun votes.
Less attention is probably paid to the gun control voters because they are not as organized and aggressive as those holding the opposite view.
American politicians need gumption they don’t yet have to come together in a non-partisan way to set down a new middle ground to balance the pro-and anti-gun people which, while not satisfying either side of the issue, will avoid politicians being fearful of losing votes and which step would give Americans time to see whether more stringent gun control regulations do ultimately bring about fewer gun related crimes and make America that much safer.
Without Republicans and Democrats coming together to deal with this matter together, it likely won’t happen.
April 23rd, 2007 at 5:39 pm
Gun control voters are very organized. I must credit them with lobbying for the gun control legislation that has passed in the last 30 years — like the 7-day waiting period and restrictions on automatic weapons. Unfortunately they, like most special interest groups, don’t know where to stop.
We are agreed. It sure is fun agreeing (9 comments).