Laws don't stop killers. People with guns do.
As previously discussed on the blog, 4 of us had quite the intense argument over gun control the other day at the office.
I brought up the fact that the fatal shootings at Virginia Tech, Columbine, and Northern Illinois could have been lessened had someone like a teacher or student pulled out their own gun and either shot the assailant or scared the shit out of them.
Case and point:
At the Appalachian Law School, Peter Odighizuwa killed 3 people with a hand gun. Two students carrying personal firearms approached him. Odighizuwa set down his gun and raised his arms. Odighizuwa was sentenced to multiple life terms in prison plus 28 additional years.
In Pearl, Miss, Luke Woodham slit his mom's throat and then went to school with a gun. He killed 2 classmates and wounded 7 others. Then the school's vice principal held a .45 caliber pistol to his head. "Here was this monster killing kids in my school, and the minute I put a gun to his head he was a kid again," the vice principal said. Woodham was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences.
Killed 3 people before having a gun put to his head.Now serving 2 life sentences on our terms.
At Virginia Tech, 33 people were killed and 29 injured. This means the bastard reloaded again, again, and again. At Virginia Tech, guns are banned on campus; even with a concealed weapons license. Graduate student Bradford Wiles has a permit to carry a gun in Virginia, but is not allowed to bring it to campus. "Of all of the emotions and thoughts that were running through my head that morning, the most overwhelming one was of helplessness. That feeling of helplessness has been difficult to reconcile because I knew I would have been safer with a proper means to defend myself."
At Virginia Tech, he killed 33 people on his terms.Look at the numbers. They speak for themselves. If anyone can show me an example of a public shooting getting worse because a citizen pulled a gun on the assailant or that more people died because a citizen blew the assailant's brains out, then please do forward it to me.
Because right now, it all seems pretty obvious.
And for those who have argued (and they have, believe me) that the victims of Virginia Tech, etc should have just "hidden better" or "thrown something at the assailant and then tackled him" or "learned karate and disarmed him with their hands" or just "ran away", here's another news story for you from today:
Two killed in shooting at Wendy's near West Palm Beach
One of those killed was a father and local firefighter who had gone back in the Wendy's to retrieve his son's forgotten toy. He was shot in the brain at point blank range and died instantly. 7 people were shot in total. The killer reloaded once and then shot himself. He died on his terms.
But I gotta tell you, if I had been there enjoying Wendy's Dollar Menu, he would have died on my terms.
12 comments:
Two things:
1) You're neither Charles Bronson nor Dirty Harry, and you've have been pissing yourself under your Wendy's table whether you had a gun or not.
2) Stories like this prove my point. Should this guy have had access to a gun in the first place? Clearly he was mentally not stable....
So taking guns out of the hands of lunatics like this is a good thing....
You're wrong about lunatics.
They usually don't consider laws and regulations when planning the death of innocents.
Create any law that makes it tougher to get a gun and that'll only make it harder for law-abiding citizens to get one.
The bad guys will always find a way to get a gun.
And they'll always find a way to kill innocent people.
“What you got ain’t new. Can’t stop what’s coming. Ain’t all waiting on you. That’s vanity.”
STEVEN
Oh, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be pissing myself under that table at Wendy's.
Not sure how I'd react.
If I had a gun, I'd probably count to 5, take a deep breath, and then shoot the guy.
That's what I think anyways.
You, on the other hand, would probably be under that table remembering all the conversations we had about gun rights, and how, right before the lunatic puts a bullet in your brain, you wished you had a gun.
Trolley square is another one where the gunman was stopped by a decent, responsible law abiding citizen who was carrying a concealed weapon.
It probably happens a lot more than we know - we just don't hear about it because a shooting where only a few people die doesn't make national news.
Sam,
Another reason we don't hear about it is because the liberal media doesn't want to tell people "a gun-toting citizen saved the day".
They just want to complain about the fact that a gun was used to kill people, not save people.
And I have yet to hear a liberal offer up a logical solution to gun control that doesn't involve giving up your constitutional rights.
2 Things:
1) The guy who took care of Trolley was an off-duty cop and had every reason to carry a gun.
2) The second-ammendment provides a clause for the right to bear arms in a well-regulated militia. I don't think anything short of joining the army or a militia qualifies some lone Charles Bronson ass-hole as a well regulated militia.
So, while I'm willing to concede that trained, licensed, psychologically stable people should be allowed to own guns, I do not think we should encourage turning the world back into a wild-west gunfight.
We moved away from that because it was fucking stupid.
Just like the idea that we all need guns to be safe.
All they provide is the illusion of safety.
Bryan,
Just did a quick search on the 2nd Amendment and it says that it:
"declares a well-regulated militia as being necessary to the security of a free State" and prohibits infringement of "the right of the people to keep and bear arms."
"The People" obviously meaning any citizen of the United States.
And what made the Wild West the Wild West was lawlessness and lack of communication and transportation.
This is what changed. Gun ownership didn't change.
In the Wild West, you could hold up 12 banks in a day and probably get away with it.
Now, with security cameras, telephones and police radios, you'd have to be Danny Ocean to pull such a feat.
And I'm just wondering what your opinion is on the examples I showed of a MINOR number of people killed in those shootings because would-be victims pulled guns on the assailants.
Do the math.
Shootings where gun was pulled on assailant = less dead people.
Shootings where no one pulled a gun on assailant = massacre.
I mean, you just not a fan of facts?
I love how you keep avoiding the notion that my suggestions for better laws would mean that less of these unstable morons would have guns in the first place.
I'm not saying you can't own a gun, I'm saying guns won't solve all your problems. And chances are good that guns won't even solve these problems.
Also, I vote no more anecdotes about guns. That's why you lost the argument at the office because no matter how many facts were presented to you, all you did was try to fall back on anecdotes.
In fact, I'm sick of arguing about guns. They aren't good. And the less there are the better. They don't solve problems they cause them. And the answer to the gun problem isn't more guns. Maybe we should look to the underlying issues of these shootings. Perhaps capitalism is culpable.
Fighting the dark with more dark doesn't work. Only the light cancels it.
Also, saying that we shouldn't make it harder to get a gun because it will only cause law-abiding citizens strife is bullshit.
Most of these assholes who were shooting people up acquired their guns legally.
So, yeah... We should make it harder.
I don't see how I lost the argument at the office.
You guys were literally saying that one should "throw something at the assailant" or "tackle him" or "hide better" or "run". Pat even suggested more people should take self defense so they could karate chop the guy.
How this constitutes a victory for you guys is flabbergasting.
And, as for facts, I've presented dozens of them. Statistics that show banning guns doesn't decrease crime. In fact, in some instances, it INCREASES it.
I presented the 3 cases (there are more) of how guns SAVED lives.
However...
I AGREE on: stricter evaluations for gun ownership. You and I see eye to eye on that.
I DISAGREE on: once someone passes this test, BANNING them from carrying it.
I DISAGREE on: guns aren't good
Because I DISAGREE on: the fact that there is a clear definition of what "good" is.
Only Siths deal in absolutes.
Speaking of, if a fucking Sith Lord comes to Executive Order 66 your ass, you'd best have yourself a light saber and not just a "Saber Control" bumper sticker.
1) You lost because Anecdotes aren't evidence and the case you cited about gun control not affecting gun deaths was false (gun deaths went down in DC after the ban) and the Georgia case of the town all having guns was all based on flawed data.
2) Aside from those two, all you provided was a republican like use of anecdotal evidence and anecdotal evidence alone, where we presented facts.
3) I think you're the only one arguing about gun control at the office who would agree that you won the argument. You lost pretty miserably. I understand, though, that your ego is such to not allow for the possibility, regardless of how real your defeat was.
4) You keep arguing the fact that we said, "ban guns!" No one said that. I outlined quite clearly in a post the preconditions i felt should be in place before law-abiding citizens should carry guns. As much as it's a fact that the world would be a better place without guns, it's as much a fact that that isn't realistic, so we need to make it as safe as possible.
5) Once someone passes the test, if there are circumstances (domestic violence crimes, suicidal tendencies, a shift in behaviour that troubles a mental health specialist) then yes, we should have the right to strip these people of guns.
6) You're the only one dealing in absolutes.
7) This is my last response to gun control posts. I vote there's a moratorium on them. We'll have to agree to disagree.
Because I think you're absolutely 100% wrong and you're an idiot for thinking violence will solve more violence and you, for some reason beyond comprehension of reason, think that guns are the answer.
Let us not forget the lesson that Chronos was taught by Zeus, "Violence begets violence." Break the cycle, Steve. Be a better man than a gun-toting, ted-nugent worshiping redneck...
I agree with Steve.
It seems sort of naive to think that stricter gun laws would make it harder for criminals to get guns. I agree that stricter gun laws are good, but I also think that the evidence shows that people cowardly enough to shoot innocent people with a gun will just as quickly surrender when a gun is pulled on them.
To suppose that the world will be a happy shiny place if we got rid of guns is a childish notion. Even if every level-headed person in the world agreed to get rid of guns(which I think Steven would agree is a GREAT idea in theory), there will always be a few power hungry assholes to ruin our utopia. Let's be real, guns don't kill people, people kill people. It's as simple as that, really. Just having a law in place doesn't keep people from breaking them.
Case in point: Does pot being illegal make it any more difficult for the s.u.c.h.c. to get stoned, Bryan?
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