Posted on 07/27/2011 7:04:46 PM PDT by Kaslin
How long would the Norway gunman have lasted in Texas or any state where concealed-carry laws are on the books? I ran a survey while on a cruise: in Texas, 3 minutes; in Montana, 7 to 8 minutes; in Arizona, 2 minutes; and in Nevada, 3 to 5 minutes.
Had Norway not surrendered to the anti-self-defense nuts, and allowed Norwegians to protect themselves by legally carrying guns, the massacre might well have been prevented. There's a lot of truth in the old adage that if guns are outlawed only outlaws will carry guns.
That was certainly true in Norway where Anders Breivik, a lone gunman, launched his assault on youth campers of Utoya Island. According to press reports he fully expected Norway's special forces to swoop down and stop him at any minute. It didn't happen. Faced with unarmed victims he was given plenty of time to kill 68 innocent people who could not defend themselves. Had just one of them been armed, Breivik could have been stopped dead and lives would have been spared.
Moreover, if anyone had paid attention to Breivik's rants they would not have been surprised when he acted on them, especially since Breivik had preceded his attack by setting off a car bomb in the heart of Oslo.
Tragically, Norway's anti-gun hysteria resulted in laws restricting gun ownership by law-abiding citizens, leaving them exposed to gun violence at the hands of criminals such as Breivik, who simply ignore anti-gun ownership laws. Despite the Second Amendment, which protects American citizens' rights to access to guns for self-protection, the Constitutional right of citizens to bear arms is under constant assault.
In his best-selling classic "More Guns, Less Crime," John R. Lott, Jr. has proven that guns make us safer. And in the book "The Bias against Guns," he shows how liberals bury pro-gun facts out of sheer bias against the truth.
With irrefutable evidence, Lott shot down gun critics and provided information we need to win arguments with those fanatics who want to ban gun ownership, leaving criminals who ignore anti-gun ownership laws armed.
History teaches us that governments faced with an armed citizenry are restrained from usurping the rights of individuals. It is thus no surprise that governments which seek to exercise dictatorial powers over their citizens inevitably seek to restrict of outlaw gun ownership by their citizenry.
In an interview with the University of Chicago, Lott said that states with the largest increases in gun ownership also have the largest drops in violent crimes. Thirty-one states now have such laws -- called "shall-issue" laws. These laws allow adults the right to carry concealed handguns if they do not have a criminal record or a history of significant mental illness.
He noted that criminals are deterred by higher penalties. Just as higher arrest and conviction rates deter crime, so does the risk that someone committing a crime will confront someone able to defend him or herself. He shows that there is a strong negative relationship between the number of law-abiding citizens who have gun permits and the crime rate, noting that as more people obtain permits there is a greater decline in violent crime rates. He adds that for each additional year that a concealed handgun law is in effect the murder rate declines by 3 percent, rape by 2 percent, and robberies by over 2 percent.
Concealed handgun laws reduce violent crime for two reasons. First, they reduce the number of attempted crimes because criminals are uncertain which potential victims can defend themselves. Second, victims who have guns are in a much better position to defend themselves. That's just common sense.
Our Founding Fathers understood the need for an armed citizenry. Thanks to the colonists who were armed, America triumphed over the strongest army in the world. They insisted that their fellow Americans have a right to bear arms in order to guarantee their liberties and safeguard them from those who would deny them the freedom they won on the battlefields of the American Revolution.
We need to be ever vigilant -- there are always those who would trample on our rights as free Americans. As long as we retain the right to self-defense guaranteed by the right to own and bear arms, our freedoms will be secure.
bttt
the island must have been a gun free zone. Great. It appears in the event of trouble there was no one to defend all those kids with any thing more than water balloons.
It seems to be such a simple, logical concept and yet so many can’t seem to get their minds wrapped around it. Normally rational people lose all reasoning ability when this subject comes up.
Even in Texas, Arizona, and Montana they have allowed free fire zones to be created where the victims are the least able to protect themselves, i.e. public schools with small children. Just like that kid was able to kill 32 people at UV.
A FreePer here told me there were 1.5 million guns among 4.5 million people with 520 gun clubs and the national pastime in Norway was shooting. Something isn’t right. I also read where the cops had to get permission from someone to get guns out of an armory before they could head out to that island. A news helicopter was over there in a matter of minutes. Doesn’t pass the smell test I think.
Norwegians have a rather Byzantine set of regulations about gun ownership- they can have them, but the red tape about them is such that they are not common items apparently.
From what I’ve been reading I don’t see where this FreePer who told me about gun ownership is coming from. Do they or don’t they have free access to guns?
The attacks have caused outrage in Norway amid calls for the reinstatement of the death penalty, given the maximum prison sentence the perpetrator can face is 21 years imprisonment.
If convicted, that would equate to less than 82 days per killing.
http://indaily.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/norway-shooter-faces-court/
They don't even own a police boat!
Quislings.
Norwegians can have guns, but regulations apparently make them keep the guns locked up unless used for hunting or target shooting. Self defense is practically never recognized as a reason to own a gun, and there is no provision for the equivalent of our concealed carry. So, no matter how many guns there are in Norway, none of them would have been available for defense in a case like this.
Zeko
We should all carry, be dressed in uniforms, salute each other when passing, and eat vegetarian. That’s the ticket.
Security, doncha know!
P.S. B.S.
Thanks for pointing that out. That explains why the cops had to get permission to get their guns before they could go out to that island. Therefor it’s the governments fault the response time was so long and not the cops.
Probably not the best source, but it corroborates some things I’ve read elsewhere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Norway
Better equipped police would help too: Like helicopters and
police boats!
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