Posted on 04/17/2007 9:06:18 AM PDT by TChris
Yesterday, Cho Seung-Hui, a lone, deranged killer, snuffed out the lives of over thirty innocent victims at Virginia Tech. His was the most deadly rampage of its kind in US history. The cold, calculated way in which this monster executed his young victims sent profound pain and shock into the hearts of all who heard.
On February 12, another shooter had stormed into a shopping center in Salt Lake City, Utah with the same intent as Mr. Cho. Sulejman Talović wanted to kill a lot of people. He blasted indiscriminately with a 12-gauge shotgun, killing and injuring innocent victims, even before he entered the shopping center.
But the two incidents went very differently, and the number of victims was much greater in Virginia than it was in Utah. The gunmen were no less murderous, and their victims no less innocent. Yet, Mr. Talović killed five people and injured four, compared to Mr. Cho's rampage, which took over thirty lives and left nearly that many injured. What made the difference?
When legislation was propose in Virginia to permit legal handgun carry on college campuses, Virginia Tech spokesman, Larry Hincker, cheered its defeat. Of that event, he said, "I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus." [1]
The bitter irony of that statement should haunt the minds of every person who opposed the bill.
The reason Sulejman Talović did not kill thirty people in Salt Lake City was not because he didn't try. It's not because he didn't want to. It's because there was a man in that shopping center with a concealed weapon. It's because there was someone there to stop him.
In this case, the one who was there to stop the killer happened to be an off-duty police officer. But it could just as easily been another legally-carrying citizen. Hundreds of potential tragedies are averted, either completely or partially, every year by law abiding citizens who use their guns legally to defend themselves or another.
There's nothing magic about a police officer. Police officers are watching for bad guys pretty much full-time, but they are not and cannot be everywhere at all times. Most of the time, they arrive after tragedy has struck. Someone needs to defend the innocent before they're shot and bleeding to death on the floor.
Larry Hincker, and those who sympathize with his way of thinking, are happy to make certain there is no-one to stop a rampaging killer. They celebrate the disarming of those who desperately want to, need to, defend themselves.
I'm sure that most opponents of firearms do so out of a desire for peace, and a hatred of violence. They don't want any more shootings. But opposition to guns is not the way to stop shootings.
It. Just. Doesn't. Work.
Guns are here to stay. Banning them hasn't made them vanish from the face of the earth. Guns are banned in Great Britain, yet criminals are still shooting their victims there. And, when they can't get hold of a gun, British killers use knives or swords instead.
Since restrictive gun laws don't make them disappear, just what do such laws do? They make those who respect the law, those who actually obey the law, less able to defend themselves. They make legally obtaining a firearm more difficult and more expensive, if it's legal to do so at all.
Restrictive gun laws disarm law-abiding citizens, not criminals.
Imagine for a moment what the Virginia Tech incident might have been like if the legal gun bill would have passed. Maybe someone in the path of this psychopath would have been able to stop him. Maybe he would have decided against the rampage in the first place, knowing that someone along the way might just shoot him in self-defense.
Maybe, if some of these innocent victims weren't deprived of their God-given, Constitutionally-guaranteed right to keep and bear arms, for the defense of their very lives... Just maybe... there would be twenty or twenty-five or thirty more scared, but very alive, students today.
Advocates of gun ownership don't want to kill people. They want to be able to stop those who do.
[1] Gun bill gets shot down by panel, Greg Esposito, The Roanoke Times, Jan 31 2006, http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/wb/xp-50658
And it’s perfect.
Wow. I'm honored that you say so. Really. :-)
Spot on!
You nailed it!
PERFECT!!!
This is no doubt going though gas on the fire of the “ban guns now” crowd.
They mean well but are so wrong it is scary.
Good job! Nobody on that campus had a chance. That is the key issue.
Great piece!
Too bad those who oppose the Second Amendment also appear to be those who forget the three enumerated inalienable rights granted by God in the Declaration of Independence. The first of those is LIFE. Trying to overturn the Second Amendment is part of the culture of DEATH.
One of the few really good vanities.
Banning guns may have made a difference in the early 1800s when it was still a novelty. Guns today are ubiquitous - anybody who wants one will get one regardless of the law.
That 2 cents would be worth a lot more if we (and all clear thinking Americans) can unite and fight to end defenseless victim zones. I am trying my best to think of ways here in TX to end the ban on carrying on “educational grounds”. We should turn this tragedy into some good by pointing out to our legislators that defenseless victim zones are dangerous to public safety. FIGHT LIKE HELL!!
A novelty? They were a staple of life.
Guns were already ubiquitous in the American colonies before The Revolution, and it is the main reason that the colonies were able to rebel and form a new nation.
Can't kill 30 people with a sword.
The flip side of liberty is, you take casulaties.
You may want to study up on some of the recent massacres in Africa. I recall that swords or machetes were the weapon wielded by the perpetrators against unarmed people.
As the saying goes, "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king". Similarly, disarmed people can be massacred using box-cutters if the people will permit it.
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