Posted on 04/23/2008 2:10:11 PM PDT by neverdem
There are two types of "gun nuts," those who will say, "I'll give you my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands," and those who insist on bringing their Mossberg 590 shotgun to heaven once the rapture comes.
Gun enthusiasts are an interesting crowd. They are our fathers and uncles, our neighbors and friends and often times they are our elected officials. Though there are many things wrong in this country, gun nuts often hold the gun rights issue as the No. 1 concern when heading to the polls to vote. They often have a pettiness toward their love of guns, too - using "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" as their MySpace profile song even though there are about two dozen better Beatles songs to choose from. And that's just the beginning of their pettiness.
But what has always irritated me most about many gun nuts is their audacity to use tragedies such as the Columbine and Virginia Tech massacres to promote their causes for fewer restrictions on carrying handguns in public.
President Paul Zingg agrees.
"Yes, students have right to protect themselves," he said. "Do I think they should carry handguns? No."
Today marks the one-year anniversary of the Virginia Tech school shootings, a tragedy that occurred when a gunman shot and killed 32 people and then himself in a shooting rampage. As we commemorate this tragedy, we will probably hear twisted logic from gun rights groups such as the National Rifle Association to promote the idea of allowing students and professors to carry concealed handguns on campus.
They use Virginia Tech as fodder for what could have happened if more people were packing heat the day gunman Seung-Hui Cho shot so many people. Their logic goes something like this: If more students were armed on the day these events occurred, there would have been a bystander in the crowd who would have ridden in on a white stallion, weapons blazing, and valiantly stopped the gunman in his tracks. But disregard that this fairy tale fantasy relies on outside factors. One: This white knight would need the accuracy and the courage to perform such a feat. Two: The superhero would have to be miraculously standing within 100 feet or so of the gunman to be able to take him down. Three: This courageous gun owner would have to do all this without getting killed.
No evidence supports the idea that if someone in those tragedies had a gun the damage would have been prevented or minimized, Zingg said.
Gun advocates might counter by saying, "Well if he'd known more people had guns it may have prevented him from doing it." Are you kidding me? Did you see that videotape he sent NBC saying why he did it? That guy was crazy. He knew he was going to die that day and wanted to take out as many people as he could before he did it.
The bottom line is: Students and professors should not be allowed to have guns on campus. This myth that "an armed society is a polite society" is unproven and silly. I say, "an armed society is a paranoid and pompous society." Having to watch your manners and hope your gun is bigger than everyone else's is not an appealing way to go through life.
As for guns on campus, it's unsafe and unnecessary. Just because Second Amendment nuts want a Glock tucked in their pants 24/7 to overcome some mental insecurity, doesn't mean I should have to feel uncomfortable knowing a shot could accidentally go off while the teacher is lecturing.
Zingg said the key to safety on campus is "caring and vigilance for one another" and greater visibility of law enforcement. I agree.
The campus community needs to have more appreciation for University Police and respect officers "as not being rent-a-cops, because they're not," he said.
Living in a country that gives its citizens the right to bear arms has advantages and disadvantages, but arming students and professors isn't logical - it's ideological - and won't stop massacres such as Virginia Tech from happening again.
Mike Murphy can be reached at opinioneditor@theorion.com
The smile 32 humans won’t be showing their friends and family anytime soon, and the sad thing is, he doesn’t have a clue that his ideas just might be part of the problem.
the title is backwards...”gun control freaks should stop using tragedies to promote ideology that “less guns equals a safer society”
it doesn’t take long for guilty to accuse the innocent of his own scams.
I thought this was from the Onion, first look!
Thanks, that was great!
Counting me, that makes three. What's sad is that with such a pathetic title, some folks wrote "Where's the mega barf alert"? If there was ever a title that screams it without saying it explicitly, this is it.
Silly goose - you don’t need to choose!
Holy @#$%, fumarase deficiency. That explains everything.
President Paul Zingg agrees.
“Yes, students have right to protect themselves,” he said. “Do I think they should carry handguns? No.”
And he calls our side of the argument “twisted logic”...
There actually is no logic to his statement...Only emotion...
No evidence supports the idea that if someone in those tragedies had a gun the damage would have been prevented or minimized, Zingg said.
There is no evidence, because we allow your policies to restrict a persons moral right to self-defence, and allow them to be murdered freely a your school...
Be nice if someone were to sue you for supporting that flawed policy...
The author is right in the fact that if students/professors/Etc are armed they probably won't stop another VT massacre from HAPPENING. But an armed student body/faculty would surely END a shooting spree and lower the injuries/fatalities.
This guy doesn't want to give a fair shake to anything but a silly view that an armed community is a politer community. This was obvious from the first reference to "gun nuts" and went down hill from their. No statistic will change his mind.
LOL!
Having to watch your manners and hope your gun is bigger than everyone else's is not an appealing way to go through life.
I've been robbed twice in a convenience store enviornment. Having a gun thrust in your face is a shock at first, not having a gun to reciprocate causes a very sinking feeling. The sick-puke holding the weapon has your life in his hands.
Lucky for me, the cash on hand was enough to satisfy his needs, though some in my situation were shot even after complying with their demands.(a good friend of mine took a .30 cal. sawed-off rifle in the gut over a disputed age requirement in the purchase of some malt-liquor)
The liberal position on the second ammendment is so f&&king distorted that everything else they stand for (get out of Iraq, etc.) has no meaning for me. If they can get this so wrong there is little hope that they'll ever get anything right.
My local police will put me in jail if I carry a weapon for self-defense. I don't have to use it or brandish it. If it's in my car and it's loaded and they find it, I'm going to jail. This is so screwed-up in light of the crime taking place all around us these days.
If the law is an ass, then I refuse to be bound by it. My legislators may have an agenda they wish to carry out in order to garner votes. I have a constitution and a Bill of Rights that trump their scrawny laws and will follow it's charter. The fact that these mini-tyrants ignore my right to 'keep and bear arms' has led to much of the social disorder they contend with daily.
I've voted many years and have yet to have a representative 'represent' this most basic damn right that American's enjoy via the 2nd. The pussies we send to Washington D.C. each term continue to amaze with the way they can get nothing done.
We need to send someone there to turn the place over, kick this rat-infested sh*tdom upside-down and renew our government. We used to be free, and that's what seperated us from the rest of the world. That we're headed toward Gamorrah(sp) means we'll be no different than the rest. Screw that. We're better than that.
Look, the insanity has to stop. Marrying homosexuals? You must be kidding. Our country is falling apart in front of us and you want to hook-up guys in a binding contract? Get lost, and get real. Anyone wanting to put these types of issuses on the the front burner should have the pot spilled on their head.
America is about to enter a phase where it is no longer about "sweet land of liberty" but rather, "what the f**k can you do, for me", of Thee I Sing. Getting there means we'll be no different that the banana republics who are guided by nothing less than majorities- screw any constitution. Sans a constitution, sans a bill of rights, these new 'patriots' will blaze a trail right up your ass. I gowentee it. < /mens warehouse dude>
“No evidence supports the idea that if someone in those tragedies had a gun the damage would have been prevented or minimized, Zingg said”
unfortunately, thats because all the people in these situations were either killed or left unable to defend themselves, by the failed policy of a gun free zone.
So we shouldn’t tell the truth while some idiot says its OK for people to be killed and continues to advocate doing nothing.
The writer of the article should take a lesson on firearms.
What a bloody tool.
He’s as stupid as he looks!
Not at all. It's quite sufficient to take out the bad guy and get yourself killed in the process, if it saves the life of another, or two, or a dozen, or more, or even if it buys a few precious moments for others to escape or act. That was exactly the case with Mark Wilson, killed trying to stop the murders committed by murderer David Hernandez Arroyo, intent on killing his wife and anyone else in the Tyler, Texas courthouse he could take with him. Arroyo was wearing a bulletproof vest and killed Wilson during the fight, as well as killing his ex-wife and wounding as a Tyler Police Detective, Two Smith County Sheriff's Deputies and Arroyo's son.
Those making cold tactical reviews of such events can draw their own conclusions about what equipment or tactics might have worked better in such events, *if only....*
I do know this: No one has greater love than this, that one should lay down his life for his friends.
That said, eliminating the threat at the cost of your own life is inefficient and sub-par, and will not help those who may require similar assistance in future situations, except by the example you've set. Nevertheless, I know that I could indeed lose my life trying to protect the lives of others; I came to grips with that reality when I first put on the uniform of the U.S, Army 42 years ago. You may indeed find me dead in some university building or shopping mall having tried to save others from another predator, but by God, you'll find me near a pile of empty brass.
As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.
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