Common Folk Using Common Sense

From an op-ed in The Sentinel of Ohio State University:

Everybody’s first reaction to the massacre at Virginia Tech was one of shock and sorrow, but, for some, what followed that initial reaction was an angry and ridiculous call for more gun-control. If you, dear reader, were one such person, who believes that tragedies like the one at Virginia Tech would be stopped by taking guns out of civilians’ hands, you need to think again.

• Erfurt, Germany, April 26, 2002: 19-year-old expelled student shoots and kills 13 teachers, two students and a police officer.
• Ruzhou, China, November 26, 2004: Intruder stabs eight students to death and injured four others at a high school – the sixth such incident in China in four months.
• Ruzhou, China, 2004: Man with a knife and homemade explosives attacks 28 children at a kindergarten.
• Osaka, Japan, June 8, 2001: Intruder stabs 13 elementary school students and two teachers.
• Carmen de Patagones, Argentina, September 28, 2004: 15-year-old boy fatally shoots three classmates and wounds five others.

These five incidents, which are pulled from a seemingly endless list, all occurred in countries with strict gun-control or outright bans on gun ownership. None of the victims, just like those at Virginia Tech, even had a chance. If just one concealed carry permit holder was there, perhaps the violence could have been abridged.

What is interesting is that Virginia Tech is a so-called “gun-free zone,” meaning that even concealed carry permit holders are not allowed to have weapons there. The only people who do carry weapons there are people committed to carrying out murder and other heinous acts: these people are not exactly the type of people to worry about breaking a little gun law.

You may be personally against carrying a weapon, and perhaps you even think the police are sufficient enough to protect you, but some of us do not agree. Some of us aren’t willing to be murdered, raped, and robbed. Some of us know that calling 9-1-1 won’t save us. Some of us are aware that pepper-spray, knives, and other inferior forms of defense have atrocious failure rates, and that pistols are the only effective way to increase our chance of successfully defending ourselves. Some of us don’t want our families to suffer eternal anguish because they lost us to a senseless act of violence. Some of us refuse to be victims.

You may think that civilians with concealed weapons violate your “right to feel safe,” but the fact is that you are safer when good people are able to arm themselves. Gun-control laws only affect those willing to abide by such laws – violent criminal will be violent criminals no matter how many gun laws we write. And, as the examples above illustrate, if you ban guns altogether, the violence will undoubtedly continue unchecked.

The police cannot protect you. As good as they are their primary focus is finding the criminal AFTER the crime has been committed. If you are a person that would like to stop the crime BEFORE it is committed then you must rely on yourself – and your handgun. Gun control only creates more victims.

In the past, our government tried to stop street gangs by making automatic knives (switchblade type) illegal. Back in those days, most gang fights were with baseball bats, knives and chains. When our government outlawed the knives, street gangs did NOT stop committing crimes, they went out and got something else. That’s why we call them “criminals”, duh.

Since real criminals disregard laws banning concealed weapons in specific locations and in certain States; why do law abiding citizens continue to obey such laws, when doing so often places them at risk? Because the vast majority of concealed weapon are more law-abiding than the average citizen – we have to be.

The main difference between the “pro-gun” people and “anti-gun” people is that the “pro-gun” folks are not dictating that everyone have a firearm, only that the choice is personal. The “anti-gun” people are trying to mandate that no one have a firearm, period. If the “anti-gun” folks don’t want to have a firearm and rely on the status quo, 911, running away, or just being a victim, let them so choose, and don’t do my choosing for me.

gun-control, concealed carry, gun-free zone

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