Gun Control OR Not Enough Guns?

NOT ENOUGH GUNS?

The Aurora, Colorado shooting was beyond tragic. It was barbaric. It was an evil act by an evil man who plotted for maximum loss of life. He even booby-trapped his apartment with over 30 explosives.

It reminds us all of other U.S. mass shootings in recent years that include:

2011: U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and eighteen other people were shot in a parking lot near Tucson, Arizona. Six of those shot died and the shooter found insane.

2009: The Army says 13 people were killed and 30 wounded in a shooting rampage at its Fort Hood base in Texas.

2007: 32 people were killed at Virginia Tech before the shooter killed himself in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

2006: A 32 year old, shot five girls fatally at an Amish School, and then killed himself. The Amish quickly forgave his family.

1999: Students just 18, and 17, opened fire at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, killing 13 and wounding 26 others before committing suicide.

1998: Shockingly, an 11, and 13 year old, killed four girls and a teacher at a Jonesboro, Arkansas, middle school. 10 others were wounded in the shooting.

1991: A man, in Luby's Cafeteria in Texas, killed 22 people, wounding 20 more.

We all want to stop these, so Congress again looks at tougher gun laws.  A Federal “Assault Weapon Ban” was in effect from 1994 to 2004. It banned high capacity magazines, (a spring loaded metal box that hold bullets that anyone can make) in an effort to curb shootings. In the shootings above, the only one even using an assault rifle was The Aurora shooting, and that was only after he used a shotgun.

Where gun control exists, such as Chicago which has a murder rate higher than Mexico City, only law-abiding citizen are disarmed. Criminals do not obey laws.  This seems to be new information to some. Insane people who intend suicide and want to take people with them will even rig 30 explosives, which are also banned.

But here is one thing in common: With only the exception of Tucson, every public shooting in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed since at least 1950 has occurred in a place where citizens are not allowed to carry their own firearms.

In fact, Switzerland issues firearms to all adults, and the rate of gun crime is too low to report. This is why people do not rob police departments and gun shops very often.  The argument that lot of armed people will just cause a shootout is invalid if the only alternative is that innocent people are slain like helpless cattle.

I wish an armed, trained concealed-carry permit holder had violated theater policy and had used his prohibited handgun to stop the shooter that night in Aurora. Don’t you?  

If so, then you may agree that the problem is not a lack of gun laws, but a lack of gun owners.