School Shootings and Self Defense

There was another tragic event that took place on Friday, December 14th, 2012 in Newtown Connecticut. A young man killed his mother and then proceeded to a nearby school where he shot and killed more than two dozen people, most of them very young children. My heart goes out to the parents of those children who fell victim to this senseless violence. As a parent myself, I can't even begin to imagine the pain they must feel. No one should have to go through such an ordeal. Words seem to be woefully lacking when trying to offer comfort in a situation such as this, but one can only try as best one can to sympathize. I, like most sane people, wish to see a world where such violence is but a bad memory of a bygone era.

Unfortunately, politicians and the powers that be don't seem to want this. Instead, they seem to want to continue to divide people into two camps. They want to rally the collectivists who think potential victims should be disarmed to their side, while trying to alienate individualists who think everyone should be allowed to have the means to defend themselves through bullying anti gun propaganda and guilt by association. Every time such a tragic event happens, those who would try to control the masses of humanity use that tragedy to try to convince the common folk that law abiding gun owners should be forced to give up their means of self defense. It's happened time and time again and I personally think this kind of behavior by the political elite pushing their anti gun agenda is offensive and insulting to my intelligence.

I really have a hard time imagining what some of these anti 2nd amendment people think. Do they believe that laws are magic? Do they think that passing laws to outlaw guns is going to make all firearms suddenly disappear? Do they think that criminals are going to suddenly say to themselves "Well, guns are illegal now so I better just get rid of mine and give up my life of crime."? Do they seriously believe that criminals aren't going to take advantage of a disarmed populace? There's a reason that crime rates are higher in cities with more restrictions and lower where guns are more prevalent. We don't need more gun laws, or more laws of any kind. We need to learn why these events happen, what causes people to suddenly loose their minds and engage in such violent behavior, and then take steps to prevent that behavior. Perhaps we'd discover that we need to stop drugging our children with Ritalin and other psychotropic, anti depressant type drugs. Wouldn't the big pharmaceutical companies love that?

I wasn't going to write any commentary on this event. I hate the thought that such tragedy is so politicized. Then I heard the president of the United States come out with a statement that we cannot tolerate this anymore. As if it was ever tolerated. As if we don't already have laws against murder and the killing of innocents. Had the shooter survived he would have been most severely punished. Then the president stated he would do everything in his power to make certain this will never happen again. That is the statement that worries me. He is going to use this event as an excuse to violate the individual right to self defense and try to ram through more draconian gun laws, maybe even before the end of the holidays when no one is paying attention.

One person I talked to, a former teacher in Florida who now works making sure schools are implementing federal guidelines, thinks that teachers should be armed and trained to use guns so they can better protect the children they're entrusted with on a daily basis. If such a policy had been in place at any school where such tragic events have occurred how much less damage would have been done? How many lives would have been saved? Legal guns in the hands of conscientious owners save lives all the time. Such events don't make the national news. The elite political class wouldn't like it if people were constantly made aware of guns being used for self defense and to stop crime. That would put a crimp in their plans to disarm the populace.

There's a reason these attacks happen at places where guns are not allowed. There's a reason these cowardly criminals target people who can't defend themselves. One might wonder if these attacks would have even happened if these nutcases who want to kill innocents had thought for a moment that their targets just might shoot back. Tragedies are going to happen whether gun laws are in place or not. I think that the tragedy that happened in July 2011 in Norway, a country with very restrictive gun laws, proves that. It sickens me to think that people use such a sad occurrence to try to create an environment making it easier for criminals to operate and harder for innocents to defend themselves.

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