More Guns Equals More Gun Violence

Doug Pennington wrote a wonderful article for the Brady Blog in the aftermath of the Ft. Hood tragedy. He describes how Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone defended the military policy of not allowing weapons on base except for the MPs and designated security people. Then he quotes the pro-gun response, as expressed by Jacob Sullum of Reason.

…If someone else at the processing center had a gun when Hasan started shooting, it seems likely that fewer people would have been killed or injured….

I've heard this argument so many times I can't count them. I think it's a good one, actually. My only problem with it is although it may work out that way in some cases, overall it would do more harm than good. The Brady article explains that very clearly.

The shooter was issued a Virginia concealed carry permit in 1996. (See his permit application here. ) This means, according to people like Jacob Sullum and John Lott/”Mary Rosh,” the alleged Fort Hood murderer was, by definition, a “law-abiding citizen”… right up to the point he massacred 13 people and wounded another 30. This also means that Sullum’s “more guns” policy would help put guns in the next “law-abiding” mass murderer’s hands, and make it legal for him to carry them virtually anywhere he chooses.

What's your opinion? Are you concerned with the fact that the more armed people we have in the country, the more armed unstable people we'll have? The reasons for this are several, which I covered in my 10% post.

All these warning signs. All these holes in the ability of law enforcement to do their job, shot through by lobbying from the NRA.

The ease with which America’s weak gun laws permitted a deranged killer to arm himself and massacre so many of our servicemen and -women should be a national tragedy.

Yet the only answer Sullum can manage is the “breathtaking inanity” to play the gun lobby’s broken record of “more guns… more guns…more guns….”

Of course, his conclusion can only follow from an equally inane assumption that mass shootings beset us like natural disasters, as if nothing can be done to prevent them.

What's your opinion? Do you think these incidents are as inevitable as natural disasters? Do you think it's about the people and not about the guns therefore we should keep moving towards more and more guns? As I asked above, wouldn't you be concerned with the fact that the more armed people we have in the country, the more armed and unstable people we'll have?

One idea that occurs to me is that the gun owners actually agree with the gun control folks about this, about the fact that the more guns there are the more gun trouble the will be. The reason they refuse to admit it is because otherwise they would look incredibly self-centered. They want their guns and that's that. They don't care about the cost.

This would be especially true of the architects of these policies, the NRA spokespeople, for example. Among the regular gun owners, I suppose there are those who actually believe this stuff, but I don't suppose they're too numerous.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.