Good Op/Ed from Tucson
Mark B. Evans:
If everyone were armed, everyone would behave, so the fallacy goes.
In the past week, more than one knucklehead has opined in blogs, newspaper comment sections, cable news and elsewhere that if more people had been armed Jan. 8 outside the Safeway, Jared Loughner might have been stopped before he got off the first shot, or at least after he shot Giffords.
Hogwash.
Quotes from blowhards about how if they had been there they would have shot Loughner dead is just a bunch of tough talk from people who don’t know what they’re talking about.
A gun battle between untrained gun toters would have exponentialized the carnage, not limited it.
Because obviously, we know that allowing an armed madman shoot with no resistance whatsoever would always be the best approach. (VT, Columbine, even Tuscon as examples).
ReplyDeleteTHAT's the hogwash.
There will be more instances of an armed person being in the right place at the right time. We know one thing that definitely allows maximum carnage - gun free zones.
...Orygunner...
Maybe we should just pay for snipers to be stationed strategically across the land in every public square, looking for trouble-makers. It's got to be cheaper than cable TV. Maybe this guy with the big fancy brand-new truck understands these things better than do we.
ReplyDeleteCriminals prefer unarmed victims.
I'll keep my guns, my freedom and my money.
I admit there can be a real DGU from time to time, but they are so much rarer than the misuse of guns that the net result is what we have today, a mess. The United States is leading the world. In Europe people just shake their heads and express bafflement at the failure to put 2 and 2 together.
ReplyDelete"In Europe people just shake their heads and express bafflement at the failure to put 2 and 2 together."
ReplyDeleteI have no doubt they do. Of course they still hold the records for mass murder and genocide of their own citizenry so I don't expect them to understand us.
Of course we have also seen when one of them gets in trouble with their European neighbors they want our guns and citizens to bail them out.
Help me Obi-Won-America, you're our only hope!
@Mikeb: "[DGU] are so much rarer than the misuse of guns that the net result is what we have today, a mess."
ReplyDeleteSource, please?
Many different studies put the number of defensive gun uses from 770,000 up into the Millions.
http://www.guncite.com/kleckandgertztable1.html
Where's your evidence that there are more mis-uses of guns than that?
...Orygunner...
Now, Orygunner, you know by now I don't deal in evidence.
ReplyDelete