Garand Illusion
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So there is now a combined message from all the anti-gun groups; that we've now reached, or should have reached, a critical mass of multiple shootings recently (and there have been an outrageous number) and it's time to do something about it.
Statement of National Gun Violence Prevention Organizations in Wake of Northern Illinois University Shooting
NOTE: If you predict that giving people access to weapons will cause mass murder, you have a low opinion of humanity -- an opinion that humanity has been living up to recently, admittedly. I'm also interested to know how weaponry has increased in power in the last few decades since I haven't seen anything more "powerful" than the Garands that were available at the end of WWII.
Honestly, BTW ... with young children ... if I thought there were some kind of ban possible that would keep them safer without surrendering their 2nd amendment rights and endangering their future, I'd be all for it. I'd be glad to give up my greater than 10 round mags, even more, if I thought it would help.
But the problem is ... it won't. Even if you limit American's to pump shotguns with no more than a 3 round capacity, the capacity for mass murder is still there. Just find a place with large numbers of unarmed people and no easy exits (like a Illinois college lecture hall) and by keeping some distance between you and the sheep you are there to slaughter you can keep loading and firing that 12 gauge plenty long enough to take out a lot of people. Couple that shotgun with a few molotov cocktails or something similar, send a few letters to local papers ahead of time with pictures, and you are SURE to be made famous forever. Or until a few more killers go beyond you.
Even limiting people to something like a single shot bolt action rifle ... again, just plan your attack around the weaponry you have (and of course with no guns available there are always other weapons -- like the explosives used in the greatest school massacre in American history in Bath, MI, in 1928).
But make no mistake, the anti-gun groups WILL try to "ratched" down what is available to us. They will once again fight for one gun a month, registration, whatever they can even though it wouldn't have affected this shooting and not many of the others throughout history.
Let's take a look at their new suggestions:
Looking at these ... the most recent assault didn't involve Assault Weapons, but from what I've read they are probably including semi auto handguns as well. For the reasons I talked about before, that wouldn't help. The most recent shooting was with an inexpensive shotgun.
High Cap magazines -- useless. I saw somewhere that with Cho, if he'd had 10 round mags he just would have had to have reloaded 3 more times.
Background check at gun shows -- but the most recent shooting were either with legally purchased guns or stolen guns.
A system where university officials are notified? Wow. Hard to imagine how they will be able to identify University students at a point of sale -- I guess you create an online database of everyone who's currently a student. And then you notify the university so they can ... what. Ban the student from campus? Put him into counseling for buying a gun? And if they ban students automatically from the campus, unless they set up checkpoints all the way around campus to keep him out how will that help? (about as much as a "no massacres allowed" sign!).
So ... after much thought ... I hate to sound like a "gun nut," but the ONLY solution I can see is to allow adults to carry weapons to protect themselves. This has already worked in a few situations (not so well reported since there were few deaths) and could have worked in Illinois.
I would also like to see newspapers begin limiting their coverage of these things, as they already do with suicides (it's well known that reporting on a suicide can cause more, so few are written about) but I don't know of a way to enforce that with laws. It has to be voluntary, and as long as the public wants to see every picture of a shooter and hear his angry video manifesto shooting innocents and committing suicide will be an effective way to get the limelight.
Any other ideas? Anything welcome. Even new gun control laws.
Statement of National Gun Violence Prevention Organizations in Wake of Northern Illinois University Shooting
NOTE: If you predict that giving people access to weapons will cause mass murder, you have a low opinion of humanity -- an opinion that humanity has been living up to recently, admittedly. I'm also interested to know how weaponry has increased in power in the last few decades since I haven't seen anything more "powerful" than the Garands that were available at the end of WWII.
Honestly, BTW ... with young children ... if I thought there were some kind of ban possible that would keep them safer without surrendering their 2nd amendment rights and endangering their future, I'd be all for it. I'd be glad to give up my greater than 10 round mags, even more, if I thought it would help.
But the problem is ... it won't. Even if you limit American's to pump shotguns with no more than a 3 round capacity, the capacity for mass murder is still there. Just find a place with large numbers of unarmed people and no easy exits (like a Illinois college lecture hall) and by keeping some distance between you and the sheep you are there to slaughter you can keep loading and firing that 12 gauge plenty long enough to take out a lot of people. Couple that shotgun with a few molotov cocktails or something similar, send a few letters to local papers ahead of time with pictures, and you are SURE to be made famous forever. Or until a few more killers go beyond you.
Even limiting people to something like a single shot bolt action rifle ... again, just plan your attack around the weaponry you have (and of course with no guns available there are always other weapons -- like the explosives used in the greatest school massacre in American history in Bath, MI, in 1928).
But make no mistake, the anti-gun groups WILL try to "ratched" down what is available to us. They will once again fight for one gun a month, registration, whatever they can even though it wouldn't have affected this shooting and not many of the others throughout history.
Let's take a look at their new suggestions:
Looking at these ... the most recent assault didn't involve Assault Weapons, but from what I've read they are probably including semi auto handguns as well. For the reasons I talked about before, that wouldn't help. The most recent shooting was with an inexpensive shotgun.
High Cap magazines -- useless. I saw somewhere that with Cho, if he'd had 10 round mags he just would have had to have reloaded 3 more times.
Background check at gun shows -- but the most recent shooting were either with legally purchased guns or stolen guns.
A system where university officials are notified? Wow. Hard to imagine how they will be able to identify University students at a point of sale -- I guess you create an online database of everyone who's currently a student. And then you notify the university so they can ... what. Ban the student from campus? Put him into counseling for buying a gun? And if they ban students automatically from the campus, unless they set up checkpoints all the way around campus to keep him out how will that help? (about as much as a "no massacres allowed" sign!).
So ... after much thought ... I hate to sound like a "gun nut," but the ONLY solution I can see is to allow adults to carry weapons to protect themselves. This has already worked in a few situations (not so well reported since there were few deaths) and could have worked in Illinois.
I would also like to see newspapers begin limiting their coverage of these things, as they already do with suicides (it's well known that reporting on a suicide can cause more, so few are written about) but I don't know of a way to enforce that with laws. It has to be voluntary, and as long as the public wants to see every picture of a shooter and hear his angry video manifesto shooting innocents and committing suicide will be an effective way to get the limelight.
Any other ideas? Anything welcome. Even new gun control laws.