In dealing with dangers to ourselves and society we generally pursue at least two courses of action. The first and most important is training people and ourselves for immediate response to the inevitable, which is the actual occurrence and confrontation of the danger. The second is the prevention of the danger. While the old adage, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is true in many situations, when it comes to life and death events, we always need to be prepared for the actual event’s occurrence. It would be suicide to rely only on prevention. It would be irresponsible to remove or disallow the very tools that will be most effective in dealing with the dangerous event, particularly out of fear and unwillingness to do what’s necessary to use tool properly.
For instance, we teach fire prevention techniques and we don’t ban fire hoses, axes or extinguishers because we fear someone may blast a baby carriage with a high powered water hose or swipe someone with an ax. We allow anyone to learn firefighting techniques and sign on as volunteer firefighters.
We advocate all sorts of healthy behavior, nutrition and exercise and we don’t ban life saving drugs or disallow defibrillation paddles because someone might wrap the paddles around another person’s ears and zap their brain. We don’t ban syringes or scalpels out of fear they can be used as weapons. We allow anyone to take first aid classes and participate in saving lives when lives needs to be saved.
We teach safe driving and we don’t stop people from using cars out of fear that someone might drive into a crowd. We don’t prevent people from pumping their own gas out of fear they might make molotov cocktails. We don’t mandate government approved pre-cut EVERYTHING so people don’t need knives. We don’t prosecute a good Samaritan for using his arms to save a mugging victim when the mugger is misusing his own arms.
Whatever steps are taken to stop or prevent violent crimes, removing the very tools that would be most needed to stop or mitigate the crime IN PROGRESS, from the people most capable of doing so, is wrong! It will only INCREASE deaths, as statistics demonstrate. When a gun crime is being committed, unless there are individuals around with telekinetic powers who can immediately immobilize the perpetrator from a safe distance, the best way to save everyone is with another gun, or with several guns in the hands of those that are trained to use them.
It’s been said that Connecticut has some of the toughest gun laws in the country and that the Sandy Hook shooter broke over 40 of them to commit his horrible crime. What’s sad is that no one was around with a gun to stop him and if gun control advocates have their way, no one will be around to stop the next shooter.
Gun control laws that prevent guns from getting in the hands of as many RESPONSIBLE citizens as possible, more than they prevent criminals from acquiring them, is DEAD wrong! Advocates of these kinds of laws ought to think again about what they’ll really accomplish, because greater numbers of lives, particularly those of children whom the laws will make sitting ducks, will be lost.
Those who agree with the above need to respond with greater outrage against irresponsible gun control laws than those clamoring FOR the laws that won’t work. Those who agree must not yield to irresponsible gun control advocates who presumptuously believe they can claim the moral high ground. Reality and morality are on the side of those who have the right plan to fight for life and for children, not those who want to implement the wrong plan and FORCE everyone else to do the same.