Knee-jerk reactions not the solution
By Tim Inwood
The sadness of Monday, April 16, 2007, will echo for
some time. Our hearts and prayers continue to go out to the family
and friends of those killed at Virginia Tech.
What we do
know is that the murderer was a
23 year old South Korean named Cho Seung-Hui. He was a resident alien who lived here for 14 years, and he went to Virginia Tech as a student. On Monday, April 16, filled with evil, this malevolent
force of nature, armed with two handguns, committed the worst atrocity ever on an American school campus. In
the end, thirty-three people, including Cho, were
dead. Another 30 or so people were wounded.
The news
coverage has been wall to wall, and when the talking
heads begin to chatter all sorts of mindless things
are said. As I feared, the knee jerk reaction on many
networks and their guests has been, "What gun control
measure would have stopped this?". Frequently, the
conclusion has been to ban this or that type of
firearm. This reaction is as predictable as it is
dead wrong.
Click 'Read More' for the entire story.
Listening to media carry on about the guns has been
interesting. While most correctly got that he was
carrying two pistols, I have also heard one news
source say he was armed with a "semiautomatic revolver"
and carrying lots of "clips" for it. Since the
Webley-Fosbery, self-actuating revolver, is very rare,
old, and does not use "clips" or magazines, I think
this fellow was clueless as to what he was blithering
on about. ABC News claimed one of the handguns was
"22mm". That would mean an artillery piece! Since we are
clearly dealing with newsreaders, who are very
ignorant about firearms, I will take anything they say
about the guns with a grain of salt. I add this
comment to remind you that you are getting news from
folks who are not experts on what they are speaking
about. So check facts before you go quoting anything
you hear them say.
Tuesday morning the Virginia State Police finally
cleared up the mystery. Seung-Hui was indeed armed
with a pair of pistols. One was a Glock model 19, 9mm
and the other one a Walther P22 .22 caliber
pistol. Both had their serial numbers illegally
removed.
He purchased the Glock on March 13th, and the Walther
.22 caliber pistol in the past week. He brought chains
and locks for the doors, as well as a pair of knives.
Clearly the man did not do this on the spur of the
moment, but had been planning this atrocity for
months. This monster's suicide note a several page
rambling diatribe of hate for the wealthy college
kids, privilege, debauchery, the United States,
etc. In other words, he was a leftist nut case that
hated America. Pity that he hated us so, but stayed
in the United States.
One thing that I heard Congress was going to do made
me cringe. On Tuesday, April 17, the Senate Judiciary
Committee was going to meet to discuss having Attorney
General Gonzales come up and testify on the subject of
the fired federal prosecutors. They canceled that
agenda to change the subject. Obviously, with Senator
Schumer on that committee my suspicion is the
Democrats will be considering how far they can now
reach in their desire to ban guns. Yes, I said ban
guns. A few months ago, anti-gun groups released
letters asking for funds from their supporters. They
said they needed money to lobby Congress when the next
tragedy happened. Well, these vultures have gotten what
they wanted. An incident that helps propel them to the
front of news cameras so they can call for gun bans.
Be assured they will make the most of it.
We know bills are already waiting to hit the Senate
and House Judiciary Committees that propose to do just
that. There are plans to ban .50 BMG caliber firearms.
There are plans to "close the gun show loophole", which
would effectively kill gun shows. The one I am sure
they will focus on first is Representative Carolyn
McCarthy's plan, already introduced in the House
Judiciary Committee, to reintroduce and expand the
Clinton Semi Auto ban of 1994. This not only would ban
the manufacture of a number of semiautomatic firearms,
it would also ban high capacity magazines. It's déjà vu
all over again, but much worse. This bill is currently
assigned the number H.R. 1022. Ironically, it also calls
to ban the Ruger model 1022 .22lr rifle.
I doubt the anti-gun Democrat majority in the U.S.
Congress will admit their highly-touted Brady
background check failed. The man who did this was
indeed a foreigner, a South Korean national, but also
legal resident alien. Apparently, he had no criminal
history to deny selling him a gun. Under our law
resident aliens who can pass the Brady check can buy
the guns. In fact, police spokesmen say receipts for
the guns were in his backpack. In other words, this
man passed the Brady background check and legally
bought the guns. Virginia's one gun a month law did
not stop this. He patiently waited for another month
to pass to buy the second handgun. The laws in place
did not stop this. They could not. Lets face it
friends - when someone is willing to kill people, and
take their own life in the process, you cannot stop
them with laws. You can only stop them with force on
the spot as they begin their crime spree. The knee-jerk reaction from the left and the media to ban guns
is the wrong approach to this. In fact, the solution is
not fewer guns but more guns.
Let's think about this
logically for a minute. Virginia has a concealed carry
license process available to their citizens. In fact,
under Virginia law you have much fewer "criminal
protection zones" than we have here in Ohio. However,
Virginia Tech's Board of Regents had prohibited the
carrying of firearms on campus for both licensed
students and faculty. So we are left with a new
question. How many people who could have possibly
stopped this mad man were disarmed by this ill-advised
and short-sighted policy? What if when this man
started his shooting spree, a licensed and armed
faculty member or student had been able to stop him in
his tracks? Well, I can answer that. Fewer than the
thirty-three people who are now dead. That is for sure. Sadly, a bill to stop
colleges from prohibiting carrying on a college campus
was killed in committee in January. Ironically,
Virginia Tech issued a public statement that
congratulated the legislature for killing HB 1572,
making their college more "safe". How sadly wrong they
were.
Ohio's law is much worse than Virginia's in this
regard. Ohio has prohibited guns in churches, schools,
college grounds, government buildings, and in any restaurant
with a liquor license. We also see a fair amount of
shopping malls and other private property that has
been posted with what we have derisively called "ghost
buster signs". These are the signs with the little red
slash through a handgun. I view those signs as an
invitation to disaster. They tell any miscreant that this
is a place you can do your worst and nobody here
should be able to stop you, we have disarmed them.
This view of mine has been born by the spate of
robberies in Fifth Third banks and UDF convenient
marts in Ohio. Many of them have been robbed since
they put those signs up in the days following
enactment of Ohio's concealed carry law.
The solution, my friends, is not more hoplophobe knee-jerk reactions to ban guns. That, in fact, is the
problem. Prohibitions only disarm the law abiding who
have no evil intent and make it all the easier for
criminals to carry out their nefarious plans of creating
havoc and death. In the following days you will hear
not only Federal Government proposing new laws, I
suspect we will hear that some states will tighten their
laws to something more unreasonable as well. It is
now that we must also act. We need to let our
legislators know that additional unconstitutional
restrictions on our gun rights are not the solution to
this problem. What must be done is the opposite. We
must pass "Castle Doctrine", or "Stand Your Ground"
laws, and reduce, if not do away with, all
"criminal protection zones". A place where a
licensed law abiding citizen is armed is a much safer
place than one where people are disarmed. If you have
your license, then you have undergone training,
background checks, and are generally recognized to be
an upstanding citizen in your community. Where, pray
tell, is the logic in disarming these people who are
models of responsibility? How many more people will
die because the law abiding are disarmed? That is the
question to put to your legislature.
Call your Representative and Senators in Washington
DC. Let them know more gun control is unacceptable and
that you will remember what they do in the wake of
this incident when you vote next time. Repeat this
with your state legislators. I hope my fellow
Buckeyes will also demand that Ohio pass the Castle
Doctrine bill, and that we work on getting rid of those
"criminal protection zones". Remind them that those "CPZs"
aid and abet the very thing that happened at Virginia
Tech. Those foolish policies make it all the easier
for it to happen here too. Madmen won't obey such
laws. So tell them to restore our right to self
defense everywhere. You know what you must do. So act
today.
In addition to calling your Federal and State legislators, please make sure your membership in the NRA is up to date by calling 1-877-NRA-2000. In fact, for the
rest of April you can get your membership at a
reduced rate. So make that call and join or renew.
I would also encourage you to become a
" target=_blank”>Gun Owners of America, and naturally I
hope you are a Defender of the Buckeye Firearms
Association. We cannot do our work without your help.
Tim Inwood is the current Legislative Liaison and Past President of the Clinton County Farmers and Sportsmen Association, an Endowment Member of the NRA, Life Member of OGCA, and a volunteer for Buckeye Firearms Association.
Related Links:
http://www.ohio.gov/government.stm
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