by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
After the shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, USA om December 14, 2012, calls for a total ban on gun ownership can be heard again. However, had someone at that school, such as a teacher or security guard, been armed the shooter would not have gotten very far, despite the fact that he was wearing a bullet proof vest. Best to always assume that someone is wearing body armor nowadays and shoot for head, arms or legs.
Every time something really bad, such as this, happens, people cry out for (more) safety, and the government answers by taking the rights away from good people.
Every body ends up talking about guns and that guns kill people but this is not the case. Guns are inanimate objects and do not kill people. It is deranged people using guns that kill people. And the majority, if not indeed all, of the shooters in recent history in the USA who have committed acts such as this shooting have been on prescription drugs, namely psychotropic medication, medications with warnings of adverse side effects.
The shooters at Columbine High School were on Ritalin, the side effects of which include uncontrollable anger.
Gun prohibition does not work
All the schools where shootings with mass killings occurred already had a anti-gun law in place and had banned guns from the schools, including guns carried by security personnel.
What no one mentions are the shootings that have been prevented by teachers, students, janitors and security carrying and using firearms in the defense of the school and its students. Those incidents are being – deliberately – kept quiet and out of the media.
In addition to this, if schools are not safe and a target for deranged individuals then there is an answer to this and that is homeschooling.
It is not the prohibition of guns that will prevent shootings, whether at schools, malls or wherever, from occurring. However, the permitted carry of handguns by civilians, especially the concealed carry, including on school premises, can stop such things in their tracks as long as the people carrying such guns apply proper gun control.
Proper gun control is, in this case, a steady hand, and the ability to shoot at the right places in order to incapacitate an assailant even if he or she happens to wear body armor. In addition to that it requires the capacity no just to shoot straight but to be prepared to use the gun that one carries.
What really concerns me is that, in recent days and weeks, the USA has had a number of high profile shooting incidents and that at about the same time when the President may be prepared to sign a UN charter to take firearms out of the hands of civilians.
Proper use of firearms by civilians, and it has been proven, can prevent many a shooting and many a crime, and there are enough studies that have been conducted, including by the Federal Bureau, that make it clear that in areas where concealed carry is permitted the rate of crime drops significantly to almost nil. Not that the media will ever report such stories. Not enough mileage in them.
© 2012
