Opinion
USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- Once again, after a senseless act of violence, gun ownership opponents — including those in the news media — rush to penalize millions of lawful firearms owners for something they didn’t do.
The mayhem in Virginia Beach was the act of a man who legally purchased the two pistols recovered by authorities at the scene. He was an employee of the Public Utilities Department, and reportedly had a good work record.
Since this tragedy unfolded, anti-gun rights advocates have wondered why our nation can’t merely copy what the New Zealand government did following the tragedy at Christchurch. Our Constitution protects the individual right to keep and bear arms, while New Zealand arbitrarily banned a whole class of firearms without a public vote, much less public debate.
Raising this question, however, reveals what the firearms civil rights community has known for many years.
The American gun control movement has become a gun prohibition crusade, and proponents are finally admitting it.
They would delight in a government effort to confiscate lawfully owned firearms from U.S. citizens while trying to convince the public that this will provide a panacea to violent crime.
No law on the books now, or that has been proposed, would have prevented the Virginia Beach tragedy. Reports say the killer had no criminal record other than traffic violations. He had a college degree and was a veteran of the Virginia National Guard. He passed multiple background checks.
But the predictable knee-jerk reflex of the gun prohibition crowd is to seek tighter restrictions on millions of people who harmed nobody, just to advance their agenda of public disarmament. That’s not justice; it’s social bigotry by people who would never tolerate a similarly broad brush policy were it aimed at the rights of any other group.
What a pity the news media rarely cover incidents in which legally armed Americans save countless innocent lives rather than take lives.
Alan Gottlieb is founder of the Second Amendment Foundation and chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
A law REQUIRING all adults to be armed in public as well as banning GFZ would certainly reduce if not eliminate mass public killings with guns, knives or golf clubs.
The insane are not stupid. They’d look for easy targets. Maybe they’d go to NZ or England?
Utterly stupid. Laws do NOT prevent crime. The purpose of law is to provide a legal framework that is used to determine whether or not a crime has occurred. Law is powerless to stop criminals from being criminals. Law merely points out that “hey, he’s a criminal”. Police exist to apprehend those who break the law and incarcerate them so that they may be punished.
Agreed, Vlad. A politician with a law never stops a bad guy with a gun. He only controls the good guys, which is his true agenda. Making good people helpless does not make bad people harmless. For once I agree with Bill O’Reilly. Bad guys shooting people is the price of freedom. Liberty is risky business. That’s why our Founding Fathers recognized our God-given right to shoot back. Killing is a matter of will, not weapons. You cannot control the act itself by passing laws about the means employed.” The late Col Jeff Cooper, 1958 Handgun expert and founder of… Read more »
It is high time to start holding these politicians and bureaucrats responsible for the carnage. Taking away the rights of the people to defend themselves declaring to domestic terrorists that there will be no resistance is crimininal in itself. It is their fault for failing to protect the innocent lives and they must be held accountable as if they pulled the trigger themselves.
Ban gun free zones bet some lives would have been spared!!!
In the 1880’s, if someone stole a horse, rustled cattle or robbed a train, they got hanged! But that didn’t stop people from doing that. Now these mentally unstable demon-craps politicians say more gun laws! Exactly what law would have stopped him from shooting people in a office building? Name anything. Public hanging, a million dollar fine? What? All the gun banning cults and power crazed politicians want are excuses to ban all guns (and hunting) in America! This fits in their socialists plans for a North Korea style of government, where you are no longer a citizen but a… Read more »
Northam is a piece of shit. He is a liar and a typical democrat. Why in the hell would the people of Virginia not recall or impeach this piece of shit governor. There is something going on here that we are not aware of with this murderer. Sane people do not just wake up one morning and decide to go shoot a dozen fellow employees. Hopefully the truth will come out as to why. The only thing in this country that should be banned is gun free zones and democrats.
If someone uses a car to plow into a crowd and kill people, why isn’t there an outcry to ban cars? The logic is identical except that the liberal lefties own cars and don’t loathe, hate or fear them or the people that own them.
I think a huge class action lawsuit for denying those people their right to bear arms to protect themselves. I think every victim or close family member of a casualty should file a massive lawsuit against gun free zone entities, whether a business or government. My thought is, if I can’t protect myself then the perpetrators of gun free zones are responsible for my protection. While I am on my soap box lets get lawsuits going against car manufacturers for making cars that can be driven while intoxicated and killing innocent people. If the peoples republic of Shitcago can sue… Read more »
I agree 100%.
Especially so now that it has come out there were electronic doors on the second floor requiring key cards to open them which the police did not have.
One law could have helped. Outlaw gun free zones.
Exactly. Criminal liability for any accomplices.
@Nananshi; Especially those “politicians” who contrived these ENRICHED GUN FREE TARGET ZONES.
There’s the Truth! All of these occur where no one is permitted to carry.
Yep – another law, ban forever ALL gun and accessory restrictions including NFA.
f new zealand , they want to be under muslim control.
correction; they are already under…