The Lessons We Didn’t Learn from Mass Murder

U.S.A.– -(AmmoLand.com)- February 14th is the third anniversary of the attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. If you’re like me, it is uncomfortable to stir that painful memory. I’ve studied that attack because it would be worse to see it repeated simply because we didn’t learn a difficult lesson. You might not remember, but the attack at Columbine High School was almost 22 years ago. The attack at Sandy Hook Elementary School more than 8 years ago. That is plenty of time for us to act so our children are protected. I have an uncomfortable prediction about the next mass murder. The next attack will be at a place that politicians told us was safe because law-abiding people like us were disarmed. It is time we looked harder.

Gun control is the promise that ink on paper will protect our children. That isn’t a new idea. We’ve had gun control laws for over a century. Today, we have over twenty thousand firearms regulations, and we were told that each and every one of them was the essential step that would finally make us safe.

We’re told that honest civilians should be disarmed, but the first thing we do at the sign of danger is called someone with a gun.

We were told that mandatory background checks would keep crazy people from getting firearms. That claim assumes that the government is always doing its job. The government might disarm a million honest citizens who are no threat to anyone, but that doesn’t stop the damage done from allowing a single criminal to get a gun. We know what happens next.

We saw background checks fail when a crazy man attacked college students in a gun-free zone in Isla Vista, California. Background checks failed when a crazy man attacked a prayer meeting in a gun-free zone at the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Background checks failed when the murderer passed his background check despite being a prohibited individual and attacked the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. Those are the clear examples where we knew the murderer was crazy or criminal before he attacked, and he passed his background check anyway.

The murderer at Parkland, Florida got a gun despite people contacting the FBI and saying the former student wanted to commit mass murder. Most of us recognize that as a significant clue.

If gun control depends on perfection, then it is doomed to fail.

We can cite example after example where the murderer got his firearm without bothering with a background check. The murderer at Sandy Hook Elementary School murdered his mother to take her guns. The murderer at Red Lake, Minnesota murdered his grandfather, a tribal deputy, to take his firearms. The political leftists who tried to kill dozens of Republican legislators at a baseball field in Alexandria, Virginia was a prohibited person who took his guns illegally from his father.

It now takes over a year to get a carry permit in Detroit while criminals get a gun in minutes on the street corner. How will disarming more honest citizens make us safer?

Mass murder shocks us. In contrast, the news media barely reports the hundreds of people who are shot in our failed cities every week. If we’re going to talk about saving lives, then we have to look at the ordinary citizens who are the victims of violent crime every day.

Some politicians said we would be safer if law-abiding good guys were disarmed. Is anyone surprised that their gun control laws left guns in the hands of criminals who break the law for a living? Drug gangs easily smuggle a few ounces of steel, brass, and lead as they smuggle millions of people across the border, and smuggle thousands of tons of drugs each year. Are you surprised that prohibition doesn’t work? Gun prohibition only disarms the law-abiding, and that hasn’t made our cities safer.

I want to clear up a possible misunderstanding. I’m convinced that gun control leaves us at risk. I know you might feel differently and I beg you to hear me out. I think gun control laws put our children in danger, but that isn’t because I’m different than you are; it is because I’ve seen things you might not have seen. I’ve looked into the eyes of the police officer who ran toward the sound of gunfire to save kids. That officer arrived too late. I’ve listened to a victim who was shot by a mass murderer and survived. They both begged us to keep the kids safe until the police arrived. That is exactly what the investigators said after the attack in Parkland, Florida.

It is time we listened.. before it is too late.

‘I looked at the video, and we could have stopped him if someone inside the school had a gun.’

About Rob Morse

The original article is posted here. Rob Morse writes about gun rights at Ammoland, at Clash Daily, and on his SlowFacts blog. He hosts the Self Defense Gun Stories Podcast and co-hosts the Polite Society Podcast. Rob was an NRA pistol instructor and combat handgun competitor.