Sunday, April 22, 2007

Gun Free Zones

How many shootings have there been in gun free zones? The Amish School was a gun-free zone. Virginia Tech was a gun free zone. I am pretty sure NASA is a gun free zone. Columbine probably was, too. Pick some others.

It has always been illegal to drive into the front window of any Luby's. It was also illegal to carry a gun in Texas, which Suzanne Hupp knew. She watched George Hennard shoot and kill her parents, while her gun was locked in the trunk of her car in the parking lot, because she didn't want to break the law.

Add that to the fact it was probably illegal for any of these shooters to be carrying anywhere. I doubt any of these guys were licensed to carry; I imagine at least some of them were felons early on. The Columbine shooters built bombs, which has been illegal for a long time.

I am sure some of them broke some parking restrictions when they went to shoot up their targets.

It was also against the law for them to shoot people.

Once more; every one of these events involved multiple laws being broken. More laws are not going to do anything other than stop a law abiding person from defending themselves.

There is a similarity with suicide bombings here, too; when you don't expect to outlive the event, you really don't care about being prosecuted or serving jail time. That is the whole key, here; some people just don't give a damn about the law. One-gun-a-month laws and high-capacity magazine bans won't inconvenience anyone except those people who choose to obey them. You cannot fix this problem by stopping bullies, or anger management classes, or by taking all the guns away. Ask Britain or Australia.

The shooter at Virginia Tech wasn't even a citizen, but amazingly enough, that does not disqualify him from owning a gun; I would actually agree to that gun restriction. I realize it is unfair to use hindsight, but had authorities in that case had their thumbs out, he would have been locked up for stalking.

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