President Bush was horrified by the rampage and offered his prayers to the victims and the people of Virginia. "The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed," spokeswoman Dana Perino said.There are laws against shooting people. If all people followed laws, why would one need to bear arms? The president wouldn't understand a logical fallacy if it smacked him in the chops.
Someone bearing arms might have shot the gunman -- or might have hit more bystanders. Someone shooting the gunman would also have been disobeying the law 1) for being armed on campus 2) for shooting someone. Oh, such a person might have been commended for stopping something bad --yet even a cop would have been put on leave and investigated for it, and likely said helpful-shooter might end up as a defendant in court. There is a high chance that such a Samaritan might end up doing life in prison. Witness the case of Cory Maye, who is spending the rest of his life in jail for shooting the armed people who broke into his home.
Today the "arm everyone" morons are in full cry. Go read Radley Balko's The Agitator before you join them.
3 comments:
From a law enforcement stand point, you assume the civilian with a gun is the bad guy when you respond to a "shots fired" call. You shouldn't and you are taught not to, but you do. I worked plainclothes and responding I definitely had it broadcast that there were plainclothes officers responding. Detectives get shot at and shot by other officers.
If you add true civilians with guns to the mix, it's a nightmare.
Someone house or business, I can see it, but not at a school or college.
If you own a gun, you have to practice with it regularly to be safe. You have to be able to definitely identify the target and hit only the target.
I can think of a dozen different ways of taking out a bad guy with what's available in a classroom building, even more if I can get in a cleaning closet. People were killing each other a long time before the invention of gunpowder.
The problem is that arming people isn't going to provide them with the confidence to do something.
Bryan
Why Now?
[Blogger hates me today]
I don't think 'everybody' should be armed, but if just one 'well-regulated', trained, licensed-to-carry, armed LAW-ABIDING citizen with a sense of responsibility had been at VT that day, this tradgedy need have been anywhere near as huge as it is.
Oops. Should have been 'need not'.
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