if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?"
-- Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, 1803
A Question About Guns
by Lee
As you can imagine, when I got to work this morning the talk was of the VT shooting. And, this being liberal California, the blame lies entirely on America’s gun culture and lack of strict gun control laws. In response I brought up what I think to be a pretty decent point.
In Vigrinia they offer CCW permits to citizens. The school was an exception, and even licensed CCW permit holders were not permitted to carry their weapons on campus. In other words, if you looked at a map, there would be a circle around the VT campus which was the “gun free zone.”
Fascinating, isn’t it, that the bloodbath took place in the gun free zone and not in the zone around it, where all those private citizens were packing heat. In fact, bloodbaths usually take place in gun-free zones. But I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.
Why is it that the massacres and bloodbaths always take place in areas that are officially designated “gun free” zones? Think about it. Columbine was a gun-free school. Luby’s was a gun-free restaurant. How many guys have snapped at their places of work, all of which are gun-free? Hell, how many guys at the US Post Office alone have gone apeshit and killed their coworkers, all in a gun-free environment?
Why do massacres never seem to take place in environments where people are known to potentially be armed? If the crime is caused by the availability of guns, why wasn’t the area outside the VT campus the scene of the bloodbath, and the gun-free zone the safe haven from the scourge of gun crime?
Comments
And technically, loaded firearms are permitted on school campuses in Virginia, so long as the weapons stay inside a car. I suspect that if anyone had a weapon in their car they could have simply ran to get it like they did in the Appalacian incident. But that, like all “what ifs” is mere speculation that exists outside the world of what it was like inside that school by the people therein.
Where I work it is a gun-free zone as well. I know of at least a dozen pistols immediately accessible to various employees - nearly all of which are NRA members.
We had a nutjob at work some six years ago - several people suddenly started wearing loose bulky jackets indoors for a period to time until said nutjob was no longer a concern.
People get pissed off at co-workers, so they kill them at work. People get pissed off at postal employees, so they kill them at post offices… (etc).
Oh, I completely agree. But why don’t you hear about bloodbaths taking place at, say, gun stores, or police stations, or any other location that is literally swimming with guns?
The point is that there are always going to be people who want to engage in this sort of murder/suicide behavior. There’s nothing we as a society can do to change that. The only thing we can do is let private citizens arm themselves so that, when they find themselves in this type of horrific situation, they have the means to defend themselves.
If you ever get the chance, watch the Penn & Teller Bullshit! episode on gun control, and listen to the woman tell the story about how the gunman walked from table to table in that Luby’s calmly executing people, and there was nothing the victims could do. The same goes for the LIRR incident. Had there been ONE licensed gun carrier on that train then a massacre could have been averted.
Again, respectfully there are (at least) five conditions to that hypothetical
1) If there had been at least one licenced gun carrier AND
2) If they had their gun with them AND
3) If they had the frame of mind when confronted with a killer to use their weapon AND
4) If they hadn’t been shot already AND
5) If they had been able to return fire in time THEN
6) A massacre could have been averted.
So yes, while hypothetically possible, other than in the hypothetical, it isn’t as simple as that.
People get pissed off at postal employees, so they kill them at post offices…
I thought it was the postal employees themselves doing the killin’.
1) If there had been at least one licenced gun carrier AND
2) If they had their gun with them AND
3) If they had the frame of mind when confronted with a killer to use their weapon AND
4) If they hadn’t been shot already AND
5) If they had been able to return fire in time THEN
6) A massacre could have been averted.
You seem to think that people that carry around guns for self-protection don’t have their shit together. You don’t know gun owners very well.
Seattle Outcast:
I don’t make a claim either way about gun owners, hence the “if”. However, it is correct to say that they would have to have their “shit together” when faced with an emergency to make a difference. Unless you’re claiming that CCW-permitted gun owner would behave the same way, the “if” is valid… and if you are claiming that, that’s horseshit.
Do CCW permits apply to things like throwing knives? Or are they just for guns? Just curious.
I’d put my faith in an average person packing heat in an emergency over your typical urban twit in a heartbeat. At least one of them has shown enough presence of mind to consider that the world isn’t a safe place and that you can do something about that.
Consider the sheer number of armed self-defense cases that happen on a daily basis. Of course, you’d have to subscribe to a gun magazine to read about them. People quite regularly have the presence of mind to pull a gun at opportune times when threatened. To state otherwise is total horseshit.
Do CCW permits apply to things like throwing knives? Or are they just for guns? Just curious.
Like all state laws, it will depend on the jurisdiction. Just as some states have reciprocating agreements with other states for concealed carry, some others don’t. Check your local laws.
I’m not going to make a global statement about CCW permits, but the permits in KS and MO require training (class) a back ground check that I will assume gets done since the state is issuing the permit. You don’t get a CCW permit by just paying the fee. It would not bother me if one was required to shoot at a range and pass some sort of accuracy test on a regular basis either.
And also from what I understand, the training is more than gun safety, it includes when pulling out your weapon is appropriate and justified.
Seattle Outcast:
People quite regularly have the presence of mind to pull a gun at opportune times when threatened. To state otherwise is total horseshit.
I’m sure that’s the case. We don’t know how often an armed citizen was present and was too gripped by panic, let’s say, to act. My point is that simply wishing a hypothetical does not mean it is as simple as that.
They’ll just say that you need to make the whole country a gun free zone because it’s too easy to bring a gun in from off campus (at least in some high schools there are metal detectors). Of course, they’ll ignore the fact that prohibiting guns across the board will just mean that criminals are the only element that get to regularly possess them (ignoring the fact that if guns are illegal anyone who has one is a criminal by definition).
I’m sure that’s the case. We don’t know how often an armed citizen was present and was too gripped by panic, let’s say, to act. My point is that simply wishing a hypothetical does not mean it is as simple as that.
True, but being ready to act and being unarmed is just as ineffective as be unarmed.
Let’s pretend that if the the campus wasn’t a “gun free zone” some 5% of the student body was packing heat. That would have left a couple dozen dorm residents with guns, and if even a couple of them had the presence of mind to blow this guy’s brains out the whole thing would have ended much sooner with a lot less bloodshed.
I counter your baseless hypothetical with one of my own: Let’s pretend that Keebler elves exist and could have provided the killer with lots of chocolate, making him happy long enough for the Trix Rabbit to sucker punch him in the balls. Hypotheticals are utterly and completely useless.
Hypotheticals are utterly and completely useless.
Bullshit.
Sean,
You seem to think that ducking questions and throwing back absurd statements makes you correct. In actuality we can see your douchebaggery coming a mile away. To equate the whole gun thing to something else, look at drug laws.
It is illegal to manufacture, possess, or use any number of drugs. That should make it excessively hard to get coke, pot, x, acid, heroin, or anything else of that nature. Yet it does nothing of the sort. I personally do nothing more exciting than have a little too much to drink. Yet I know how I could acquire any number of those drugs I listed within a matter of hours despite their illegality. This should not be possible. There are laws against those things!
Maybe it’s because, now check this, THERE ARE CRIMINALS. They do not obey the laws no matter how well worded they are, how many people agree with them, or how many police we have enforcing them. Rape, murder, robbery - all illegal. They’ve also been going on for thousands of years before the US of A was founded. The good people don’t do these things. The criminals do. If this is the case here, how would it be any different if you were to enact laws against guns? Would every scumbag suddenly decide, “Well, I won’t obey those other laws, but hey, no guns is a good idea,” and go voluntarily turn their shit in?
My, someone’s panties are in a bunch today.
How, in all the postings I’ve made today, have I backed away from or ignored a question directed at me? In every one I’ve made (or nearly.. I don’t remember them all) I’ve countered emotional and hypothetical “arguements” with facts and logic.
As for your desperate plea for attention, I saw your anecdotal and hypothetical posting, which contained no question directed at me, and decided to state my own anecdote and take a shot at the city I grew to hate. Don’t like it? I don’t care in the least. And worst of all: You still have to live in Tampa. My deepest condolences.
As for anyone else, I’m quite happy to have civil and logical discussions (as I have been doing. Thank you to those who have reciprocated).
Bullshit.
What can I say. You’ve convinced me. Well done.
Sean, with CCW holders one uasally follows the other, we are not all drooling idiots.
a firearm gives you a LOT more options than an empty hand does,.
No arguement on any of that from me, and nothing I’ve written today should be interpreted as suggesting I would think otherwise.
Lee, one possible answer to your question (as to why there aren’t more bloodbaths in NON-gun-free-zones) may be that when a nutball pulls out his gun and starts killing, he is in turn killed and the whole situation simply doesns’t turn into a blood bath.
The deterent factor of CCW may play into it, but for someone who’s mentally unstable, depending upon the type of instability, the deterent factor may not matter.
This subject would be possible to research and actually come up with an answer to the question. We just have to look at all the data for all the gun deaths and shootings in the USA and see how many times a citizen effectively stopped such problems from turning into a “bloodbath”.
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People get killed at workplaces and schools by crazy people who I’m guessing don’t care either way if people are armed, since it is a suicide mission. I think it is giving the killer too much credit to believe otherwise.
People get pissed off at co-workers, so they kill them at work. People get pissed off at postal employees, so they kill them at post offices… (etc).
I would caution reading too much into rare random acts of violence, such as Michael Moore might do going the other way.