There was an anti-gun commentary written for STLToday.com, which brags to be “St. Louis’s #1 Website.” Personally, I prefer another, but that is neither here nor there.
This commentary was written by former school teacher turned writer Judy Larson, who whines, “Haven’t We Had Enough Yet?” It’s a rare commentary in that it starts out with a very clear admission of complete ignorance of the subject she’s about to tackle:
I don’t like guns. I’ve never handled a gun. I was not raised in a family that hunted.
Having established that she is clearly a subject matter expert, she continues with her liberty limiting screed. She is most upset about those suicide shooters who go into public places and kill indiscriminately. She compares them to suicide bombers:
We hear all the time about suicide bombers in the Middle East. And we shake our heads and think, how can people live like that? But how different is our society?
We don’t have suicide bombers; we have suicide gunmen — in our marketplaces (recently, Omaha and Salt Lake City), in our schools (Columbine, Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois University, to name just a few) and in our city halls and in too many workplaces to mention. These gunmen are terrorists just as much as the suicide bombers in other lands.
The first thing I noticed is the places she listed, Omaha, Columbine, Virginia Tech, were all gun free zones. Not only was it illegal to kill all those people, but it was illegal to kill them with a gun. It doesn’t follow that banning guns would have prevented those deaths. Guns were already banned.
Believe it or not, the criminals didn’t care about the law.
Judy wasn’t finished. She offered up this gem:
To look at this another way, consider all of the ways our government works to protect us from ourselves. At least 43 states have some type of smoking ban to protect those of us who don’t smoke and don’t want to be subjected to secondhand smoke.
So, I am protected from secondhand smoke, which may cause life-threatening illnesses, but I’m still not protected from second-hand gunfire…
Her position is based on the premise that the government has a Constitutional role in “protecting us from ourselves” and that if a person lights up around her, a civil servant will magically appear and extinguish the offenders smoke, saving her life.
Neither is true.
The government was created to protect our rights, not restrict them because Judy feels it would be best for us. If the government tells you you can’t do something because it’s bad for you, where is your freedom?
Freedom isn’t something you should surrender because a government bureaucrat feels he or she knows what is best for you. It’s something that is to be protected and defended, which is why we have the right to bear arms to begin with. Moral busybodies ready and willing to surrender everyone’s freedoms are how tyrannies are started.
The best part of this whole rant is the admission that banning guns won’t change anything:
I’m not naïve enough to think banning handguns would be easy or would stop all gun violence. But we have to start somewhere.
I know guns still will be used to harm, to kill, to commit crimes. I’m not idealistic enough to think they’ll disappear overnight. But, in time, fewer guns will be out there. And that’s a good thing.
Every thirteen seconds, a crime is prevented because someone used a gun to protect themselves or someone else. Bet Judy doesn’t know that. She probably doesn’t know that armed citizens kill twice as many armed offenders as cops do a year.
Most of those instances were while the innocent victim was waiting on the police to arrive and many were even waiting for the police to answer the phone.
Here are some more stats I’ll wager Judy never read:
Take away the gun from the law abiding person and what happens? Will there really be fewer guns out there, or will there be fewer people protecting themselves with guns? And if fewer guns lead to fewer shootings, how do you explain Switzerland:
“The key to freedom is the ability to be able to defend yourself.” Not only from a crackhead who is kicking down your front door, but from a government that wants to march you off to the ovens.
Judy means well. She just doesn’t want any more people getting shot up. But taking guns from those who use them to defend themselves has never made a people safer. It has led them to submission.
I think history has shown that true enough. Let’s not give them another example in America.
