Saturday, February 9, 2008

Gun Control: A Steady Hold, A Clear Mind and Second Amendment Rights

There’s absolutely nothing which could possibly justify Charles “Cookie” Thornton’s march on a town council meeting in Kirkwood Missouri and shooting five people to death, a police officer among the victims. The police officers who shot the man dead should be commended for their bravery and quick action.

One of the surviving victims, a man who was shot in the hand, said from his hospital bed that he was now motivated to be a gun control activist. No doubt the man’s sentiments ran in that direction previously. Certainly, one must empathize with the horror that he and others experienced. But pretending that additional gun control regulation would resolve such problems as presented by Charles Thornton amounts to little more than a feel-good political reaction.

Aside from Second Amendment rights, is it realistic to think that guns can be removed from our society by edict? Is it realistic to think that people like Thornton would acquiesce to additional gun control regulation? After all, one of the guns that Thornton used was taken from a police officer, something that could have happened if the perpetrator didn’t have legal access to a firearm of his own. So far as that goes, the handgun he had previous access to was acquired illegally, considering that Thornton had a criminal record. Would an additional mix of gun control bureaucracy and feel good pablum paper have stopped the nut job from shooting up the town council?

If illegal items could be removed from our society by regulation and new laws, then the U.S. would not have a drug problem. Nor would it have violent street gangs in states like New York and California where state gun control hysteria is most extreme.

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