How would gun laws change the situation?
Contrary to what some believe, America’s gun laws appear to be working. These anti-gun wackos are "totally dismayed" that convicted felons are arrested with a guns. Why? After all, it is illegal for a felon to possess a gun in America.
They rant that "you can buy a gun in Arizona from an individual and not produce any paperwork whatsoever. No waiting time. No registration." All true, but irrelevant. You can buy a lot of things from individuals without "any paperwork whatsoever" — no prescriptions, no office visit, just hand over your money and get what you want.
And I’m sure if you pose the question properly, the sheriff’s office will agree. This doesn’t mean you won’t go to jail if you’re caught with your purchase. Then they rant and rave, "We need to really look at our gun laws," as if their previous statements had anything to do with the current condition of our laws. A convicted felon illegally obtained a gun and is arrested. What "laws" would they change?
As for the mentally ill students who committed the murders at the Tucson rally, the theater in Colorado and at the school campuses, it was documented that there was a history of violence. In hindsight, perhaps they should have been reported to local police and their names passed on to gun stores in that state to flag if an attempt to purchase weapons was made.
It took 9/11 and a trillion dollars of airport security to figure out that in order to stop suicidal terrorists using box cutters to murder the airplane crew on four passenger jets to conclude that stronger cockpit doors and guns were needed to deter future suicide-murder tragedies.
To paraphrase an old saying, "An ounce of prevention (lead) is worth a pound of cure." President Truman decided to drop the atomic bomb when it was concluded that we were unable to stop suicide bombers (kamikazes), and it ended World War II.
Now when school campus shootings occur, they send in hundreds of people with guns to find out what went wrong, kind of like another old saying, "Closing the barn door after the horses got out."
As long as our weak-kneed politicians keep playing their political games for votes, the increased population and culture changes will only make the percentages of killings go up. The killers are not going to stop and do what’s right, after all. Is it right that only the bad guys are armed?
By way of example, a simple real-world comparison shows the suicide rate in "gun-free" Japan is at No. 7 on the global list of national suicide rates with 23.8 per 100,000, dwarfing the comparable rate of 11.8 in the heavily armed United States, which comes in at No. 41.
Also unsaid in the Violence Policy Center propaganda is how many of the suicides and homicides were committed by "prohibited persons" who had already ignored the most stringent laws against them even possessing a gun in the first place?
C.O. Jones
Yuma
