Friday, February 15, 2008

Sheep Pens

Gun free zones have unintended consequences. [Link]

It's not often that I actually advocate for a lawsuit, but in this case I think it's long overdue. Every time an institution declares itself a "gun-free zone," it is making an implicit promise to the public: "you don't need to protect yourself here -- indeed, we won't allow you to do so. Instead, we will protect you." And they simply are not keeping that promise.

In essence, they are constructing sheep pens with fences just high enough to keep the sheep in, but low enough for the wolves to leap over, and rarely bothering to even get any sheepdogs. (And most of the time, those sheepdogs are toothless.) Instead, they plaster their fences with "no wolves allowed" and trust in the power of those words to keep the predators at bay.

And how well is that working out?

In Dekalb yesterday, five people were killed by the wolf. In Kirkwood, Missouri, five people (including two armed police officers) were gunned down. (The police officers, the "sheepdogs," were the first victims.) In Omaha last December, eight were murdered. At Virginia Tech, thirty-two were slaughtered.

The sole exception was the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. There the gunman started his spree in the parking lot, where he killed two teenage sisters and wounded two others (including their father). But once he entered the church, he was only able to wound one more before a volunteer security guard -- using her own privately-owned gun -- stopped him.

Now me, I have no interest in owning a gun, but I support others owning and carrying their guns.

Robert Heinlein said,
An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.
and I think that is true.

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