Much to be expected, over at the Naperville Sun’s Potluck “blog”, a debate is raging over the knee-jerk reaction of anti-gun legislation following the NIU shootings. My two cents-
Groups like the NRA have way too many members with far too much money for there to ever be any kind of successful gun control movement, regardless of how strong the knee jerk reaction is whenever there is any type of shooting incident.
Either way, guns are not the problem, it’s homicidal maniacs who will do anything they can to kill as many people as possible before offing themselves. If someone is dead set on mowing down their classmates, does anyone really believe gun control laws will do anything to stop that? We’ve had strict anti-drug legislation on the books forever, but has that ever removed people’s access to drugs? When I went to high school and college parties it sure didn’t seem like people who were in to drugs had any problem acquiring anything they wanted, regardless of legality.
Why wouldn’t guns be the same way? Even IF through some type of wizard’s magic guns were entirely removed from our country, what is stopping violent people to come up with new and exciting ways to kill people?
From Chris Magee’s earlier post-
“But by removing the devices of efficient mass-murder, fewer bystanders are hurt and tragedies like these mass shootings are much harder to pull off.”
Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people using nothing more than fertilizer and racing fuel. The Unabomber sent out 16 packages crafted of things you can pick up from the hardware store. The main ingredient that those responsible for the 2005 London bombings used in their explosives was hydrogen peroxide. The attacks on September 11th were carried out with nothing more than box cutters and plastic knives. The components of the explosives that suicide bombers in the middle east use can be purchased at a grocery store. The list goes on and on.
Insane people intent on killing others will do it by any means necessary. It’s impossible to remove all devices of mass murder because deadly explosions capable of killing far more people than a pair of pistols and a shotgun can be created by anyone with time/desire to research the chemistry on the internet with common household products which would be silly to legislate or restrict.
All anti-gun legislation is going to do is cause is an increase in business in the already seemingly thriving black market for guns and/or force these maniacs to get creative. I’d almost rather these nut-jobs stick to guns. At least then they are limited by the amount of ammo they’re able to carry. Bombs, even those made with components under your kitchen sink, seem to be far more lethal.
Guns are just the tools used, they are by no means the cause of incidents like the shootings at NIU. By removing the tool without addressing the cause, people set on killing others will just use a different tool.
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