You Don’t Get to Shoot Us and Then Take Away Our Guns

The left typically calls for stricter gun control measures after any sensationalized shooting, usually missing the actual reasons for the shooting in the process. This is annoying when it’s your average, mentally-ill whacko, really aggravating when it’s an Islamic terrorist, and fairly outlandish when the killer didn’t even use a gun. But for them to do it after last Wednesday’s attack on Republican congressmen really takes the cake. One of their own loonies comes out to shoot conservative politicians…and then they want to use THAT as a jumping-off point for a gun control debate? Um, how about not.

Of course, it wouldn’t really matter if the guy had attacked Republicans, Democrats, or farmers. The guy was clearly out of his mind and the Capitol Police did the world a favor by sending him into whatever lies beyond this world. At least he’s out of this one, and he will do no more harm to those of us lucky enough to still be around. And while we should not ignore the effect outrageous liberal propaganda had on his already-violent mind, the reaction to an incident like this should never include a clamp down on freedom. That includes freedom of speech.

But that ALSO includes the right to bear arms. No matter what the shooting or what the reason, our response to a tragedy needs to stop being a kneejerk attack on the Second Amendment. The NRA didn’t shoot Steve Scalise. An inanimate gun didn’t hop on a bus for Alexandria. This was an attack carried out by a person, and if he hadn’t used a gun, he might have used a van, a hatchet, a bomb, or any of a million other weapons – legal and illegal. And frankly, even if he had been somehow prevented from buying a gun through the usual channels, he could have found a way to get one through other means. If you’re willing to commit murder, you’re willing to break the existing gun laws in your area.

In the Los Angeles Times, the editors wrote, “This incident brought some of the most powerful members of Congress into intimate contact with what has become a common part of American life. But we hope that the next time the NRA lobbyists visit congressional offices with their guns-for-everyone agenda, they are greeted by members of Congress who are far more skeptical and probing than they have been in the past.”

First of all, this is in no way a “common part of American life.” It may seem that way when you watch the news, but does it feel that way in your community? Have you EVER been shot at? Have you ever KNOWN anyone who has been shot at on American soil? The people who can answer “yes” to either of these questions are few and far between, thank God.

And you know, we’d like to keep it that way. But that doesn’t mean we can’t prepare ourselves for the possibility that it will happen. If it does, it will probably only happen once. That means, you had better be ready the first time. It is our right as American citizens to have that readiness. So don’t think for a second that one of “your” lunatics can shoot at us and give you the license to take away that readiness. Sorry, but it just doesn’t work that way.