Sad Week Ahead for Those Supporting Sensible Gun Laws
By Paul Helmke
To those of us who think we make it too easy for dangerous people to get dangerous guns, this is a somber week ahead.
Friday marks the third anniversary of the massacre at Virginia Tech. Thirty-two innocent lives were taken by a dangerous young man who had easy access to guns. Four days later, Tuesday, April 20 marks the 11th anniversary of the deaths of 13 at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, because two young men had easy access to guns.
Sandwiched between these painful anniversaries, two gun lobby gatherings are planned in the Washington D.C. area on Monday, April 19 – on the anniversaries of the battles of Lexington and Concord, the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building and the conflagration of the Branch Davidian complex in Waco, Texas. Organizers say they’re fighting to restore gun rights in America.
At this time in our history, gun toters can go into a Starbucks in more than 40 states with a loaded firearm. Brady background check records must be immediately destroyed. Congress is poised to eviscerate all of the gun laws in our nation’s Capital. Gun victims’ access to the courts has been curtailed. And Wayne LaPierre, the president of the NRA, says “the guys with the guns make the rules.” Nevertheless, the gun extremists say that gun rights in the United States are facing tremendous threats.
It’s hard to consider this paranoia about gun privileges being at risk with a straight face. We need civility in our gun policy debate in America, and I make a concerted effort to be polite and open to those who disagree with sensible gun laws every day. But in America, the guys with the guns don’t make the rules – and that, whether Wayne LaPierre likes it or not, is one of the foundations of our democracy.
Gun privileges at risk? Lori Haas helped nurse her daughter, Emily, back to health after she was wounded at Virginia Tech. Does Lori think gun rights are at risk in America?
“Are you serious?” Lori responded. “When firearms sales have skyrocketed in the last 18 months? There is absolutely nothing that prevents law abiding citizens from purchasing firearms. There is no threat. On the contrary – they, along with criminals, the mentally ill and others who are legally ineligible from purchasing firearms can walk into any gun show in most states and buy all the firearms they want – no questions asked. I can’t quite fathom those so-called law abiding citizens wanting people the law has deemed unsuitable to be able to purchase firearms. It makes no sense.”
The organizers of the “Second Amendment March,” near the Washington Monument in Washington and the armed “Restore the Constitution Rally” make a point of assuring us that they don’t intend to use their events as a springboard to a violent assault on the U.S., Government. “If we planned to overthrow the government,” wrote one of the organizers of the Virginia event, Daniel Almond, “we wouldn’t invite so many of them to join us here on the lawn, we wouldn’t announce our intention beforehand, and we wouldn’t meet up on the wrong side of the river.”
If you want to simplify this issue, read these names.
Friday is the anniversary of the deaths of Ross Abdallah Alameddine, Ryan Clark, Daniel Perez Cueva, Caitlin Hammaren, Emily Jane Hilscher, Matt La Porte, Jarrett Lane, Henry Lee, Juan Ortiz, Mary Karen Read, Reema Samaha, Leslie Sherman, Maxine Turner, Erin Peterson , Jeremy Herbstritt, Daniel O’Neil, Brian Bluhm, Michael Pohle, Austin Cloyd, Waleed Shaalan, Julia Pryde, Matthew Gwaltney , Nicole White, Rachael Hill, Lauren McCain, Partahi Lombantoruan, Minal Panchal, Christopher James Bishop, Dr. Kevin P. Granata, G.V. Loganathan, Dr. Liviu Librescu and Jocelyne Couture-Nowak.
Tuesday is the anniversary of the deaths of Rachel Scott, Daniel Rohrbough, William David Sanders, Cassie Bernall, Steven Curnow, Corey DePooter, Kelly Fleming, Matthew Kechter, Daniel Mauser, Isaiah Shoels, John Tomlin, Lauren Townsend and Kyle Velasquez.
I urge everyone to remember Virginia Tech and Columbine. One of the reasons all the victims died was our lack of sensible gun laws to keep dangerous people from getting dangerous weapons.
OV Social
Dear Mr Helmke
IN the last year I have turned two raging liberal anti-gunners- including a one time Brady supporter- into CCW holders who have both told me that they now feel empowered, less scared, and better able to take care of themselves (both are women ). One happily carries a SA XDm in 9mm while the other carries an HK USPc in 45 ACP. The one with the USPc also recently purchased her first AR-15 and now wants a Bennelli 12 ga. There is even talk of getting a suppressed pistol.
Both have gone beyond the simple requirements for my states permit and have received additional training. This training includes stress training, shoot/no-shoot, engagement of multiple targets, night shooting , draw and fire, and so on. These two women can now take care of themselves- they are not disarmed potential victims (one is a college student who secretly carries now on school property- she says she'd rather be expelled then be defenseless).
Anyway, I jus want to let you know that I do my best to present the truth to anti-gunners versus your organization and similar ones. My take is that people with open minds when presented with real facts and not the made up Brady ones invariably turn against these pro- crime organizations. Yes- that is correct- I consider Brady to be very pro-crime- very few organizations state that the individual cannot be trusted and it is better for one to be victimized then stand your ground.
I have had guns since I was 7, I have had a CCW for almost 30 years, I trained my sons and daughters and soon my granddaughter on how to shoot. In all of that time I have pulled my gun twice during robbery attempts- no shots fired and the criminal ran rather then face an armed good guy.
Here's to more sad days for the pro-crime lobby.
ok first of all what do you define as sensible gun laws , i define sensible gun laws as repealing almost every gun law , some people define sensible gun laws as european style restrictions or worse
second i recall virginia tech being a gun free zone, do you think the shooting would have happened if people were allowed to concealed carry there?
third, the shooters at columbine had one of their friends buy the guns for them and bought them illegally from another friend, how are you gonna stop that, because i have an idea, allow the teachers to concealed carry
A well armed Society is a polite Society
This is The Truth.
The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
And all the other events which occurred because people foolishly and stupidly believed that a "no guns " sign or policy made them safe .
Mr. Helmke, you're free to not own a gun yourself, but where you cross the line is by advocating that the rest of us should be forced by law to make the same choice.
Mr. Helmke, I really like you to anwer these questions from the heart as I am failing to see the logic in some of the things you advocate.
First and foremost is that after glancing through some of your organization's literature, I'm left no other conclusion that the Brady center is anti-defense. I find it difficult to reolve an organization that aspires to peace to be so vehemently against one's choice to be directly responsible for one's own safety.
Along those same lines is that I'm also left concluding that my life is worth less than a criminal's life. I totally believe in safety in the workplace, but if one's chosen profession is patently criminal in nature and threatens those of us who abide by the laws , I think you've given up the right to a safe workplace.
Lastly, why are you going after a symptom of the problem instead of the root cause? Gun ownership, paricularly handgun ownership seems to be mainly driven by a response to criminal violence and the desire to be directly responsible for one's own safety. Why do you address the symptom instead of the real problem? Why should law abiding citizens give up the right to self defense via the most effective method when it's really a matter of criminals breaking the laws that's really at issue?
Think about it Paul. Do you want to *be* safe or just feel like you are? I can tell you I'd rather be safe.
Thank you for your time.
In the year 1900, years before so-called “Sensible Gun Laws” were enacted the murder rate was 1.2 per 100,000 according to the Department of Justice. Today, the rate is over 5 per 100,000.
Obviously, they were doing some things right in 1900, and gun control was not one of them.
Paul, get used to more sad weeks for you and your fellow gun ban zealots. Citizens are increasing rejecting the arguments of gun ban extremists like you and your organizations, and they are increasing supporting their Second Amendment rights. My brother-in- law is a good example. He used to hate the NRA and supported gun control. After weighing my arguments and checking the facts on his own he is now a gun owner, an NRA member, and is applying for his firearms carry permit.
The shooters at Columbine and V Tech also died. Guns killed them.
Mr. Helmke, I will concede that you, unlike many of your compatriots in the fight for tighter gun control laws and unlike many of my compatriots in the fight to preserve gun rights , do seem to make a concerted effort to be polite. However, being polite doesn't make you right about the facts.
The facts about the gun control debate in America: http://www.ProtestEasyGunsLIES.com
The facts about guns on college campuses: http://www.CampusCarry.com
I find it interesting that, although we never hear from Emily Haas, the young woman injured in the Virginia Tech shooting , we often hear from her mother Lori Haas. Since shortly after the Virginia Tech shooting, Lori Haas has been on a crusade for tighter gun control laws and against allowing licensed concealed carry (of handguns ) on college campuses.
On the April 18, 2008, edition of NBC Nightly News*, Lori Haas—who has never been involved in a mass shooting and who has no personal insights into what happens in a mass shooting—argued that being armed could not have helped any of the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre because the shooter "had the element of surprise." For Mrs. Haas to make such an argument is not only ironic; it’s downright bizarre, since it was her daughter Emily who recounted to CNN**, five days after the shooting, how she hid under a desk listening to gunshots, "waiting and hoping" the shooter wouldn't come into her classroom.
Lori Haas' claim that students in the midst of a school shooting would be too paralyzed by fear to use handguns in self-defense lacks credibility in light of the fact that her daughter wasn't too paralyzed by fear to call 911 *** on her cell phone. Emily was still on the phone with the 911 operator several minutes later when the gunman entered the room. Though Emily survived with only superficial gunshot wounds, her professor and ten of her classmates lost their lives.
Twenty-eight of the thirty victims killed in Virginia Tech’s Norris Hall were shot in the head at pointblank range. Some were shot four or five times. After the attack , survivors recalled watching the shooter pause occasionally to reload one of his guns. The Virginia Tech shooting was not a sudden blitzkrieg attack that was over before anyone knew what was happening; it was a nine-minute, uncontested execution -style massacre. Many of the people in those classrooms, like Emily, were left with no recourse but to listen to the nearby gunshots and hope for the best. They didn't need lightning fast reflexes or deadeye accuracy or years of specialized training; they just needed the means to defend themselves against a deranged killer who had no regard for school policy, state law , or the sanctity of human life.
Sadly, Lori Haas is so determined to find someone or something to blame for the physical and psychological injuries suffered by her daughter that she has turned a blind eye to these facts and deluded herself about what actually happened in Virginia Tech’s Norris Hall, on April 16, 2007. And groups like The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, Protest Easy Guns, Students for Gun Free Schools, and the Campaign for Gun Free Campuses are more than happy to exploit her anger and grief to further their own political agendas.
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In8vpNWmqDc
** http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0704/21/smn.01 .html
*** http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/21/AR2007062102497.html
All I remember about this terrible tragedy is that the students and the faculty were not allowed to legally carry a weapon with them on campus. Like many of the school tragedies, the common theme is that law abiding people were not free to carry a self defense weapon. I openly wept when I watch in horror as the crazy man shot what he knew were unarmed people. It shouldn't happen in a truly FREE society .
I urge everyone to remember Virginia Tech, Columbine and the Amish School house and urge your State legislators to allow teachers, students of age and parents to carry weapons legally to protect themselves, other students and their family members.