Dear Well-intentioned but short-sighted gun control advocate,
I understand that you think you are helping this terrible situation. You think that by doing something, anything, you will help prevent another heinous occurance like the event last Friday. However I would like you to consider that your intentions may be misdirected, and actual outcome will simply be less freedom without more security.
Last Friday afternoon I felt sick to my stomach, first and foremost because of the senseless loss of sweet, innocent, beautiful life. The killings at Sandy Hook Elementary affected me emotionally more than any event ever has (outside of family events of course) . Compounding that loss however, was the disgusting political posturing that followed soon afterward.
A parent of elementary school aged children myself, I take every tragedy against children of this age way too personally. In the pit of my despair (my overwhelming empathy for those parents who lost their little angels) I still knew I'd better have my b.s. detector set to ultra sensitive whenever a politican or mainstream media member would speak. It gave me no pleasure when they rewarded my vigilance by spewing nonsense upon confusion upon lies. Using their platform to push for an agenda of removing a founding freedom and replacing it with gun control.
As I was driving home from work in my car, I listened to our President speak those first emotional words. I wanted so badly to believe those words. I wanted his raw emotion to be sincere...but quickly and quietly, within his emotional compassion, he deftly slipped in a harbinger of his political aspirations...he wants more "change".
Everyone with a forum is getting into this discussion, I've even heard a clueless "disc jockey" at a sports talk station chime in as though he had any authority on the matter. That is what triggered me to action and actually write this letter. Those who are pushing gun repression as a solution to this senseless disaster are missing perspective on the matter, and furthermore they are going to influence a lot of people who never thought this issue through and need context and understanding with fewer platitudes and less political rhetoric. I would like to try and establish some context by addressing a few statements I've heard from the "anti-gun" movement.
"Guns make it easy to kill many people at once."
I will acknowledge that this point actually does contains some validity. Because a gun has the potential to cause a great deal of damage very quickly, it logically makes killing people potentially easier and quicker. It also makes killing possible from a greater distance and with less emotional investment.
But a cursory reflection of this tragedy reveals these aspects of gun use have little relevance to this particular case. This killer did not pick off his victims at a distance that would give him annonimity or his victims any chance at evasion. He took his shots up close and personal, and often. Reports say he broke into the school by force and shot his victims up to 11 times. This repulsive wretch did not want to be disassociated from his victims, and he did not want to sneak up on them, he wanted to murder by any means necessary and make sure it was done thoroughly and loudly.
"With a gun, anyone can commit mass murder."
In spite of a gun's firepower, it is still not easy to just mow down a group of people. Guns are complex machines that can (and often do) malfunction. Each shot is accompanied by recoil that takes physical dexterity to counter, and hitting a target at a distance greater than point-blank range is not a given. A gun is a powerful tool but it is still only as effective as its possessor.
"Spree killings will continue to happen until access to guns is restricted/eliminated."
It is very important to note that taking firearms out of a society does not eliminate mass killings. This has been shown over and over again. If wanton destruction is on the heart of a person, the tool with which it is carried out matters little. In Osaka, Japan (2001), a man killed eight children and injured 13 others at a school armed only with a kitchen knife. In 2008 in Tokyo, a man drove a rental truck into a crowd at a mall, then jumped out and used a knife to finish the job. In all he killed 7 and injured 10 others. Deranged killers will find a way to kill whether guns are available or not.
"The gun used in this tragedy was acquired legally, continued legal gun use will lead to more situations like these."
This is perhaps the most poor arguement for gun control and the best argument against gun restriction. Making guns illegal does not stop criminals from getting guns. Although the gun he used was legally purchased, he killed its owner to assume possession of it. Restriction of firearms does however stop law-abiding citizens from have the most effective tools for self defense.
"Gun rights people want everyone to carry a gun like the Old West, and they are OK with shoot-outs on every corner"
This one is a doozey, and perhaps the most ridiculous statement I've heard. (and I did actually hear it!) The simple truth is that EVERY PERSON DOES NOT NEED A GUN for legal gun ownership to deter a spree killer from going forward with his intentions. It's not a coincidence that most spree killings happen at schools and other places that restrict legal gun possession (including many workplaces), these are locations where the killer is guaranteed an average of twenty minutes of uninterrupted mayhem before the police even arrive. A spree killer is a coward, they do not want to go where they could be stopped by someone legally carrying a firearm (especially before they get their numbers up so that they can be the center of attention for the next two weeks and then anytime spree killings are mentioned in the future - but Morgan Freeman didn't tell you that).
"The second ammendment was written when people had muskets, not the high powered weapons of today."
Special thanks to our British "friend" (and American History/Law scholar) Piers Morgan for this one...It is vitally important to understand the purpose of the second ammendment. It was not to preserve hunting or our right to own and possess a musket, it was to allow "We The People" to defend ourselves from our government should they lose perspective on their role in our country. By extension I would maintain that if the military has a weapon, then it should be legal for the public to own it as well (but we know that isn't the case...)
So all of you who think that restricting ownership of some or all guns would have prevented this tragedy are either sadly fooling yourself or you have another agenda. It is understandable to want to "do something" about an event like this, but to use this tragedy to forward a political agenda is simply dispicable. Hmmm, why does that sound familiar?
We need to address the environment that allows events like these to occur, not the tools that were used...pencils are not responsible for misspellings. Our society needs to look closely at how we have demonized organized religion, how we have stopped valuing the role of the father in the home, how we use violent video games as babysitters, and how we have blindly drugged countless "square peg" children that don't fit neatly into the "round hole" of public school model. Blaming the availability of guns is the easy way out. These are big ugly topics that are not easy answers, and they are certainly not the only answers, but I would bet all that I own that any one of these factors more directly relates to the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary than the availability of certain firearms.
Signed,
A non-gun owning father of grade school children (a.k.a. someone who should be on your side)
