Today citizens cry out for gun control after the disturbing loss of 28 lives in Newtown Conn., and the President responded with 23 executive orders. These orders are not the answer. How does one enforce laws in regards to felons? The people who obey the laws are not criminals.
What must be realized is that criminals will never obey the law. That is why society has deemed them criminals. The Newtown shooter, Adam Lanza, stole his mother’s weapons. He did not buy them legally. Therefore these executive orders would have stopped nothing.
According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), nearly a quarter of ATF gun trafficking investigations involved stolen firearms and were associated with over 11,000 trafficked firearms.
Even with these firearm thefts, armed citizens have proven that firearms can do a lot of, well, good. As reported by NBC news on Jan. 31, a 14-year-old boy was shot and a teacher was injured at a middle school in Atlanta. An armed resource officer was able to disarm the suspect minutes after the incident, officials said. The armed resource officer was an off-duty cop.
As reported by Fox News on Jan. 10, a mother, Melinda Herman, hid in the attic with her two young children while a robber entered their house. She eventually shot him multiple times as he moved towards the attic where she and her children were hiding
NBC affiliate WOAI-TV in San Antonio reported on Dec. 17, 2012 that a young male burst out of the nearby Chinese restaurant where he worked and began firing at the theater next door. Police told WOAI-TV that he fired at a patrol car as he was heading toward the theater. Before he could walk through the entrance, he was shot four times by an off-duty sheriff’s deputy at the theater. The officer’s name was not released.
“The officer involved, she took the appropriate action to try to keep everyone safe in the movie theater,” a department spokesperson told reporters. “She did what she felt she had to do.”
How many of these events could have turned fatal if an armed citizen had not been around to stop them? Would we hear about a mother and her two children murdered as they waited for police? Would another school or theater shooting cover the front pages of newspapers?
When action is taken against the Bill of Rights, the American people need to understand the consequences this can have. Many seem to not agree with the second amendment, but Americans must be given their rights.
