Response to "Sticking to their Guns"

Santa Monica Daily Press Columnist Jack Neworth indicts the “self-righteous” NRA for blaming everything but the guns for the Newtown, Connecticut massacre.  Choosing to see the gun fully-loaded against us instead of for our protection, Neworth decries the 62 mass murders in thirty years, but getting rid of the guns is not enough to undo the evil in the hearts of men, or the madness of the mentally ill who perpetrate these atrocities.

Neworths’ survey ignored the results following gun bans. In 1994, the Brady Bill outlawed assault weapons. In 1995, Oklahoma City exploded. In 1999, there was Columbine.

In 2002, the DC Sniper took down ten people in city with highly restrictive gun bans, and one of the highest murder rates. When the Supreme Court struck down the gun ban, the murder rate went down. This year, Chicago had 500 murders, and the strictest gun laws.

In 2007, the Virginia Tech murderer had worried university employees, but legal constraints prevented any preventative measures. In 2009, the same political correctness prevented military officials from committing the disturbed psychologist Nidal Hassan.

In 2012, the Aurora assailant had no prior record of criminality or insanity.

Connecticut’s “gun free zones” for public schools neutralized the “concealed carry” provisions.

. Nor to undo the declining morality and stability in this country.

 “The best defense to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun”. LaPierre’s declaration was neither pandering  nor pendantic, but a necessary recognition of the evil in a troubled world.

His survey of the gun issue ignores two fundamental realities: this is a fallen world full of fallen people, and state power or collective action cannot root out this evil.