What Would I Say To The Families Of Shooting Victims..?

The other day I came across a FB thread which was a photo of a scene at a Nazi concentration camp which rightfully inferred the result of disarming a citizenry.  Upon viewing it, I simply concurred by commenting “Damn right”.  Then, a woman named Ruth who I don’t know posed this question to me; “So what do you wish to tell those who have lost children and family members to mass shootings?” 

I think it was a fair question and the following was my response which I decided to post on this forum to answer all of the “Ruths” out there as well as those directly and indirectly affected by mass shootings.  Also, I didn’t insert the many statistics which support my reasoning, however they are easy enough to find if one looks.

“Ruth, I would tell them how much I grieve with them and that I pray not only for them, but for our nation. And I do understand the desire for “something to be done” about it. However, banning a tool that some deranged individuals might use will not stop the carnage.

Here is why I say that. First of all, as horrible as it is, we live in a fallen world and people have been killing each other since Cain killed Able. There is no way to count the probably hundreds of millions of people who were slaughtered through the annals of history long before firearms were ever conceived. Individual murder or mass murder has nothing to do with the weapon used, it is a matter of the heart. If every gun on the planet suddenly and miraculously vanished, people would find a way to kill others.

If you go back in history you will find countless cultures where the citizenry were enslaved by the ruling elites of the day because among the first things that elite did was to disarm them, even when the sword was the weapons technology of the times.

But let me bring us up to “recent” times for a few moments since firearms entered the historical stage. The list of despots who have disarmed and enslaved their citizenry is almost endless, but I will name a few and even start with one group who used mostly swords, and that was the Armenian genocide conducted by the savage Ottoman Empire when 1.5 million Armenian citizens were systematically exterminated. Let’s not forget the socialist and communist regimes under the likes of Stalin, Lenin, Chairman Mao, Paul Pol, the Red Chinese, N. Korea who have collectively slaughtered well over 100 million of their citizens. Then of course there are the Nazis who systematically slaughtered closer to 12 million, of which the Jews are about half of that number. In every case, they were only able to do so AFTER they disarmed the populace, which they invariably said was for their “protection.”

And now let’s visit America and our failed attempts at “reasonable gun control.” Across the nation there are in excess of 20K anti-gun laws with some of the most extreme in places like Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, DC, etc. The result of those extreme laws has been to disarm law abiding citizens who have been left unable to protect themselves against wanton criminals who care nothing about such laws and those places have some of the highest murder rates with firearms in the nation and probably the world.

Simply put, as “well meaning” as some of these proposals are, they do NOTHING to stop crazy people from doing what they do and serve only to create victims. On that point, consider this. Most mass shootings take place in so called “gun free zones,” and the reason for that is that most law abiding citizens choose to observe those signs, but the crazies read them as “target rich environment zones” because they know there isn’t much chance of return fire. You’ll notice you never hear of a shooting at a gun show or a police station. We protect our politicians, celebrities, and money with armed men and women and we protect our most vulnerable with useless SIGNS. Think about that.

My final thought for right now is that you may want to consider getting a copy of a book titled “More Guns, Less Crime” written by John Lott, Jr.

Anyway, I hope that answers your question.”

And I hope it answers a lot of questions by a lot of people.  It isn’t the choice of weapon, it is the condition of the heart, and all the “gun control” measures in the world aren’t going to fix that. 

Never have, never will...!