Gun Control:

Quick!!  Somebody call Johnny Sutton!!  There are at least two guns in Colorado that need to be prosecuted!!

In light of recent events in Colorado Churches and other religious establishments I agree that we need to look very carefully at our current gun laws and make some drastic changes.  We cannot have all of these evil guns running loose in the streets now, or can we?  I have always been a staunch defender of the Second Amendment.  And with the events of the last week from coast to coast I believe that we really need to revamp our definition of gun control.  I started my rantings on the keyboard because of this very issue, the situation was not all that different from what we see going on in Colorado, the guns were used in a school of higher learning instead of a house of a Higher Power. 

The most recent culprit was Matthew Murray.  He walked into a Colorado Mission and shot a few people before going to a Mega-Church while worship services were going on with a crowd estimated at over 6,000 people, sounds to me like a target rich environment for any bad guy.  I mean it is a Church, who would expect to find anyone armed at a place of worship?  I for one did not expect to hear this story with the ending that it ended up with.

What is the biggest difference between Virginia Tech this past spring, the mall in Nebraska, and a church in Colorado?  I would have to say that the largest difference is the mindset of those that frequent these establishments.  Who do usually find attending a liberal university?  One where diversity is put high above all else? A liberal kid.  Who do you expect to find at a busy shopping mall in the middle of the day?  Mothers, children, and old people of all political persuasions.  Who do you expect to find in a church?  I would put my money on people that tend to be of a conservative political persuasion.  You should find the type of people that, although they put their trust in the local law enforcement officers and God, know that police cannot be everywhere to protect them, and are not afraid of a person that is trained in the use of a fire arm. 

I remember reading accounts of a student that had a weapon in his car that he was allowed to carry legally everywhere except school, and it was only a violation of the rules at Virginia Tech not local ordinances.  Here again, like today, the majority of the carnage was carried out on a second shooting spree in a second building, hours after the first wave of blood shed.  None of the students had been properly warned, in my humble opinion, at least not to my satisfaction if I had a child attending classes there.  Due to the lack of protection and preparedness, 32 lives were lost needlessly.  And again like the events in Colorado there were several heroes as well, although they seem to have been forgotten quickly.  You will find them and their deeds listed below. 

The heroine from Colorado is Jeanne Assam who was standing watch over the worshippers because of the now connected incident earlier in the day.  She was armed and trained and knew when the shooting started that she was the only protector that these people had.  And she did what I hope that I would do in the situation that she was placed in.

The whole point is that guns don’t kill people anymore than cars do; people are responsible in both cases.  In all three of the incidents mentioned guns were used to kill people, but that does not make guns the enemy as they are nothing more than inanimate objects with no will of their own.  It is those behind the guns, with their fingers on the triggers that kill people.  So what good does it do to take guns away from people like Ms Assam?  No good at all from where I am sitting.

Get ready to hear more and more over the course of the coming weeks about how we need to get a better handle on guns.  Look forward to the next wave of lobbying in the name of public safety.  Watch carefully at how our brave and noble politicians totally forget to mention that the vast majority of worshippers attending services at the New Life Church were saved by a “PERSON” using a gun.  That is correct the gun that Ms. Assam carried did not save a single life!  Ms. Assam did, God Bless her. 

It is time to revisit our current gun “control” laws that are on the books.  It is time to get back to the intent of our Founding Fathers handed down to “We The People” in our Constitution.  And it is way past time to start licensing people to carry concealed weapons.

I have heard the same old tired argument from the gun control crowd, “If we allow people to carry concealed firearms we will end up back in the old west, with people shooting each other over petty fender benders.”  I firmly believe that they are absolutely wrong, and I have at least 10 to 15 years of data to back me up.

Communities in Texas, Florida and Georgia are prime examples of my way of thinking.  If I am not mistaken Texas started the concealed carry craze.  The state set the requirements, issued the permits/licenses, and crime went down.  We did not hear stories of the crazed lunatics in Texas shooting it out at high noon, and I am told that they used to know how to do that well.  In fact we did not hear much at all on the National or Local newscasts about it.  With the Mainstream Medias mantra of “If it bleeds is leads” one would think that we should have heard something, right?  The fact of the matter is that Texas did not look like the old west, just another western state in which crime actually dropped dramatically in the communities that enacted the ordinances.  We saw the same results in Florida when communities there followed the Texans lead.  The community I like to talk about most is an affluent suburb of Atlanta, Georgia.  They did not even pass concealed carry laws; they just passed a local ordinance stating that every household had to possess a firearm.  Crime dropped more than 50%.  Kind of tells you something doesn’t it?  Especially when you couple the crime stats with the fact that gun violence went down as well.

Look to places like Baltimore, Maryland or Pasadena Texas.  In one place a concealed carry law might have saved a 26 year old woman from being brutally beaten by nine 14 and 15 year olds; in the other the property of a neighbor being stolen by illegal aliens was protected by a man with a gun.

If you ask me we need more Jeanne Assam’s and Joe Horn’s in this country.

Here is the list from Wikipedia of the heroes from Virginia Tech that saved lives that tragic day in April.