Newtown, Arapahoe, and the Inherent Evil of Gun-Free Zones

 

Jessica, my daughter, posted on FB the day of the shooting at Arapahoe HS (and the day before the first anniversary of Newtown):

Repeat after me.  Gun free zones are ONLY gun free for the people following the law!!!  Criminals don't care about the sign on the front of the building touting it as a "gun free zone".

Agreeing with her, but elaborating, I commented in reply:

It is EVIL to demand our children remain unprotected against the ravages of a madman.  The same people who demand (willing) teachers be disarmed in the classroom would never dream of leaving school children unvaccinated (that is: unprotected against the ravages of a communicable disease).

They KNOW what they are doing and they don't care.  They WANT more dead children thinking it will shame us into defenselessness.

J'accuse!

I'd like to go a little deeper with that.  This is not rocket science:  the notion that declaring a school a "gun-free zone" will somehow prevent gun tragedies within that zone is "magical thinking" and it is fantasy.  The proof that it is fantasy only requires us to look at the last 60-or-so mass shootings and examine them for commonality.

The common thread you will find is that in all but two, those mass shootings occurred in so-called gun-free zones.  With all the non-gun-free zones we have in this country, what an amazing coincidence that virtually none of the mass shootings occurred where it is legal to have a firearm!  Or is it a coincidence?

There's an old joke about some mental patients being transported by car when the car gets a flat tire.  The driver jacks up the car, pops off the wheel cover, undoes all the lug nuts and places them in the wheel cover so they don't roll away.  Just as he's ready to put the spare tire on, a passing car kicks up a rock that hits the wheel cover and scatters all the lug nuts.  The driver is frantic until one of the mental patients suggests: "Take one lug nut from each of the other tires.  That should secure the spare well enough to get you to a gas station."  The driver tells him: "That's brilliant!  Why are you a mental patient?"  The other responds: "I'm crazy, not stupid."

Mass murderers may be crazy, but they aren't stupid.  The craziest of them will still understand that in order to successfully kill a large number of victims it is necessary that there be little or no effective resistance.  Shoot up a gun store? They may be crazy, but they aren't stupid.  Gun store employees have guns!  Let's find a school, instead.

The solution is obvious to everyone without an agenda: gun-free zones are really criminal-enablement zones.  On the day such a thing was first proposed, sensible people warned of the easily-predictable consequences, but they would not be heard.  Those proposing the original gun-free zones had a thought permanently welded into their brains: guns are evil;  we must keep them away from those most vulnerable.

Could they really have been that stupid to think stern approbation would be enough of a deterrent?  Answer:  no, they didn't think simply declaring a school to be "gun-free" would be any sort of protection, but it sounds nice, and those who feel their way through life get a warm, fuzzy sensation that they have done something.  They haven't, of course.  You and I can see that;  they cannot, and because they cannot, they will think highly of the legislator who helped them feel better and they will vote for hir in the next election.

As to the legislators, they are neither crazy nor stupid.  They know what it is they are doing and they don't care.  Another school shooting merely gives them another opportunity to orate to the TV cameras and to sponsor another bill — clear evidence they are "doing something" about the problem of school violence.  In fact, if there were no such thing as school shootings, those politicians would have to invent it.  It is a fact that the first mass-shooting in a school occurred after passage of the Gun-Free School Zones Act.  Prior to that, the worst school-sited tragedy was the Bath Township disaster, May 18th,1927 (Google it) where a disgruntled school board member dynamited a school killing dozens.

No, dead school children are a good thing to certain people:  those who are so sure firearms are bad that they will suffer the deaths of innocents in order to shame you into giving up your guns.  They may have different motivations, but their end-game is the same.  Some just think guns are yukky;  others know that an armed populace can resist the tyranny they are planning, the world they look forward to;  still others are anti-hunter and wish to see hunting as a sport and hunting as a means of subsistence living done away with.  Whatever their motivation, guns in the hands of "ordinary people" are seen as a bad, bad thing and must be expunged from our culture.  Look!  That child pointed his finger like a gun!  Suspend him!  Shame the parents!  The madness continues because we allow it to continue.  They may be crazy, but they're not stupid.

The madness will continue as long as the bulk of humanity looks at the gun-free-school-zone adherents as merely well-meaning fools.  "They mean well;  they're just not very bright."  Enough of that.  People who put our children at risk regardless of the motivation must be challenged.  What they are doing is EVIL even if they did not intend evil.  The politicians who pass such laws are EVIL.  The people who demand such laws are EVIL.  Those who support evil laws are themselves EVIL.  School administrators who lobby legislators to keep their schools, their colleges, gun free are EVIL and we must get rid of them before more of our children are harmed by well-meaning fools.

The time is now long past that we should "suffer fools gladly".  These people are killing children with their policies.  They didn't pull the triggers, but they loaded the guns.  They need to hear a rising chorus of sensible voices telling them that the last child has died because of their insanity.  They need to be shamed into silence because they finally understand that being crazy and not getting professional help for it is really stupid.