By now, I'm sure most have heard of the shooting in Aurora, Colorado. While for those who were there for this tragedy, this is something that will live on in infamy, this sort of thing has all happened before. Some kind of mass murder, or an attempt at that... then all the political/activist figures make sure that the cameras catch them crying, then they use it to push their agendas.
Don't give me that look - chances are you know damned well what I am talking about. We see it every time there is any kind of shooting or domestic terrorism act that isn't linked to pissed off Muslims. It's reminiscent of the attitude in Victorian England during the Jack the Ripper case - "an Englishman couldn't have done it." We try to isolate ourselves as Americans and place blame on something else for an act committed by an American. Video games, music, television, movies, and of course, the gun industry. It can never just be the fault of the asshole who committed the act, or in some cases, the assholes who drove them to that point of desperation.
Of course, the loudest lobby using this tragedy to their advantage is the anti-gun (read: "gun-control") lobby. Of course, guns weren't the only means he had to kill people. His home was rigged with all kinds of homemade explosives. He could have thrown a few of those in... or created a chemical weapon (and quite easily at that), and probably killed many more people.
On the other hand, logic dictates we also ask what would have happened if there were even one or two good people there who were armed. The guy would have gotten off fewer shots, don't ya think? The anti-gun people love to use statistics from other countries to justify out and out gun bans. They talk about how gun bans in places like England and Australia have reduced the number of gun crimes.
Gun bans reduce gun crimes. I'll give you a moment to think about that statement.
What they are less proud of is that the overall number of violent crimes in those nations has steadily climbed since these gun bans have been put in effect. Of course, you don't even have to look as far away as Europe or Australia to see how effective gun bans are at reducing violence... Mexico also has a ban on guns. And no, don't believe that line about them getting all or even most of their guns from America. The truth is that the majority of guns that can be tracked are tracked to American sources. Most of them can't be tracked - non-American sources often are more lax in their policies about guns being trackable. Realistically, less than approximately 20% of all the guns illegally in Mexico came from the US. The really scary guns in Mexico aren't even legal in the US. We have guns on the civilian market that look like assault rifles, but they lack that one all-important characteristic of actual assault rifles - select-fire capability. That is, the ability to switch from semi-automatic to fully-automatic (ie, machine gun).
In honesty, you don't even have to look as far as Mexico to see how well gun bans work. DC and Chicago, until recently, had gun bans. DC was the murder capital of the US, with Chicago not far behind. Also keep in mind that you always hear about such massacres happening in supposed gun-free zones. Never at a shooting range or a gun store. Why do you think that is?
This nation's founders gave us the right to keep and bear arms not for hunting, but for protection from tyranny. Don't allow that right to be taken away as a knee-jerk reaction to a tragedy.
