“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms…disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.” – Thomas Jefferson
For my tenth birthday, I wanted a BB gun. Like the mother in “A Christmas Story,” mom simply said, “You’ll shoot your eye out.” Dad had a wiser response. He gave me a choice. I could have the BB gun or a pair of Roy Rogers cap pistols I had been admiring. He made it clear to me that once I owned a weapon that actually fired real projectiles — even if they were only BBs — my toy gun days were over. I chose the pistols, and he knew I wasn’t ready for the real thing.
Two years later, at age twelve, with my toy gun days behind me, Dad bought me a bolt-action .22-caliber rifle and taught me how to use it — safely. I still remember the three simple rules he taught me: this is not a toy, never point it at anyone, and always assume that it is loaded.
As I grew into a teenager, I always knew where Dad kept our guns — mine and his. They were not locked up. They were standing in their cases in the closet in my parents’ bedroom, with the ammunition on the shelf above. Yet never once did it occur to me to take those guns to school and shoot my classmates. Nor did I ever contemplate walking into a packed movie theater or a crowded mall and begin firing.
None of us has any way of knowing whether James Holmes, the shooter in Aurora, Colorado, is simply an evil genius putting on an act in court or if he is a loon who really believes he is Batman’s nemesis, the Joker. We don’t know if his father ever taught him how to use firearms, or if he got his knowledge from watching TV and movies and playing violent video games.
What we do know is that a society that once lived in reality has evolved into a culture wallowing in fantasy violence, ruled by people whose goal is to disarm the good guys, leaving us all at the mercy of the bad guys.
We know that, like so many communities today, Aurora, Colorado, did not allow law-abiding gun owners to carry their weapons into the theater that night. Perhaps if they had, someone might have been able to stop Holmes before he killed a dozen innocent people and wounded scores of others.
Even in states that allow concealed carry of firearms, politically correct business owners can forbid the possession of such weapons in their establishments. A sign on the door of the Von Maur department store in Omaha, Nebraska announces that guns are not allowed. On December 5, 2007, 19-year-old Robert Hawkins read that sign as follows: “Even our security guards are unarmed! Come on in and shoot us!” So he did, killing eight people and wounding five others.
Shortly after my dad bought me those cap pistols instead of that BB gun, a teenage punk named Charles Starkweather went on a rampage across Nebraska, killing eleven people. The entire Midwest was terrified. As the debate again heats up over banning certain-sized magazines for particular weapons, limiting the quantities and calibers of ammo, and other new forms of gun control, it is instructive to note that Starkweather’s weapons of choice on that spree were a pistol, a knife, a .22 rifle (similar to mine), and a .410 shotgun like one I almost bought a few years later.
Charles Starkweather proved in 1958 that he could kill just as many people with a .22 rifle and a small caliber shotgun as Robert Hawkins or James Holmes could a half-century later with a so-called assault rifle. Evil finds a way. As Bruce Wayne’s butler tells him in a previous Batman movie, “Some men just want to watch the world burn.”
In the wake of these latest murders, as you hear our politicians blather on about more gun control, remember that 100 million gun owners didn’t kill anyone last week. They are the good guys. They are on our side.
© 2012 by Doug Patton, Doug Patton describes himself as a recovering political speechwriter who agrees with himself much more often than not. Astute supporters and inane detractors alike are encouraged to e-mail him with their pithy comments at dpatton@cagle.com. Now working as a freelance writer, his weekly columns are syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For info on using his column at your publication or website, please email Cari Dawson Bartley at cari@cagle.com.
Photo credit: Gregory Wild-Smith (Creative Commons)
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Gun Control is not about guns, it is about control. Everybody needs a side arm for defense. Recently in Macon Georgia a grandmother was accosted by two thugs. They told her to open her car door and give them the money they knew she had. Inside she produced her own firearm, (both thugs were armed) and commenced shooting. If that grandmother had not had a firearm she would be history. The 2d Amendment gives us that right.
100 million gun owner in this country and Obama ,Hillary and now Congress wants to attack them. I say they better remember one thing.Gun owner crosses both partys,Democrtas and Republicans .Any Congressman who votes against our right to bear arms will do a the risk of his seat in Congress . If you vote against us we will vote your a/s/s/ out of Office. I urge every gun owner to call their Congressman and let them know a vote against our gun rights is a vote against them.
WELL WELL:: Question is the nutcase in Colorado Had Protective Gear that is available to Law Enforcement or Military Personell only ! Where did he obtain it? Did OBAMA,Erick Holder,The D O J, Hillary,Bloomberg,Pelosi,or Sara Brady FURNISH THE RESTRICTED ITEMS? Also his demeanor in Court resembles that of some one who has been BRAINWASHED AND REPROGRAMMED MENTALLY TO PERFORM A SPECIFIC DEED THEN GO TOTAL BLANK MENTALLY SO AS NOT REMEMBER HIS PROGRAMMERS. WHO IS RESPONSIBLE????
My thoughts exactly iceman!
Iceman you are on the right trail.I have imagined even so far as he may have been “chipped” maybe in his brain or something.Even imagined another patsy senerio like Oswald.It is really a coincidence that this occured just before the UN treaty signing,and may be the reason oblamya is so mum on the subject of gun control.Is this wild and crazy thinking,could this administration be that evil?
Owning body armor is not illegal ,some convenince stores even provide it to there employees and anyone with the 600$ or so dollars can buy,in case you forget this is still a land of free peoples the nitwit s are suppose to work for us not enslave us!Ask yourself why any country wants to take the means of the average citizens right of self protection away?The following list should give you a clue ,Hitler Stalin.Mao,Castro ,Pol pot <Iran ,Saudi Arabia ,many dictoricships in Africa and the middle east!
The only people who want Honest,sane Americans disarmed are Idiots like Obama and those in our government who think like he does,Hollywood druggies and plain old IDIOTS
At the time of my birth, my father was a NYC Police Officer. My older sisters and I have been around guns our entire lives. One day when I was a toddler, my dad called me into one of the bedrooms. He unloaded his Colt Detective Special (.38 Spl) and began instructing me on firearms safety. My father was and is an excellent teacher of firearms safety. He informed me that this is a real gun, and was never to point it at anyone. He let me hold it, and play with it. He told me that all I had to do was ask him, and he would unload the gun and let me play with it. He also told me that I was never, ever to touch his gun if I found it. All I had to do was to get him and ask him. What my father did was to take all the curiousity out of the gun. It was very effective as I played with that gun for maybe two minutes and handed it back to him. His gun was too heavy and too difficult for me to pull the trigger. I couldn’t even work the cylinder release. I had no further interest in that gun. I never asked him to see it after that day. My father also had a rifle and a shotgun in his closet that were in cases that neither my sisters or myself ever bothered with. I was too busy having fun playing with my cork gun and my cap guns to care.
We do not have a gun problem in this country, we have a criminal problem. Blaming guns for violence is like blaming forks for obesity. It is not the inanimate object, it is the person behind it that commits criminal acts. Gun control caused the large scale tragedy in Colorado. If just one other person was armed, the maniac with orange hair would not have shot as many people as he did. The same goes for LIRR shooter Colin Ferguson. Draconian gun laws make law abiding citizens targets for criminals. It should be up to the individual if they wish to be either armed, or unarmed, that is our choice as Americans.