Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Still Ranting -- by J.O.B.

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=11306

I'm going to have to say I agree with this. Unless we are going to eliminate all guns from the planet, which we know will never happen, the opportunity for self-preservation is severely hampered when someone can obtain a weapon greater than the potential defense against it, be that on the civilian or the municipal (police) level.

The original second amendment referencing our gun rights was intended to protect us against the potential future aims of a police state or governmental authority gone wrong, in addition to protecting our own persons. It was born out of the British attempting to remove guns from the homes of what would later become the first official U.S. citizens.

The question isn't whether another armed student would have stopped Seung-Hui or not, the question is whether he would have been so quick to this level of violence had he been aware that any student on campus could potentially drop him in self defense with a weapon of their own. Home burglars will decide against making an attempt on a home with a guard dog present for a reason. Car thieves are less inclined to steal cars with the "lo-jack" sticker in the window. The act of putting the protections in place to alert potential criminals that you will defend yourself seems to be very well proven as a deterrent. I think it would have helped here.