Please. This statement is so absolutely out of touch with history that it boggles the mind. The worst? Economic bailouts and the occassional over-reach by executive orders not following the law (ie DOMA and Immigration)? Nothing even close to the "worst."
Remember Hitler, Stalin, Pot Pal, etc., etc. and mass round ups of citizens, open executipons, dragging people to death camps, gas chambers and work camps.
Oh please, jumping off the deep end does not help to advance your argument. The very fact you had to reach to Hitler to come up with a defense of your position is a good indication of how flimsy your position is. Would you really have got the ball rolling with Hitler if you had better arguments to defend gun ownership?
The worst has not been done, or anywhere close. And as long as almost 100 million Americans are armed with 300+ million firearms and billions of rounds of ammo, those "worst scenarios" will not happen.
The 2nd Amendmnet is an excellent defense against either national government going completely amuk, or against invasion as well. In either case, logistical lines will never be maintained when so many are armrd...and armed well, with tens of millions of trained "snipers" with high powered rifles, and with assault rifles.
Afghanistan and Iraq was awash with guns and ammo before 9/11. How did those guns and ammo do in stopping it being completely overrun by the American military?
If America was hell bent on setting up death camps and exterminating the local population, do you honestly think the Afghans or Iraqis would have had any chance whatsoever in stopping that with their AKs?
If Hilter or Pal Pot invaded America tomorrow, they can snuff out all resistance far faster than you would ever dreamed was possible through unimaginable cruelty and brutality.
If Hitler decreed that a thousand American civilians be executed for every Nazi killed by Americans unless the killer was turned over, and actually followed through with the threat, you would be amazed at how quickly good people turn on resistance fighters to save their own families. And I am not talking about pure theoreticals, the Japanese implemented a similar policy when they occupied Korea and China, and it was sickeningly effective.
A strong national military is the only viable defense against the kinds of horrors and evil you are suggesting. It was no accident that the Nazis or Japanese were only truly defeated by armies, not resistance fighters.
The Americans are only having a hard time in Afghanistan today because for the most part, they follow rules and refuse to cross certain lines. Throw that line and those rules out the window, and America can pacify Afghanistan forever in a few short years with minimal casualties.
You cannot expect true evil like Hitler or Pal Pot to follow similar rules and that is why guns in private homes would be no defense against the kinds of horrors you suggest.
In addition, it is also the absolute best defense against these types mass shootings. Here are some figures:
Time for a crazed criminal to kill 20 unarmed, massed together people: 30 seconds (plus or minus a few)
Time for average 911 Police response 7-9 Minutes
Time for a conceal carry or open carry individual to respond to a threat: 2-4 seconds.
You pick which one will provide the best potential for immediate defense.
Firstly, those figures are made up.
And of course, no innocent bystander has ever been killed by stray bullets from wannabe Rambos.
It is perhaps telling that it is very hard to come by reliable statistics on the number of innocent bystanders killed or injured by CCW holders, or indeed CCW holders killed by their own weapons.
The very idea of a conceal carry permit seems self-contradictory.
If as the argument goes that carrying a firearm is supposed to deter crime, they why in the world would you want to conceal the fact that you are carrying? People should be displaying guns prominently and putting 'Gun on board' bumper stickers on their cars if that was the case.
Whenever these individual killers have been confronted by an individual carrying a firearm for defense, and one trained and willing to use it, the mass killings invariably stop with either the death, injury or apprension of the killer. Whether in a school in Tennessee when a teacher ran to his auto and retreived a weapon and stopped it, at a Mall in Utah when an off duty police officer who had a personal conceal carry permit stopped it, or at a church in Colorado where a conceal carry member of the church near the front door stopped the killer from entering the sanctuary...or in numerous other cases, the perps are stopped before the killer can turn their crime into a true mass murder.
If I could be bothered, I can find a boat load of examples where conceal carry holders had shot and killed innocent bystanders. What does that prove? Only that guns kill people.
The two despicable attacks on school children in America and China on the same day could not have been a more vivid and clear case study on the effect of gun ownership on the outcome. The two cases are remarkably similar, yet the outcomes could not have been more different. The biggest difference is that in one case, the nutter had guns, while in the other, the psycho did not.
When you bear in mind that as was the case with the Newton kill, when some crazy psycho sets off to commit mass murder, they often wear body armor and are armed to the teeth, go after vulnerable targets, and are often not untrained or unskilled themselves, and I really question just how much of a difference putting a gun in the hands of a teacher would had made.
Teachers with guns in schools is just an accident waiting to happen. I would take a trained armed guard over teachers with guns any day of the week.
That's why "gun free zones" are foolish. The criminals by definition will not obey those laws. Only the law abiding citizens will. This creates a target rich opportunity for the criminals...where they know others will not be apt to stop them. So they go there knowing they will have quite a few unfettered moments to do their terror.
Well if you make guns illegal and hard to get in the first place, the amount of harm evil people can do is massively reduced.
Guns are banned in the UK, and as you already pointed out, that does not stop criminals from getting a hold of guns, but because guns are illegal, they are hard to get hold of by all but organized criminal groups and gangs
For all the flaws and faults of organized crime and gangs, you can at least say that they are not in the business of mass murdering toddlers.
Even amongst organized crime and gang members, because of the illegal nature of guns, few of their number are truly well trained or proficient with a fire arm, never mind an ordinary nutter who might have bought a gun in a brown paper bag from someone. Without training and shooting experience, even if said person set off to commit mass murder, odds are he would not be proficient enough to cause the kind of mass casualties as we had seen with US mass shootings.
You yourself stressed how important it is for a CCW owner to have training, the same applies to any criminal who would wish to use guns. When fire arms are illegal, such people are denied the kind of training and practice needed to make them truly proficient even if they did manage to get a hold of a gun. That counts for a great deal.
The Israeli's, in the 1970s faced (for the initial time) terrorists who attacked their schools and killed young children there. The Israelis responded by arming the teachers and those types of attacks quickly ended. To this day you will see Israeli teachers aremd in the classroom and when they take kids out on field trips.
And the massive Israeli state security measures had nothing to do with this reduction in attacks on schools?
Arming teachers would only mean an attacker aimed for the teacher first. If schools are in serious danger, nothing beats a trained armed police guard at the gates.
In Texas they are already passing laws to allow teachers to be armed. Not forcing it, but jusyt allowing those who desire to be trained and armed. We are petitioning our representatives in Idaho right now to do the same.
That is the worst kind of knee jerk reaction to the tragedy in Newton, and one that is more likely to lead to more tragedies involving accidental discharge of fire arms or kids getting hold of guns.
Trying to take crime off the streets by banning something simply does not work. Look at prohibition of alcohol. Expecting it to somehow work with guns is simply foolhardy at best...and a willful pursuit of a very far left agenda to disarm the citizenry at worst.
Well, that is clearly not true. Just look at all the other countries right across the world that have successfully banned fire arms. There is a reason why these sorts of massed killings happen more often in America than the rest of the world combined.
