July 25, 2012

Fire Away

Since we're on a roll with gun rights, I thought it might be illuminating to share the story of another Colorado shooting, this one from back in 2007. As quoted from the Cato Institute white paper Tough Targets: When Criminals Face Armed Resistance From Citizens:

Perhaps the most widely publicized shooting involving a concealed carry licensee in the last few years clearly prevented the murder of at least dozens of people. The criminal was a mentally ill young man who had already killed four people in the previous 12 hours. On December 10, 2007, Jeanne Assam used a gun in the lobby of New Life Church, in Colorado Springs. Matthew Murray was carrying “two handguns, an assault rifle and over 1,000 rounds of ammunition.” He had already killed two people in the parking lot and two others the previous night. He entered the lobby firing his rifle—but Assam, a former police officer, shot him, ending the killing spree. It does not take much imagination to understand the likely outcome if Assam had not been armed at the scene of this horrific crime.

Obviously this is an extreme case -- but it does at least address the question everybody forgets to ask when the gun-control nannies attack the Second Amendment in the wake of a mass shooting: How many deaths are prevented each year by armed citizens?

According to the Cato report, conservative estimates place the number of crimes prevented at somewhere north of a million per year. If you assumed that even one thousand of those crimes -- a mere 0.1% -- would have resulted in the death of the victim, then it's plainly obvious that the number of lives saved by armed citizens far outweighs the number killed by crazed nutjobs wielding guns.

You need look no further than Chicago for proof. Even though it has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation, that city is more dangerous than Kabul, Afghanistan in terms of its murder rate -- most of which are committed with guns. It's the usual story: Liberals get to feel good about themselves because they "did something" about gun violence, even though they really only made things worse. Gangbangers get the firepower, normal people get to cower in fear. That's the Chicago way.

Americans largely understand this, which is why gun-control legislation is almost always a loser politically. If Barack Obama wants to make this an issue, as appears his wont, I say we let him.

Dafydd adds: How could we stop him? <g>

Hatched by Korso on this day, July 25, 2012, at the time of 1:52 PM

Comments

The following hissed in response by: snochasr

The above hissed in response by: snochasr at July 26, 2012 4:09 AM

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