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Stopping School ShootingsSubmitted by Bill St. Clair on Fri, 2003-01-31 03:26.
by Bill St. Clair
This was a letter I wrote to the Albany Times Union on 16 March, 2001. They printed a slightly modified version.
Yesterday's Times-Union (3/15) contained an editorial proposing more gun laws, as did a recent op-ed. Great idea! We've got to protect our kids from gun violence. I'm sure more gun laws will work almost as well as more drug laws. If 20,000 gun laws don't keep our kids safe, I'm sure that 20,001 definitely will. Not! According to Census Bureau estimates for the year 2000 (www.census.gov/population/estimates/nation/intfile2-1.txt), America has 51 million school-age children (age 5-17). My memory says that about 50 kids per year have been shot at school recently. Tragic yes, but it means that kids are ten times more likely to die traveling to school than they are to get shot once they get there (www.schoolbusinfo.org/intro.htm). If I were worried about my kids' safety in school, which I'm not, I'd work at getting teachers and administrators to volunteer for training as safety monitors. All the laws in the world won't stop a crazy person intent on hurting my kids, but one man (or woman) equipped with training, determination, and a single gun, can stop that killer in a second. add new comment | quote | 991 reads
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BlogrollFirearm NewsQuotesEvery man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission. -- L. Neil Smith Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings. -- L. Neil Smith Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents. -- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report (PDF) on gun control laws Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap") "A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim." -- L. Neil Smith Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP" Why Did It Have to be... Guns? Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put. If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you. If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims. What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him? -- L. Neil Smith The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war. -- Bill St. Clair TTLB |
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