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Gun Laws: What Works and What Fails
Maryland has way super-strict gun control laws. These laws include bans on what leftists call “assault rifles,” the requirement to get permission from the state before being allowed to purchase a firearm, a requirement that purchasers of firearms be fingerprinted like the common criminals leftists think they are, strict age limits, universal background checks, limits on magazine capacity, a gun registry (which has never even once been used to solve a gun crime), and, of course, “gun-free zones” around every school.
None of those laws were worth a bucket of spit yesterday when a 17-year-old punk brought a gun to school to shoot his ex-girlfriend. Rather, the element that prevented this incident from becoming a mass casualty event was the very thing leftists have been ridiculing these past few weeks: trained and armed security in the school where the shooting happened.
Nobody died except the punk.
The left is firmly of the opinion that “the good guy with a gun is just a myth.” So sayeth NBC News, ABC News, CNN, Huffington Post, Slate, Politico, Vox, NPR and every other reliably left-wing media outlet. Armed and practiced individuals are simply incapable of stopping criminals with guns, they tell us, with all the journalistic authority they can muster.
The Democrat left insists that the solution to “gun violence” are laws banning “assault rifles,” the requirement to get permission from the state before being allowed to purchase a firearm, strict age limits, limits on magazine capacity, universal background checks, gun registries, and, of course, “gun-free zones” around every school.
In New York, they pulled all the armed guards out of public schools on the perverse leftist logic that trained and armed men made students feel unsafe.
Published in Guns
There was one additional thing: the resource officer didn’t stand around outside as was done in Florida. In less than a minute, he found the shooter, confronted the shooter, and fired at the shooter. The result? No more shooting.
This shooting will rapidly be relegated to the memory hole as it contradicts the Pravda.
Yes. And the officer punished.
What kind of gun was the perpetrator using?
That was my first thought. Progressives will want to make an example out of this guy. He may have employment and legal problems coming.
A Glock handgun, that was illegal for him to possess in Maryland.
Add in police planting guns, and the picture of the future begins to emerge. The idea that our police have inscrutable ethics and will enforce the law equally and effectively is as mythical as the Greek gods of old.
I assume we don’t know yet where he got it from.
One thing I have been wondering about the gun bans, and criminal acquisition of guns.
How easy is it to actually buy a gun illegally? Certainly for people involved in distributing contraband already adding guns to the list doesn’t seem that much of a stretch. So given the numerous entry points into the US for contraband should guns become illegal as per the desire of many on the left, criminals with established criminal network contacts would surely still have access. Though it should be remarked that given the constraints the price of the gun would surely increase which would limit them in some ways. But what about these disturbed individuals, with no prior criminal activity? Could they upon deciding to commit these acts so easily go about finding an illegal gun dealer and buy a gun? Many of these guys either were able to purchase their guns legally or stole them from someone who purchased them legally or tricked someone to buy them the gun from a legal vendor (which is illegal, but it requires taking advantage of a legal operation which in a ban world would not exist). So maybe bans would work far better at containing these particular crimes even if they don’t work so well for general gun violence from committed criminals. Are these kind of shootings so horrific that it would make the the trade off worth it?
Also from a utilitarian stand point what would be cheaper or more cost effective increasing security as soft targets or banning guns out right. There are both immediate costs and long term costs to consider. So while a gun ban and confiscation might have high initial costs (arguably prohibitively high ones) long term it may be cheaper than increased and sustained security.
The same one as the security guard.
A dumb Tweet I saw last night claimed the reason the “good guy with a gun” worked this time is because the good guy had the same gun as the perpetrator. Because that’s how gun fights work.
It’s all a matter of bullet speed, BW.
Glock bullets, which are made of a synthetic polymer material and so can therefore go through airport x-ray machines, are very light, and so travel at a very high velocity — a significant fraction of the speed of light. Compare that to the AR-15, which shoots a much larger and slower-moving bullet made of conventional metal material. Even if the bad guy had had an AR-15, he wouldn’t have stood a chance against someone armed with a Glock, which is essentially an assault handgun with a double-stacked high-capacity grip-mounted magazine bullet clip.
Also, because Glocks lack conventional safeties, they’re capable of firing many more bullets-per-second (BPS, the standard measure of handgun power) than is a weapon with a conventional safety.
Sorry. I’m practicing for a job writing for NPR.
That just made it a fair fight. It would have been just terrible if the “good guy” had used an Evil Black Rifle.
Ah, I thought it was just a bit low-key, but NPR likes monotone. You’ll do well!
Glad to know that my 9mm plinking reloads for our household’s Glocks are capable of interstellar velocities! That’s good [CoC] powder that the local shop sold me! Not sure what I’m going to tell the indoor range about the cannon holes in their backstop…
Thank goodness! For a moment, I thought you had lost your mind!
Yeah, there’s always a danger of being too deadpan. ;)
As I always say on these occasions, gun laws are intended to limit the accessibility of guns to law-abiding citizens. Criminals don’t care about yer stinkin’ gun laws. Duh.
It’s almost as if the Left wants more kids to die in school. Now, why would they want that?
Remember their goal with guns: They don’t want you, or anybody you know, to have one. Makes you easier to control.
“Gun control” is not about gun, it’s about the control.
I’m sure they don’t want that. But I think their worldview doesn’t admit to the possibility that they are wrong about guns — or anything else, really.
I’m not so sure about at least some of them. The true believers in the progressive movement claim to pursue their goals by any means necessary. I believe they mean it.
“by any means necessary.” There they have me at a disadvantage.
Yeah, that was a rhetorical question. They want excuses to grab your guns. More dead high schoolers advance the agenda.
I know we’re supposed to assume good faith, but I can’t do it with the Left. They’re relentless and they’re always, always impugning our motives. Turnabout is fair play.
They’re not interested in “what works.” They’re the great destroyers.
Lacking conviction vs filled with passionate intensity…
One of the good things about our constitutional system is that it prohibits government from using price as the deciding criterion for the means used to protect us.
Okay – legitimately started laughing out loud at this point!
My work here is done.