“Having a gun is by far the most effective way for people to protect themselves from criminals.” – The War on Guns
The 151st conference of the National Rifle Association (NRA) was scheduled to begin on May 27, 2022. Founded in 1871, the NRA is America's longest-standing civil rights group. Unfortunately, the event would be marred by the horrific massacre of 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, just a few days prior. Unsurprisingly, some of the scheduled participants began to drop out, and even distance themselves from the 2nd amendment.
To gun control advocates, Uvalde was just one more incident in a long line of mass public shootings. Uvalde, like the Parkland school shooting in 2018, would instead reveal itself as a spectacular failure of the government. While charged with protecting the safety of the schools, both local law enforcement departments refused to defend their students. In Uvalde, parents themselves were arrested for attempting to enter the school, while 19 officers, one for every child killed, stood outside the classroom for over an hour as shots rang out, waiting for permission to enter.
The 18-year-old Uvalde mass shooter obtained his weapons after passing the required background checks, indicating an absence of a criminal record or history of mental illness. As gun control activists call for increasing the age of gun ownership to 21, a US Department of Justice Special Report from 1997 shows that individuals aged 18 to 21 were more likely than any other age group to be a victim of a violent crime, while at the same time, less likely to commit violent crimes than their older peers. But since we are not always able to stop potential shooters from obtaining a gun, we must consider other precautions.
The first obvious step is to eliminate gun-free zones. Statistics from the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) reveal that 9 out of 10 mass public shootings from 1998 to May 2022 occurred in a gun-free zone. In fact, many mass shooters, including both the Colorado movie theater shooter and the Buffalo grocery store shooter, revealed that they specifically chose a gun-free location to obtain the highest possible death counts. US Representatives Thomas Massie and Warren Davidson have already proposed a bill to repeal the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 and leave the safety of each school to local school boards to set their own policies.
Nationally, over 20 states allow teachers and staff to carry guns, while 17 states outright ban guns on school property. Before the 1990s, there were no state laws limiting the carrying of weapons in schools throughout the country, instead allowing gun owners to carry in schools as they would elsewhere. Allowing teachers and staff to carry concealed weapons at schools will ensure that an armed presence is on-site should the worst occur. Opening concealed carry to schools would not require that everyone at the school carry a gun; only those who choose to do so would consent. Schools that already allow for concealed carry have reported no school shootings, no student injuries, and only one minor incident that resulted in a damaged toilet.
Those seeking increased gun control also ignore FBI and local police incompetence. Over the past decade, an increasing number of mass shooters were known to the FBI. Officials had advanced knowledge of the following shooters: 2009 Fort Hood which resulted in 14 deaths; 2015 San Bernadino which resulted in 14 deaths; and the 2015 Garland TX case, which we later discovered the FBI coordinated. The FBI also neglected to act on prior knowledge of the Pulse Nightclub shooter who killed 49 people in 2016, the Parkland school shooter who killed 17, the Boulder shooter who killed 10 in 2021, and the Buffalo grocery shooter who in 2022, killed 10. Despite multiple contacts with the FBI, nothing was done to subvert their plans. There should be growing concern over the negligence of both Parkland and Uvalde police and deputies who refused to engage with their shooters, with deputies in Florida literally hiding behind trees.
In John Lott Jr.’s 2016 book, “The War Against Guns”, statistician Lott once again provides comprehensive evidence to dismantle common gun control myths. Lott’s Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) is known for publishing detailed reports, including an Excel spreadsheet of the 89 mass public shooting events from 1998 to May 2022. As the report reveals, in the past 10 years from 2013 to 2022, there were an average of 5 mass shootings per year, with 46 people killed. Despite media hysteria following each event, mass shootings account for less than one percent of gun deaths every year. In fact, about two-thirds of gun deaths are suicides, while more than 80 percent of gun homicides are committed with an illegally obtained gun. By comparison, in Chicago last year, more than 3500 separate incidents of gun violence resulted in the deaths of nearly 800 people, in a city with more legislated “gun sense” laws than nearly anywhere else.
While the Biden/Harris administration and their Democratic Congress sit safely behind a wall of armed security, they are once again contemplating how to remove guns from American citizens. Their go-to solutions are always the same and would do little to stop any of the events on record. These measures include enhanced background checks and the elimination of the AR-15. Not one mass shooting would have been stopped by universal background checks, with most guns either obtained illegally or stolen, while 58 percent of mass schooling perpetrators used a handgun, and only 14 percent used rifles, including the AR-15. Making guns illegal is illogical. Ironically there were 100,000 drug-related deaths in the US in 2021, even though drugs are illegal to obtain versus 45,000 gun deaths, with the overwhelming majority, being suicides.
The most important takeaway from the Uvalde mass shooting is that we cannot trust the police to protect us or our children. The 2nd Amendment is here to stay. And despite the constant attacks against gun owners, the Constitution and our right to self-defense will continue to protect that privilege. Instead of running from the 2nd Amendment, we should be running to defend it.
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