VTech and Tougher Gun Laws?
It isn’t much of a surprise to hear the call for tougher and more stringent gun laws after the shootings at Virginia Tech. As many writers and bloggers in the outdoor community have already stated, it was only a matter of time. I haven’t weighed in on the issue because it has been so well covered, but I find myself not being able to keep quiet any longer.
The world is full of what-ifs. We always wonder what would have happened if things would have been different. And it is always easy to imagine another outcome that is more pleasant than what actually did. The ‘would the Virginia Tech tragedy have happened if there had been tougher gun laws’ question is one of these.
The ease in which the killer was able to obtain a weapon may have been somewhat tougher, but if he wanted one bad enough, he would have ended up with it anyway. And if he hadn’t been able to, then that may have kept him from shooting the number of people he did, but would it have kept him from striking out and killing people? I highly doubt it.
As much as everyone wants this to be about guns killing people, it is far from that. It is about people killing people. Access to guns isn’t going to change that because people are murdered every day in a multitude of ways that doesn’t involve guns. A person who wants to kill someone will find a way to do it no matter what. Depending on exactly how, the number may be lower or higher than with the use of a gun.
My heart goes out to those who lost their lives and their families, sure. I just wish, though, people would pull their heads out and realize tougher gun laws aren’t going to keep people from killing one another. Anyone who believes this is living in a fantasy world.
hunting, gun laws, VTech, Virginia Tech, opinion, rant
April 26th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Cliff,
Great post. I was one of the ones that jumped on the bandwagon and posted about this tragedy pretty early. Funnily enough, I said a lot of the same stuff you did. Guess great minds think alike.
April 26th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Great article. Unfortunately there are always people that think tougher laws will make for a better would. Then there are interest groups, in this case the anti gun lobby, which exposes such tragedies shamelessly to promote their own political agenda. Truth of the matter is that tougher gun laws do not prevent gun related crime. Take Canada as an example. We have a very strict gun control law with many hoops to jump trough for legal gun owners. We also have a mandatory firearm registry system and yet this strict system does not prevent gun crime from happening. We too have had a lunatic running amok in a school killing many innocent people. The stringent gun control laws obviously have not stopped him from obtaining a firearm on the black market.
Even the RCMP (Canadian Police) admits that the gun control laws do not prevent criminals for getting their hands on firearms. Take Australia as another example. Since the introduction of a very stringent gun control law in that country, violent gun crime has risen a staggering 75 something percent. The same is true fro other countries with though gun control laws such as England and Germany. Yet Switzerland with NO gun control or even simple gun registry laws has a very lively gun culture (practically everyone owns firearms including assault rifles) has no firearm related crime to speak of. Americas gun crime is lower then that of Canada, Australia or England.
-Othmar Vohringer-
April 26th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
What if that Va. Tech nut only had a baseball bat. Would we call him a batter?
People like that can always find something to do harm to others with.
Law enforcement slipped up on this one!
April 27th, 2007 at 4:28 am
Kristine, thank you. I missed your post on it, I’ll have to go read it. I think most of us think this way because we know the truth, but to those screaming tougher gun laws, they would just blow it off as hot wind from gun nuts. That’s the sad part.
Othmar, you bring up some very good points and some interesting statistics. Thank you.
Jon, I like that. A batter, somehow I don’t think that would be the case. BTW, sorry for not doing this sooner, but here is my email:
clifford.fryman@451press.net
I’d love to read the gator story you mentioned sending me.
April 27th, 2007 at 8:55 am
I think in a lot of cases it is easier to find something to blame rather than to look at the situation logically and see that there were a lot of factors that caused this tragedy to happen.
People want to blame guns because they need to believe that getting rid of guns will solve the problem. It’s a quick fix solution for a problem that can’t be fixed quickly.