Gun Control and Crazies

                The Newtown, Connecticut, massacre was performed by a mentally-ill young man, but his act has brought out a lot of other “crazies.”  Many of the people with crazy ideas are media personnel.  How crazy is it for a newspaper to publish the names and addresses of everyone in their area who has a gun?  How crazy is it for the media to use Alinsky tactics on NRA’s Wayne LaPierre simply because he proposed putting armed security in every school?

                LaPierre’s idea was called “a train wreck” by MSNBC, “insane parody… a crazed presentation” by Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, “unhinged” by Gail Collins at the Times, “disturbing and dangerous” by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), and “the craziest man on earth” by the Daily News.  How did LaPierre respond?  “If it’s crazy to call for putting police in and securing our schools to protect our children, then call me crazy.”  

                I personally believe that putting police in our schools is a good idea.  School children already practice lockdown drills for the possibility of attack.  I believe that a police officer in the school would help students feel more secure.  Before any incident happened, children could get to know the policeman as a person and a friend.  If an incident happened, the policeman would be right there to take charge.  Did you know that the children and teachers who survived the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, waited for 20 minutes before the police arrived?

                We already have guards around everything we consider valuable.  Our military bases are protected by armed guards.  Our federal buildings have metal detectors manned by armed guards.  Our court buildings have metal detectors and armed guards.  Our President and other national and state leaders have armed guards.  We can bet that the school attended by the Obama girls has armed guards in addition to the secret service officers.  LaPierre and I believe that our children are our most valuable resources and deserve protection also.

                LaPierre is not the only one receiving the “Alinsky Treatment” from liberals and progressives.  Larry Pratt, Executive Director of Gun Owners of America, is also a target.  CNN’s Piers Morgan said that Pratt was “unbelievably stupid,” “dangerous,” and “shame[s] your country.”  

                        The “Alinsky Treatment” comes from Rules for Radicals and instructs the followers of Alinsky to pick the target, freeze the target, personalize the issue, and demonize the target.  These men are being demonized because they believe in the right to keep and bear arms, a Right guaranteed by the Supreme Law of our land.

                PJ Media published an interesting and enlightening article by Jack Dunphy, an officer with the Los Angeles Police Department.

                “I suspect that those who seek a legislative solution to crimes such as this one are on a fool’s errand.  It would be difficult to tabulate the number of laws the gunman broke in the course of his murderous spree that morning; to think the enactment of one or a dozen more laws would deter such a man is to engage in childish fantasy.  And talk of banning `assault weapons’ is equally naïve, not least for the fact that the very term has no real definition other than to describe rifles that some people find scary-looking.

                “I am neither a member of the National Rifle Association nor an avid shooter.  But I have carried a gun as a tool of my trade for more than 30 years, and  have come to appreciate the advantages of being armed in those moments when a deadly threat presents itself.  That said, I am not among those who would place a weapon in the hand of every teacher….

                “But the mere possibility that one or two staff  members at a school might be armed may offer just enough deterrence to inspire second thoughts in any but the most determined assailants.  And if such a determined assailant proceeds with an attack, is it beyond the pale to hope for intervention by an armed teacher? … [I]s that scenario not preferable to what actually occurred?

                “There are limits on what the law and government agencies can do to protect the public.  Though I’ve been a cop for 30 years, nearly every day of which has been spent on the streets of Los Angeles, I can recall only a handful of times when I was able to interrupt a violent crime in progress, either by responding quickly to a radio call or by coming across it randomly while on patrol.  You’ve heard the expression:  when seconds count, the police are minutes away.  It’s trite but no less true.”

                Officer Dunphy said that there is only so much we can expect from our government.  Remember, the surviving children and teachers in Newtown waited 20 minutes for the police to arrive.   LaPierre, Pratt, and Dunphy are not “crazy;” they are wise to encourage us to prepare to protect ourselves and our families.

                The main stream media feeds us the information that they want us to have.  They keep harping on the Sandy Hook massacre and the need for gun control, but we hear little mention about the murders that took place in Webster, New York, on Christmas Eve.   An ex-con set his house on fire and used an “assault” rifle to kill two firefighters and injure others who responded to the fire.  While the sniper was killing the responders, the fire burned other homes in his neighborhood.  He reported that his desire was to “do what I like doing best, killing people.”  He had previously spent time in prison for beating his mother to death, and  his sister’s body was found in the ashes of the home they shared.  The media does not harp about this murder scene even  though the same  type of rifle – a Bushmaster – was used by both  murderers.  This ex-con had  numerous weapons even though he could not own or possess them legally!  This is a crisis, but it is not a crisis that can be exploited by the gun control advocates.

                There may be a racial component to the clamor for gun control because shootings by blacks seldom make the news.  There were seven people shot in the city of Chicago, Illinois, on Christmas Eve, but the media made little mention of the killings.  Murder is a routine matter in Chicago, and there were 500 shootings in Chicago in 2012.  “The vast majority of the shooters are black, and the vast  majority of the victims are black.  Many of the victims are under the age of 18 … A few are under age 10.  You’ve never heard of any of them.

                “But when an evil white person with a history of mental instability shoots up a school, killing 20 children, most of whom were white, the media is suddenly concerned with gun control.

                “Perhaps that’s because the  media is racist.  Or perhaps it’s something else.  If the media pays attention to the shootings in Chicago, it will have to talk about the fact that Chicago is heavily gun controlled.  It will have to discuss the fact that guns are illegally flowing into areas of heavy gun violence.  And it will have to talk about the impact of social ills like single motherhood, gang recruitment and  poor public education.

                “Instead, the media focuses on Sandy Hook, Aurora and Columbine.  Focusing on such statistically aberrant scenarios rather than the more widespread gun violence that plagues our cities allows the media to target one of  its most hated groups:  the National Rifle Association.

                “This is what the left does:  they pick a target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it.  They use individual cases as a baton to wield against groups they hate….

                “… The left’s attack on the NRA is ludicrous.  Neither the Sandy Hook massacre perpetrator .. nor his mother … was a member.  The state of Connecticut has long rejected the NRA’s legislative influence.  The NRA takes zero – zero – tax dollars.  Yet somehow, the NRA has been targeted as the root of all evil.

                “Why?  Because the NRA represents the strongest single proponent of gun rights in America….”

                “So what does that have to do with Chicago versus Sandy Hook?  The media knows that in all shooting scenarios, the conversation quickly polarizes into two positions:  ban guns or discuss other myriad social and legal issues that lead to shootings.  In communities plagued by high levels of social ills like Chicago, the second  position is the more obvious one.  In cases of placid communities getting shot up by a nutcase, the left can talk gun bans more easily.”

                Even though the situation  in Chicago is easier to correct, the Left is more willing to let black “gang members shoot each other in Chicago” than let a good crisis go to waste.  The problems in Chicago will continue because the media and politicians are not interested  in getting to the root causes of the problems – single parents, violent movies and videos, and just plain evil in our communities – and solving the problems.

                The 1995 Gun-Free School Zone Act  was passed with the intention to make schools safer by banning guns, but the number of massacres at schools has increased.  Law-abiding citizens obey the gun bans and are then “sitting ducks” because  criminals do not care about laws.  Killers select their targets because they are gun free.  The Batman movie was premiering at seven different theaters near the killer’s apartment.  The killer  selected the only one that banned guns.   The killer in Newtown selected a school that was a gun-free zone.

                Yet the crazies on the left continue to go after guns.  A new gun control bill will be introduced by Nancy Pelosi in an effort to get “assault” weapons off  our streets.  Cities and counties such as Camden, N.J., Ithaca, New York, and Tomplins County, New York are conducting “gun buyback programs” in efforts to remove  unwanted guns from  the communities.  I recently heard that authorities in New Jersey are not currently allowing guns to be transferred at all, but I do not yet have a reference.

                Who are the real crazies in our nation?  The people who propose that we prepare to defend ourselves and homes and put armed  police officers in our schools to protect our children or the people who think that they can  prevent violence by locking up all the guns?  Those who are wise will look at the root causes of the violence and attack those areas rather than the law-abiding citizens of our nation.