Gun laws only rule the rational
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By Melissa Coulter | Friday, February 29, 2008 |
As Northern Illinois University students bled in the arms of classmates, Reaper wasted no time blaming the horrific shooting on the unarmed.
“By disarming the law-abiding people and legal age students, Illinois made its people easy victims for criminals who don’t care about the law,” Reaper wrote at 5:09 p.m. Thursday. “People need to wake up and look at the statistics. Look at the FACTS. While nobody can prevent this kind of crime, a criminal would think twice before going on a rampage like this if he knew there was a good chance he would meet armed resistance. Had any one of those 18 victims been armed, there wouldn’t have been as many victims.”
Kurt took the bait and fired back, “Yeah, because someone else having a gun in that lecture hall would have avoided this bloody outcome. The difference in the law didn’t seem to make a difference at VA Tech.”
Of the 79 comments posted as the story broke on Valentine’s Day, fewer than 10 expressed sympathy for the NIU community, dealing with the deaths of five students, as well as the gunman.
I hope it is not because we are becoming desensitized to this type of violence. This is, after all, the fourth school shooting in a week in the United States. Add to this a Feb. 2 shooting at Lane Bryant in Tinley Park, Ill., and one at a Kirkwood, Mo., City Council meeting Feb. 7, and that’s 19 people dead and 20 wounded in 12 days.
This sobering sentence appeared in a story about the NIU shooting on Reuters.com, a global news service: “Mass shootings are not rare in the United States, where gun control is less strict than in many countries and where the gun-ownership lobby is politically influential.”
While many may debate the cause, the Reuters conclusion is irrefutable: These
shootings are common.
To me, fewer guns, not more, is the answer. But neither would have changed outcomes in these latest sprees. Gun regulations hashed out by rational citizens have no bearing on the irrational state of mind these shooters seem to share.
Anonymous76 wrote, “When an individual decides to shoot people at random, he does not take into consideration laws regarding concealed weapons.” Even if there were another armed person in the room, “the shooter (who has a death wish) would have already pulled the trigger as many times as he could before his imminent death.”
As details of motive and method unfold, we do our best to understand the incomprehensible.
Love should have been the focus on Feb. 14. Instead, families and friends are left heartbroken. To cope with this massacre, survivors will need to arm themselves, not with guns, but with love, along with compassion and forgiveness.
Melissa Coulter writes on the comments posted online at qctimes.com. Contact her at (563) 383-2243 or at mcoulter@qctimes.com.
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