Unlike so many people on the anti-2A side of things, I really am sick of hearing so many stories of mass shootings. So many people (often children) dead. So many people horribly injured. One garbage person made (usually) posthumously famous to inspire another round of broken kids into considering doing the same thing.
And a huge portion of these mass shootings could be stopped if we did three things:
- Made constitutional carry the law nationwide (isn’t that what the Second Amendment allows, if politicians and judges were being honest?)
- Eliminated all gun-free zones
- Stopped publishing the names and pictures of mass shooters after they did the deed.
Let me explain.
If constitutional carry is available nationwide, then more people can be legally available to stop an active shooter well before law enforcement can even show up.
If gun-free zones no longer exist, then mass shooters’ favorite target (by the own words) are no longer available, making it that much harder for them to find a place to kill enough people to become infamous (this would be a big demotivater for many of them).
And if no one knows who they are, then there is no fame to be gained by the broken people who would consider committing mass shootings (which often happen because people without a sense of purpose or meaning want to be famous in death because they feel unseen in life). Yes, report the news, but memory hole the shooters’ names and pictures of their faces.
Because if we don’t take these steps, then clueless (or evil) people around the world will continue to make the same mistakes that make mass shootings easier to commit by those with evil intent.
Exactly like we’re seeing in Thailand right now.
You may have heard about the recent mass shooting at a school there. A 14 year old boy killed his grandparents, five people at a school, and himself, and he injured 23 other people.
And then the reports came in. The kid watched violent content online. He came from a quiet home (don’t they say that it’s always the quiet ones?). And lots of news stories about it plastered everywhere.
Of course, the Thai government’s reply is what you have come to expect: a new gun law.
Naturally, the media skipped reports that the shooter had a BB gun confiscated at school during the past year. Even a young teen should have the awareness that bringing a gun of any kind, even a BB gun, to school grounds is a bad idea. Yet, no one seemed to have caught the warning there.
I’m not trying to victim blame, point the finger at the people who were shot, with that last comment. I’m just trying to think this through logically and rationally.
I can say definitively and with all confidence that, if someone at that school had a firearm on their person and training in its use, the death count in this horrible situation would have probably been decreased by two thirds.
And that’s a worthy goal that actually can be reached, unlike gun control’s repeatedly failed promises.
