Gun Control: Democrats Wrong Again

The Democrats never miss an opportunity to advance the wrong agenda. Check this out. The leftards are going to make this about disarming the American people so that we can go like sheep to slaughter. From ABC News;

Culture or Control: Guns Spark Intense Political Debate
Polls Consistently Show Americans Favor Stricter Gun Control but Elections Tell a Different Story 

John Fund weighs in (WSJ  Political Diary: PAID Only);

In reality, Virginia Tech was, as many bloggers put it, a "danger-free zone for armed criminals." The school was one of many to prohibit all guns on campus. Last year, legislation to allow exceptions for licensed and trained gun owners failed to pass the Virginia legislature.

Virginia Tech officials falsely believed their policy meant more security, not less. Its spokesman, Larry Hincker, described the school's anti-gun policy in 2005 by saying: "We believe guns don't belong in the classroom. In an academic environment, we believe you should be free from fear." He proudly noted that students who had tried to bring handguns onto school property had been promptly suspended.

John Lott, a gun-control scholar, says the problems with such laws is that good intentions aren't enough. "What counts is whether the laws ultimately save lives. Unfortunately, too many gun laws primarily disarm law-abiding citizens, not criminals." He notes that some 40 states now have some kind of law allowing responsible citizens to carry concealed firearms. In most of those states, between 2% and 6% of all adults have such permits, thus giving citizens in a community the size of a university the knowledge that someone other than the local police will have access to self-defense.

Such laws have consequences. Mr. Lott and Bill Landes of the University of Chicago law school examined multiple-victim public shootings in the U.S. from 1977 to 1999 and found that when states passed right-to-carry laws, the rate of multiple victim public shootings fell by 60%. Deaths and injuries from multiple-victim public shootings fell even more -- an average of 78% -- as the remaining incidents tended to involve fewer victims per attack.

As blogger Glenn Reynolds noted at Instapundit.com, the most egregious incidents involving mass slaughter "do seem to take place in locations where it's not legal for people with carry permits to carry guns, though. I certainly wish that someone had been in a position to shoot this guy at the outset."

UPDATE: End school shootings now.

Comments

[Peter VE]

The gun control nuts claim that allowing conceals for self defense will increase gun crime. Time to put up or shut up and do a controlled experiment: allow concealed carry at Virginia Tech, and maintain the existing ban at UVA. The two schools are similar in size and rural location. After 5 years, count up the dead from shootings, vs. the number of crimes stopped by the armed students, faculty and staff. Instead of hysterical arguments, facts on the ground can lead us into the future.