Posted by Jack
Libertarian Party: Halt the Massacre of Innocent Children by Ending Prohibition on Self-Defense in Schools
Families throughout the nation mourn the horrific deaths of 26 people, including 20 young children, killed Friday during a Newtown, Conn., mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
“It’s impossible to imagine the depths of despair and grief that the victims’ families are experiencing right now,” said Geoffrey J. Neale, Chair of the Libertarian National Committee. “Our hearts go out to every one of them.”
In the immediate aftermath of news surrounding the shootings, pundits and politicians called for new restrictions on firearm ownership, exactly the opposite of the approach needed to combat tragic gun violence in schools.
“We’ve created a ‘gun-free zone,’ a killing zone, for the sickest criminals on the face of the Earth,” said R. Lee Wrights, vice-chair of the Libertarian Party. “We’ve given them an open killing field, and we’ve made the children of this country the victims.”
Wrights pointed out that merely the knowledge that armed people will be present acts as a deterrent for would-be shooters.
“They’re not going to walk into a police station, and why not? Because that’s where the guns are,” he said.
The Federal Gun Free Schools Zone Act prohibits carrying firearms on school grounds in most cases, effectively criminalizing the right to self-defense in places filled with the most vulnerable citizens. Without that federal prohibition, adults working at the school would have been free to defend themselves, very possibly saving the lives of many of the young children and adults who were slain in this horrific tragedy.
“We must stop blinding ourselves to the obvious: Most of these mass killings are happening at schools where self-defense is prohibited,” said Carla Howell, executive director of the Libertarian Party. “Gun prohibition sets the stage for the slaughter of innocent children. We must repeal these anti-self-defense laws now to minimize the likelihood they will occur in the future and to the limit the damage done when they do.”
Responsible gun owners can and do prevent mass shootings from occurring and escalating.
A 1997 high school shooting in Pearl, Miss., was halted by the school’s vice principal after he retrieved the Colt .45 he kept in his truck.
A 1998 middle school shooting ended when a man living next door heard gunfire and apprehended the shooter with his shotgun.
A 2002 terrorist attack at an Israeli school was quickly stopped by an armed teacher and a school guard.
A 2002 law school shooting in Grundy, Va., came to an abrupt conclusion when students carrying firearms confronted the shooter.
A 2007 mall shooting in Ogden, Utah, ended when an armed off-duty police officer intervened.
A 2009 workplace shooting in Houston, Texas, was halted by two coworkers who carried concealed handguns.
A 2012 church shooting in Aurora, Colo., was stopped by a member of the congregation carrying a gun.
At the recent mall shooting in Portland, Ore., the gunman took his own life minutes after being confronted by a shopper carrying a concealed weapon.
For several years after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, gun prohibitionists blocked pilots from carrying firearms. But after it became undeniable that guns are an essential line of defense against hijackers and other terrorists when the lives of innocent passengers are at stake, Congress finally passed legislation allowing it.
It’s time to take the same approach with teachers, school administrators, and security guards, who should be allowed to carry the tools necessary to protect the students in their care. It’s time to put an end to gun-free zones and make it much easier for responsible adults to arm, train, and protect themselves and the people they love from the violent criminals who seek to harm them.
“You can’t depend on somebody else to take care of your own life for you,” Wrights said. “It’s too precious to put it into the hands of somebody else, particularly when the seconds count.”
The Libertarian Party Platform on Self-Defense states: “The only legitimate use of force is in defense of individual rights — life, liberty, and justly acquired property — against aggression. This right inheres in the individual, who may agree to be aided by any other individual or group. We affirm the individual right recognized by the Second Amendment to keep and bear arms, and oppose the prosecution of individuals for exercising their rights of self-defense. We oppose all laws at any level of government requiring registration of, or restricting, the ownership, manufacture, or transfer or sale of firearms or ammunition.”
I agree that the presence of armed citizens would be a deterrent to some, but the perpetrator of this tragedy shot himself. So why should we think he would have been deterred by armed teachers?
That said, an armed teacher might have been able to shoot him before he killed so many.
“We oppose all laws at any level of government requiring registration of, or restricting, the ownership, manufacture, or transfer or sale of firearms or ammunition.”
That’s just…nuts. No gun registration? At all? How could anyone think that’s a good idea?
I don’t know Chris, you will have to ask a Libertarian. However, there doesn’t necessarily have to be registration to put people in jail for trying to buy a gun illegally.
“However, there doesn’t necessarily have to be registration to put people in jail for trying to buy a gun illegally.”
Sure, but no registration makes finding those people much harder to do.
“Sure, but no registration makes finding those people much harder to do.” Finding what people…legal gun owners? The criminals never register their weapons. Think about it Chris.
Gun registration makes rounding up weapons real easy in times of war.
Leave it to the right wing nut jobs to immediately politicize a tragedy. If you asked me whom is to blame I would say that it’s the fault of greed, ignorance and lack of empathy. Our society is sick and it is not because of lack of god in school or any other stupid reason. It is because we are conditioned to be heartless, mindless consumers.
All of the talk about gun control following this tragic event involving children at school is disingenuous on the part of progressives and leftist politicians. They only care about MURDERS when they can use an event politically…and they do it for VOTES! How do I know? The city of Chicago…the President’s home base has a terrible record of murders committed with guns.
This HuffPo article was posted in June of this year…half way through the year!:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/16/chicago-homicide-rate-wor_n_1602692.html
A serious discussion about the causes of these shootings in Chicago would involve cultural and spiritual issues that Democrats don’t want to think about. A serious discussion about these murders would involve mental health laws that progressives pushed for and embraced and Democrats don’t want to talk about those. Other factors, like stable two parent families, religious training and/or traditional values, better schools and/or school vouchers, and teaching about a work ethic are not issues Democrats want to consider yet all of these would change the situation in Chicago and across our nation.
Does anyone care about the black children of Chicago?
Another aspect of this is the societal disregard for human life. This is hitting the black community particularly hard…does anyone care that? (unh uh…not PC)
http://www.nbccongress.org/features/abortion_silent_no_more_01.asp
Quentin Tarantino’s latest movie will undoubtedly inspire (justified) black on white murder if the teaser is any indication. I will be watching to see if out of control young people in the black community who are particularly vulnerable will start turning their anger and violent lifestyle reality on the white community. I can’t imagine that this movie will have a positive effect.
In terms of the person who committed this terrible mass murder in a Connecticut school…notice how we refrain from using the word MURDER (Why, because it’s too harsh?) but we liberally use the word assault weapon. This inaccurate word is used to produce a knee jerk reaction. “Assault weapon” did not commit these MURDERS. Only one human being committed these murders.
We had better start addressing the real, underlying causes inciting kids to commit murder…and kids who murder parents, and parents who murder their kids, and gangs murdering each other.
It isn’t guns.
Rex I can sure get that lack of empathy played a pa urt in these murders.
Ignorance is questionable…was the shooter a genius…of average intelligence or dim witted? We’ve heard he was very smart but the media has made so many errors I don’t know if that’s correct.
Greed? That’s a reach! You said things like this happen because, “…we are conditioned to be heartless, mindless consumers.”
In what possible way does this make sense? This kid didn’t kill people, children, by consumption of products.
I will agree: “Our society is sick…”
I believe it is “sick” because we do not talk about right and wrong anymore. Also…we are not allowed to “judge”. We place blame on inanimate objects rather than the people who commit crimes to avoid looking judgmental. We set aside severe consequences in order to appear compassionate.We demonize those who suggest religious or traditional values would give kids better grounding and a solid foundation….some want to remove religion from society altogether. Don’t get me started on the confusing signals to young men in our society. Young men are too often raised without good male roll models. Society (women in the lead) has made the roll of men irrelevant by putting too much attention on girls and pandering to women’s “issues”. Boys are not supposed to “shoot up the local school or theater” but nobody mourns over the deadly hip hop and gang culture…in fact the symbolism inherent in it is celebrated as an art form. Bad dudes where white hats in movies and music and those who traditionally would be good male roll models are often the bad guys…this was meant to bring “realism” to drama. Life imitates art.
Until we are willing to say that murder is wrong and make it very clear we don’t have a hope in he** to stave off incidents like this one. Until we are willing to uplift good roll models young boys will continue to fail to grow into responsible adults.
There are many other contributing factors. The mental health aspect may be the area with the most promise to make a difference through legislation. People with kids that suffer from various disorders certainly could use help in getting their kids treated and/or locked up.
Registration of guns makes for a list to confiscate all known weapons by a tyrannical despot. Dont people ever study history?
Jack …
On the … still … very rare occasion that a masked, armed and armored fiend invades an elementary school … we … still … will not live in a society wherein Mrs. Mont-Eaton pulls an AK-47 out of her bottom desk drawer and lets fly.
But the acceptability and availability of mental health services in this country … this wants lots and lots of serious work.
And this has happened … when?
Libby, you said a mouthful. The mental health professionals (and perhaps our weak laws concerning the insane) missed a number of ticking time bombs in Washington, California, Arizona, Colorado twice and now in Connecticut. Is their a common thread among these shooters? What is it, what should we be looking for, how do we deal with the insane and turn them away from doing something evil? There’s so much to be considered before we get around to legislating a one size fits all fix like banning something.
It’s still too early to even know exactly what the problem is, let alone come up with a solution, i.e., like banning assault weapons.
First, we need to engage in some serious dialog and fact finding. For once, lets not let the media and the emotions of the moment send us off half cocked…no pun intended. -Jack
Thank you Angel…no, apparently people don’t learn from history. Sad. -jack
Rex, the rightwing nut jobs you refer to are ONLY responding to the politicization from the left.
This shooting is being totally exploited opportunity by the left, it’s an excuse to demand more gun control laws… to seize more guns; and they have been making the most of this tragedy. They are talking day and night about banning assault weapons. That’s all they can think about, but there are those of us who would rather take the discussion to a higher level, starting with facts and come up with some real solutions, not knee jerk solutions.
Nice try Rex… keep it up, some day you may score a point, but not this day.
That shooter is one person that SHOULD have been aborted. Bad call, mother.
Man Attempts to Open Fire on Crowd at Movie Theater, Armed Off-Duty Sheriff’s Deputy Drops Him With One Bullet
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/man-attempts-to-open-fire-on-crowd-at-movie-theater-armed-off-duty-sheriffs-deputy-drops-him-with-one-bullet/
Tina: “Another aspect of this is the societal disregard for human life. This is hitting the black community particularly hard…does anyone care that? (unh uh…not PC)”
Progressives have argued that abortion is best prevented by increased access to contraception. We have studies documenting that this decreases the abortion rate by 70%. Why do you claim we are ignoring the issue, when not only are we proposing solutions, we are proposing solutions that have been proven to work?
“Quentin Tarantino’s latest movie will undoubtedly inspire (justified) black on white murder if the teaser is any indication.”
Yes, just like his last movie inspired Jewish-on-German murder, and “Kill Bill” inspired woman-on-man murder!
Oh wait, that never happened.
“notice how we refrain from using the word MURDER (Why, because it’s too harsh?)”
I Googled “connecticut school murder” and received 160,000,000 results. You are literally just making this up.
“Until we are willing to say that murder is wrong”
Sometimes the things you say are so far removed from objective reality, I don’t know how to respond in a way that isn’t insulting to us both.
The fact is that we have no idea why Adam Lanza committed this horrific crime. I think all the speculation from both sides is premature and insensitive. We don’t know if he was motivated by “greed,” we know nothing about how religious or secular his family was, we don’t know if he had strong role models, etc. All that seems to be clear is that he had some form of mental illness. I am not sure if details have emerged on whether or not he had been treated or how, but I do think if any good can come from this tragedy, it will be in focusing more on the mental health issue and finding ways to prevent atrocities like this from happening again.
Re:
“I agree that the presence of armed citizens would be a deterrent to some, but the perpetrator of this tragedy shot himself. So why should we think he would have been deterred by armed teachers?”
“Leave it to the right wing nut jobs to immediately politicize a tragedy.”
Well, the usual spittle flecked ignoramus left wing knee jerks have spouted off the usual spittle flecked ignorant left wing knee jerk canards.
According to the real statistics on guns in the US where there is restrictive or no guns allowed laws there is more gun crime.
It is the left that is on the march politicizing this tragedy by threatening second amendment rights. Politicians on the “right” are not proposing anti-gun legislation.
The steady sewage that flows out of the minds of progressives never ceases to amaze me.
He shot himself,a s many mass spree killers do, when he heard sirens. In other worlds, as soon as there was a hint of resistance he committed suicide.