Is it the guns or the people?

The majority of people are good, but some people are evil. I can’t say the same thing of guns. A gun is an inanimate object and is not capable of good or evil. How do we keep the guns away from the bad people without causing any restriction on the good people? The majority of gun control laws imposed and proposed focus on the gun. This will never work. In this week’s blaring example, both of the guns used by the murderer at Virginia Tech were common small caliber handguns that have not been part of any specific gun type ban proposed. In fact one of them meets all the requirements set forth by every prior gun restriction ever made and is generally considered an entry level target or “plinking” gun.

The Walther P22 is a cheap rimfire pistol with a 10-round magazine. I own one myself and it is great fun to shoot. For such a small pistol, it is also amazingly accurate. Due to the size and operation of this pistol, it is a good one for cheap practice of combat pistol skills as it functions very similar to “duty” pistols of larger calibers. The main advantage of a cheap rimfire is that you can buy 500 rounds of ammo for less than ten bucks, where the larger guns will only get you 50 rounds for the same price. There is also very little recoil, so repeatedly shooting a rimfire at the range will not build a “flinch” reflex as can occur with standard carry calibers, like the .40 S&W. The .22 rimfire is probably the most common firearm caliber in existence and is most often used in rifle and pistol sport and competition shooting. Kids are usually given their first opportunity to shoot a “real” gun with the .22 caliber as it is often the next logical step after the air gun.

The Glock 19 is a 9mm caliber pistol that is slightly shorter than the full size Glock 17 used by numerous police officers who are restricted to 9mm by administration politics. It is also probably one of the most sold models of Glock to civilians. This is a very common type of gun and the ammo is essentially a cartridge that was made for semi-automatic actions that replaced the .38 Special revolvers. They are the same size bullet with a smaller and differently shaped casing. Neither of these calibers has a very good reputation for police nor defense use as a “man stopper” bullet. However, advancements in bullet design have made them more effective, but the same is true of all calibers on the market today. That said, any bullet can cause death if placement is correct and vital anatomy is damaged. From current accounts, most of the victims of the Virginia Tech murders were shot at least three times.

I bought my first Glock in 1991. It was the beginning of the “plastic” pistol age and the anti-gun folks were clamoring that people would be able to smuggle these pistols through metal detectors and get them onto airplanes. The only part of the gun that is plastic is the lower frame including the hand grip. There is still a considerable amount of metal in the barrel and slide as well as in all the moving parts of the action. This gun will set off the deafest metal detector and is as obvious as any other gun through an X-Ray machine. The factory standard magazine holds 15 rounds, but there are thousands of ban-era 10 round magazines out there as well. As I’ve pointed out in a previous article, this difference is completely irrelevant to the number of people a psycho can murder. Reloading is fast and easy regardless of the magazine capacity.

Quite frankly, I wouldn’t have a problem with the good people who choose to arm themselves against evil carrying firearms everywhere they went, including airplanes. Just imagine the outcome if there would have been a couple concealed carry holders on American Airlines flights 11 and 77, and on United Airlines flights 175 and 93 on September 11, 2001. Even so, we currently operate with a total ban as well as 100% passenger searches on airlines, so at least the playing field is level. Fortunately, we are equipping pilots to carry guns as well as allowing any active sworn police officers to carry while on board commercial flights. There is also that remote chance that you could have an Air Marshal or two on the flight as well. In the absence of these saviors, hopefully people have learned from flight 93 that the best action is to plan and execute a massive counter attack using anything they can get their hands on as a weapon.

The disgruntled employee at NASA used a small revolver when he snapped over a supervisor’s job performance review. Given that fact alone, I would have to guess that the job performance review was probably accurate, since almost everyone else in our society who gets a poor job review does not kill their boss and then commit suicide. So again we have a bad person with a very common gun that has no features recommended on any of the proposed gun bans in recent years. This gun holds six rounds, but again it can be loaded quickly and easily by anyone who practices enough. There are small “speed loaders” that hold the six rounds in position so that a reload can be completed in a matter of seconds. This guy didn’t need it, but he could have killed everyone he could find in the building if he had wanted to.

As a side note, the media went ape over the fact that this guy got through security with a gun. Since I have worked security for facilities just as well guarded as this NASA complex, I can tell you that I’m not remotely surprised by this. It is a drive-on facility with a positive ID and random search protocol. This is an industry standard. They cannot do “airport” level searches where everyone goes through metal detectors and you get 100% vehicle searches. The logistics make it impractical outside of a known severe security threat; everyone would be waiting at the entrance for over an hour just to get in to work each day. So they check for authorized ID cards and let them in to work. The security officers probably see the same faces everyday, so these workers don’t raise any suspicion. A new face or a visitor gets more scrutiny. When facilities such as this do their random searches, they probably have the occupants step out of the vehicle while they do a cursory search. We don’t know how many vehicles get searched, but it is probably a small percentage, more than likely between 10-30%. A guy with a small revolver stuffed in a pocket would still get by. In short, they couldn’t have seen this guy coming once he made the decision to take his own life as well as that of his supervisor.

The anti-gun groups also like to make a big deal over certain types of guns or bullets. They like to use terms like “cop-killers” to describe bullets capable of penetrating body armor. Truth be known, practically every rifle caliber and many of the high power pistol calibers will easily punch through the typical concealable body armor used by police. These vests will stop only the smaller pistol calibers, such as the 9mm used by our Virginia Tech murderer. Even at that, there is still risk of serious injury to the officer and since the vest only covers the torso, hits to the head, neck, and pelvis can still be debilitating or fatal. Interesting to note that body armor is more effective against the hollow point ammunition that the anti-gun folks hate so much, while the fully jacketed military type ammunition is more likely to penetrate.

One type of ammo they have picked on in recent years is the .50 BMG cartridge that is used in military heavy machine guns that are usually mounted on a vehicle or aircraft, or set on a heavy tripod at a fixed emplacement. This is a huge round that has found some popularity in a single shot bolt action or semi-automatic rifle. The velocity and energy of this ½ inch diameter bullet allows it to be fired accurately at distances in excess of a mile. It is the ultimate challenge for those who enjoy long range accuracy shooting. However, the rifle required to handle this round is huge and expensive. The barrel alone is a giant piece of steel and this gun is not easily transported, nor can it be effectively fired from a hand-held carry by anyone other than the Hulk. These weapons cost a lot of money, starting out well over $1000 and running up thousands higher based on the make and model. And you’ll need a good job to feed this rifle. Each pull of the trigger costs about two dollars, so you can eat up a day’s pay pretty darn quick. Criminals have no use for this type of weapon outside of Hollywood movies.

Basically, every attack against a type of firearm or type of ammo by the anti-gun groups is nothing more than fear mongering on their part. They distort the capabilities and come up with some very far-fetched ideas as to how gun X or ammo Y is going to be the end of peace as we know it. But the fact is 99.99995% of these guns and bullets are used by law-abiding, good people for legitimate competition, hunting, sporting, defense, and recreational purposes. I have even heard certain gun owners who partake in specific hunting or shooting sports make such claims that we don’t need any handguns or “assault rifles” in the public sector, just as long as they leave their 30-06 hunting rifle alone. But you have no reason to fear a good person who has any of these other types of guns. Once they ban one type of gun and crime doesn’t decrease (which it won’t), they will move on to the next and the next until they are all banned from the good people. Being one of them, I can tell you that you have nothing to fear from my ownership of any kind of firearm. This slippery slope is not a fallacy. We can look to all the failed gun control measures of other countries to see just how it doesn’t work to stop crime and that once they get their hands on one of your guns, they will keep expanding the ban until they have all of them.

One last piece of shooting equipment I want to mention is the sound suppressor, commonly referred to as a silencer. They are misunderstood due to Hollywood movies and the lies spewed out by the anti-gun groups. In many states, you can own and use a registered sound suppressor by doing the proper ATF paperwork and paying a tax when you buy one, just like you can do with a machine gun. With the personal safety aspect of hearing loss while shooting and the reported noise pollution complaints often received at shooting ranges where the suburban sprawl has encroached upon them, sound suppressors provide a great opportunity to reduce the noise level while shooting. Contrary to the movies, sound suppressors do not make shooting a gun silent. The bullet is still moving faster than the speed of sound in most cases, giving it a sonic “crack” when fired. Additionally, all the moving parts of the gun still operate normally, creating their usual amount of noise in the process. What the suppressor does is absorb much of the noise of the “explosion” that occurred behind the bullet to send it down the barrel. There is no sound suppressor that can reduce the noise down to the level that the Hollywood sound effects guys like to use in the movies. Suppressors also adversely affect the range, speed, and accuracy of the gun it is used on. All this said, yes there are some high end suppressors used by military and special police units that do a pretty good job of making things quiet without significant accuracy degradation. This is especially true when used with special sub-sonic ammunition, but these suppressors and in some cases weapons with built in suppressors are generally not available for civilian purchase. And that is too bad, since I for one would love to be able to build a small shooting range in the backyard of my rural residence and be able to shoot without causing concern with my neighbors.

So, if the gun itself is not the problem, then what can we do about the evil people who get guns? This is a much more complex issue, hence the reason why the government and the anti-gun groups don’t want to address it. Guns are simple machines and can be built from raw materials in a home workshop. Guns are stolen. Guns are illegally sold on the black market worldwide. Countries with nearly total gun bans, such as Canada, England, and Australia still have high rates of gun violence. The evil people will also use whatever other weapons they can get to commit their crimes, further evidenced in these “gun free” countries where non-gun crime is up drastically. In a disarmed society, this gives the criminals a huge advantage over the good people, who become disarmed victims. What we need to do is focus on the criminals, not the guns.

I am all for “common sense” criminal control. The NICS instant check system in America needs some updating. It is a system that works to prevent criminals from purchasing guns through registered dealers. However, it relies on the states keeping the federal database up to date with people who should not have guns. This includes anyone who has committed a felony or a misdemeanor that results in more than 2 years imprisonment. It also includes illegal aliens and non-immigrant, non-citizens of the USA. It further includes anyone with diagnosed mental health issues that was involuntarily committed to a mental health facility or has been determined to be unable to make decisions for themselves. This is one point where the NICS system falls short. A much stricter reporting requirement for the states on criminals as well as for the mental health care system needs to be put in place so these people are denied when a check is run. Had this system been in place, the Virginia Tech murderer would have been flagged due to his prior mental health evaluation. He may have still gone underground to obtain guns through illegal channels, but at least the poor owner of the gun shop in Virginia would not be receiving death threats from the anti-gun people. Now isn’t that ironic?

I would also suggest public accessibility to this system. There are many private transfers of firearms that occur outside registered dealers. This is not illegal and I would not suggest making it illegal. However I would suggest an easy access mechanism is put in place for Joe Public to determine whether or not he should sell his personal firearm to another private citizen. They do not need to release any other details about the purchaser and this could probably be set up via an internet access. We have the technology readily available. I envision a government website where the seller would register a simple account, similar to what we use to sign up for a web email account, then they fill out an online version of the ATF form 4473 and submit it. The result of the check would be made available to the seller in the form of a yes or no answer as quickly as it occurs with your firearms dealer, either by checking your account status online or via an email response. I would not suggest changing the way that registered dealers submit hard copies and keep logbooks of their firearm sales. But giving the rest of the good people the ability to transfer guns knowing the federal status of the buyer takes a burden off all the private gun owners who do not want the firearms they sell to fall into the wrong hands. If at all possible, this system should be run without any cost to the users.

We need to start listening to the NRA. They have proposed strengthening the background check system, imposing higher penalties for criminals who use guns, and placing firearm safety education in our schools. All of these programs will help to cut down the number of bad guys with guns and will cut down on the number of shooting accidents that occur when children who have never been taught differently find and play with real firearms. I don’t understand why the anti-gun groups oppose these common sense provisions that will actually DO something to help save lives.

Every time we try to go through the logical, common sense approach to stopping gun accidents and reduce gun crime, the liberal anti-gun talking points come out and these people keep reciting the same lies and BS over and over again until the uneducated folks actually believe it to be true. When Ted Nugent is being interviewed on a cable news show and talks about just how stupid the concept of a gun-free zone really is, the opposition simply hop-skips around his points and states, “you just want us to give every child over age 12 a handgun.” Then they put this stupid little, triumphant, I-told-you-so smirk on their face, cross their arms, and huff. I have yet to see a single one of these uninformed folks actually try to make some kind of logical explanation as to just how designating a school or a church as a gun-free zone will do anything to stop a crime! We, and I mean all of us gun owners, do not want everyone to have a gun and we don’t want our kids carrying guns until they have demonstrated the maturity and responsibility to do so. I only want those good people who are willing to take the time to learn how to shoot and practice their gun handling skills to walk amongst us armed and ready for combat. But I want each individual good person to make that decision for themselves.

Then I love it when they say, “we aren’t in the wild west anymore” and the Europeans call us a “bunch of cowboys.” Do you think Jesse James would feel safe walking down the street in Los Angles, New York City, or Washington DC without a gun? Probably not. In the real “west”, not the one portrayed by Hollywood, people carried guns for self defense because there were evil people amongst them and there wasn’t a whole lot the sheriff could do to keep everyone safe. The same is true today. We still have evil people amongst us and the police cannot keep everyone safe. Your personal defense is in your hands.

So here is the root of the logical thinking problem that is plaguing our government, these activist groups, and spreading to our society as a whole. They think that every problem can be solved by changing the machine. They never look at changing the people. Let me give you an example. We currently kill about 44,000 people a year with automobiles in the USA. We’ve been killing people with cars for as long as they have been around. But instead of fully placing the blame on the drivers, we blame the car. Things like seat belts are put in. People still die. Then front air bags, crumple zones, side air bags, child seats, and now collision warning devices. In the meanwhile, we are putting out thousands of untrained drivers and they keep killing each other with cars that are lighter and faster than anything we have had before.

Car accidents are caused by bad drivers, not by unsafe cars. But how much effort are we putting forth to make safer drivers? Very little, if any. We have no mandatory driver training, periodic recertification testing, or strict and universal enforcement of traffic laws. Here in my state of Alaska, they tried putting in a photo radar system a few years back and had to take the system out after a few hundred tickets because a greasy lawyer challenged the validity of the system due to the wording in state laws that says a traffic ticket must be witnessed by a law enforcement officer and an automated system did not meet that requirement. So never mind the fact that accidents continue to occur and people are being killed due to speeders. Take away the responsibility of the driver.

It is the same argument that is being used with guns. Change the guns; eliminate certain kinds of guns, etc. But they are not doing anything to deter criminals from using them or ensuring that the good people, and especially children, are taught how to safely handle and use guns. It is about time that we stand up and tell our government that we want firearm safety education in our schools starting at Kindergarten and we want criminals who use guns to be punished severely for their choice of weapon. We want all the good people who choose to do so, free to take up arms at home, in their vehicles, and in public. We want common sense legislation that allows someone to use the necessary means to defend their life and the lives of their family when confronted with a violent criminal. We want gun-free zones abolished in favor of allowing certain school staff who are willing and receive the proper training to be able to have access to arms for the protection of our children the next time some psycho starts shooting up the place. No, we don’t want all the kids bringing guns to school, but we do want some of the responsible adults at the school armed. That is the only way school murderers can ever be stopped.