O Tempora!

Another senseless gun crime, another senseless celebrity call for more gun control. This time, the celebrity was sportscaster Bob Costas bloviating during halftime of a football game. Costas claimed in his rant that “handguns do not enhance our safety”, which is baloney. I don’t suppose he ever notices news about citizens using handguns to protect themselves and others. Here are two from my city, Colorado Springs

On a November night in 2000, a septuagenarian widow was alone in her home when she heard a noise in the back yard and got her pistol. Shortly after that, a man bashed in the back door. The widow emptied her gun at the man, wounding him several times. She reloaded and called police. The man drove away, but eventually stopped because of his well-deserved wounds. Police found and arrested him. Later, it was discovered that this man was a serial rapist of older women. The widow and her gun not only saved herself, she also saved other women from heinous assaults.

In 2007, an armed man showed up at the New Life Church. This man had previously shot several people in Arvada, killing one. At the church, he shot several people with a rifle, killing two sisters. A civilian and member of the church, who also served as an armed security guard, encountered the man in a hallway and shot him several times with her handgun, wounding him seriously enough to end the rampage. The killer then killed himself.

Guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens also stop crime when they are merely displayed to bad guys. In fact, I know of a case in which a gun owner’s just reaching for his concealed weapon caused would-be muggers to flee. The man told me this himself. He was living in New York City at the time, and he had an “illegal” handgun hidden on his person. (Illegal according to NYC, but legal according to the Second Amendment.) A group of young toughs approached the man threateningly, and he groped for his gun. The young men immediately ran away. The man was certain that having the gun and reaching for it had saved his life.

Bob Costas also asserted in his diatribe against guns that Jovan Belcher and his girlfriend would still be alive if Belcher hadn’t had a gun. Perhaps Costas has never heard of knives and arrows. Recently, in Caspar, Wyoming, a young man murdered his father’s girlfriend with a knife. He then went to the college where his father was teaching a class and shot an arrow into his father’s head. The father struggled with the son, allowing students to escape before his son fatally stabbed him; the son then stabbed himself to death. No guns were involved. I suppose that we should expect Costas to call for archery and cutlery control.

Gun control is not about public safety. It’s not about protecting children or the weak. It’s not about stopping domestic violence. The operative word in “gun control” is CONTROL. Anti-gun politicians just want control over us peons. These control freaks want only police on the public payroll to have guns. They will protect you – except that the police can’t protect you unless they happen to be there if and when you are attacked. That’s when you’re on your own. The right to bear arms is the right to protect yourself, and it must be protected, not attacked; treasured, not abhorred.