Sunday, December 23, 2012

Why concealed carry?

 

Dr. Suzanna Gratia Hupp explains the meaning to her of concealed carry.

Her parents and she were in a Luby's Restaurant in Killeen, Texas, on October 16, 1991, when a madman crashed his truck through the windows of the restaurant, got out and began executing people in the restaurant. Her parents and 21 other people were killed, and 50 were injured.

I met her in the Chicago Loop about four years ago, when she was here for a Second Amendment rally. I heard her tell how she had obeyed Texas law that day in Texas and had left her gun in her car.

Listen to her tell how she's not mad at guns and she wasn't mad at the madman who killed her parents - any more than you'd be mad at a vicious dog.

In Illinois we don't just have to reduce the number of Gun-Free Zones (or eliminate them altogether), we have to first gain the right to carry a loaded, concealed weapon to defend ourselves outside our homes.

There are responsible citizens right now, right here in Woodstock, ready to step forward for training, authorization and certification to spend time in our schools, protecting our children.

Do I want guns in schools? Not very much. If they will prevent what happened in Newtown and at Columbine High School and in malls and movie theaters all over the U.S.A., then, yes, I do want guns in schools. Until there is a better solution.

And a better solution will not be confiscating guns from law-abiding citizens.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Columbine did have an armed guard. Virginia Tech had its own armed police force. Malls have armed security. The best way to reduce gun violence is to reduce the number of guns. Check out all the studies of the success of gun control in other countries and you'll see a trend. Tougher gun laws = fewer innocents killed.

Gus said...

Thank you for your comment. Columbine was in 1999, and I learned for the first time on Friday that the armed guards at Columbine were under instructions to call the police if anything happened. When police arrived, they staged outside, and time passed before they entered.

Based on that, strategies changed and police swoop in now to contain shooters.

Police can't be everywhere. They could be on-site but at some distance. Same with a civilian guard. No guard is guaranteed to be in the right place when needed.

The best way to reduce gun violence is to reduce the number of guns in the hands of criminals and mentally unstable people.