ON TARGET COMMENTARY 

HERE WE GO AGAIN

     10/02/15                                                                                                                                                                      by Dave Gunn

      It has happened again.  A gunman opened fire at a community college in Oregon, killing 9 and wounding 10.  Identified as 26-year old Chris Harper Mercer, the killer targeted those who admitted to being Christians.

      President Obama wasted no time in calling for more gun control laws, but did not specify what laws he thought would have prevented this tragedy.  Other liberals and the liberal lap-dog media (ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC CNN, CPB, and most major newspapers) joined in the cry to restrict or confiscate guns.

     What they all seem to have missed is the fact that this shooting, as with most mass shootings, occurred in a “gun-free” zone.  It was already illegal to possess a gun on the campus of Umpqua Community College.  Mercer ignored that law and brought several handguns and a rifle to the gun free campus, turning the quiet school into the site of a bloodbath.

     The sad truth is, gun laws do not work.  Those who are determined to wreak havoc, whether they be terrorists, nut-cases, or just people with anger management issues, will find a way to obtain the weapons they need and to use them. And even if all guns were confiscated, they would use other weapons.  It wasn’t so long ago that a man in Communist China did a good bit of damage with a knife.

     That gun laws are ineffective is seen vividly in Obama’s own home town.  In Chicago, with some of the most restrictive gun laws in America, there are weekends where the gun death toll dwarfs the tragedy in Oregon.

     More to the point, gun laws leave law-abiding citizens defenseless.  Suppose there had been one teacher, or one student present with a gun when Mercer opened fire.  He or she could have prevented most of the deaths by dropping Mercer where he stood.  Perhaps, if he knew that there might be someone (or several someones) unknown to him with a gun in the classroom, he might have declined to commit his horrible crime

     It is for the above reason, and to protect the citizenry from government tyranny, that our founders placed the Second Amendment in the United States Constitution.  Liberals, who are by nature totalitarians, want to restrict or eliminate gun ownership so that the people cannot defend themselves from their government should it become irreversibly oppressive.

     Mercer knew that, because the college was a gun free zone, he could amass a large tally of victims before anyone arrived the challenge him.  It was like going to the shooting gallery.

     The answer is not more gun laws, but no gun laws.  In fact, open carry without a license should be the law of Alabama and the nation.  If someone should complain that it would take us back to the days of the “wild west,” we would reply that, in those times of a gun-toting citizenry, there were fewer gun murders per capita than today.

     For the safety of our citizens, we need the Second Amendment the way our founder intended it.  Remember: “When seconds count, the police are minutes away.” 

[Dave Gunn is the nom de plume of Dr. David E. Gonnella, pastor of the Magnolia Springs Baptist Church in Theodore, Alabama.  The opinions expressed are his own, and do not necessarily represent those of the church or its membership]