Another disturbed man shoots a workplace rival with a handgun and gun control advocates take to the media to call for more anti-gun laws.
In this instance and other recent incidents, the truly dangerous weapon was a disturbed man — again. The Star .45cal semi-automatic handgun employed by Jeffrey Johnson was legally purchased (in Florida) but unregistered in NY. The NYPD acknowledges that all nine wounded bystanders were hit by police bullets.
“Experts: Police gunfire that wounded Midtown bystanders ‘justified‘”
Although the NY Times is a constant gun ban advocate, it had no choice but to acknowledge that no gun law would have prevented Friday’s shootings.
“I can’t think of a current gun law that would have banned the weapon that was used in this shooting,” said Daniel Webster,a director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. [NYT, 08/25/2012]
Elected officials who have been pushing new gun laws pointed to the shooting on Friday as another reason that the issue of gun violence deserved more attention from policy makers.
“We are not immune to the national problem of gun violence,” Mr. Bloomberg said,adding,”Once again,there’s an awful lot of guns out there.” [NYT, 08/25/2012]
Instead of new gun laws, politicians and policymakers need give more attention and resources to enforcement against criminals and gun runners, as well as fund better identification and treatment of the mentally ill.
[This posting has been edited and updated 2X.]
Do you agree or disagree? Why?
If they didn’t have guns they’d make bombs, etc. People that decide to kill use whatever is available to them. Mexico has gun laws so the only people with guns are the dangerous criminals and government militia and police. The only reason there aren’t more home invasions, etc is that the criminals aren’t sure who has a gun in their home and who doesn’t. Politicians like to point to countries that have gun control as successful but they tend to have more bombings instead. Like it or not the body count is lower with guns than bombs.
Well said!