I did find this op-ed in the Aussie news today, immediately in the wake of the mall shooting in Nebraska.
NEBRASKA, the farming state with the highest per capita gun ownership in the US, began the year with LB-454, a new state law allowing people 21 years and over to carry a concealed handgun pretty much wherever they go.
Applicants must pass a routine police check, complete a basic handgun training course (most are run by ex-cops) and pay $US100 ($115) for a five-year permit. It’s as simple as that.
Nebraska marked the end of the year yesterday with a bloodbath at the Westroads shopping mall in Omaha, the state’s largest city. Eight people were shot dead and several others are fighting for their lives.
The author of the op-ed uses the tragedy to rail against concealed carry in the US, when in fact there is no evidence that the shooter had a concealed carry permit. In fact, since he was under 21, he was legally barred from having a concealed carry permit. Add to that the fact that the shooter didn’t even use a handgun, and the article I’m referencing is reduced to so much useless drivel.
I’d like to say that it was just this one piece, but I am really sick of the media using tragedies to push their own personal agendas, or in the case of Matt Lauer, just be totally clueless.
I accidentally turned on The Today Show, or Good Morning America, whichever morning show he was on, and he was interviewing one of the survivors of the shooting. The interviewee had a serious case of “thousand yard stare” and just sort of seemed dazed by the whole experience. I got there just in time for Lauer to say “so, have you been thinking about how if these bullets had hit just a foot to the left or right, you could have been hit in the head?” Nevermind for the moment how stupid a question it is to ask a guy who’s just lived through a shootout; but the poor guy in the chair said “uh…yeah. All day”.
That’s stuff that I feel safe to comment on – it’s sickening to me to watch people’s lives get played with for entertainment value, or to use the deaths of others as a platform for whatever political agenda you feel like pushing.
Also note that the mall was posted “No Weapons” Not only is this Ironic, but accidnetly exposing your gun and getting reported means you’re now prohibited if I read things correctly.
So if a good guy had a gun there on Tuesday, and accididently printed, they’re in jail. Come Yesterday there was nobody to stop this jackass but himself…
chalk up another success for gun free zones
I don’t know about that – I don’t think we can lay this at the feet of “gun free zones” like Va Tech. My mall is technically a “gun free zone”, but that has yet to stop me from carrying there.
The media loves to bleat and advocate for restrictions on other people’s Constitutional rights, but they are strangely silent on one restriction that might possibility have some effect on reducing these shootings. To wit, an enforced media blackout on coverage of these shootings. Without the sensational media coverage of these tragedies, copy cat killings would most likely be reduced or eliminated and potential killers would lose their role models.
This proposal is mostly tongue in cheek, but I suspect it would be much more effective than another failed gun control proposal
Everywhere in Omaha is a gun-free zone, basically. The mall, 90% of the stores, most of the resteraunts, etc.
I wish they’d actually go back to 1998, when some dude opened fire in Crossroads Mall in Omaha. Four guys carrying did try to stop the fool, but he managed to snipe each of them in the head.
I don’t think anyone could have stopped the guy. It happened all within a span of minutes, on the third floor of the Von Maur store. Guy got on elevator, went to third floor, when the doors opened, started shooting. He fired a spray at the counter, fired another behind the counter, then down over the railing. All in 5 minutes. Then he shot himself. I doubt anyone who was carrying would have had a chance to stop him as he probably would have killed anyone on the third floor with a gun before they even saw him (he came out of the elevator blazing).
Well, it’s a damn cinch anybody not carrying couldn’t have stopped him. The problem as always in these type of situations is not that there were too many guns in the mall, but that there were way too few.
“The author of the op-ed uses the tragedy to rail against concealed carry in the US, when in fact there is no evidence that the shooter had a concealed carry permit. In fact, since he was under 21, he was legally barred from having a concealed carry permit. Add to that the fact that the shooter didn’t even use a handgun”
He didnt use a “AK47” either. But since when has the media concerned themselves with FACTS when the subject is firearms? I consider the media to be the biggest pack of liars outside of congress.
I wonder when, or if, anyone who decides on these “gun free safe zones” are ever going to realize that they’re neither?
The thought of me trying to enage this SKS wielding lunatic armed only with my Glock 23 or worse my Bersa .380 Thunder (my usual CCW pieces) sends a cold chill down my spine. Only a combat-hardened individual (which I’m decidedly not!) who was able to gain the initiative back could probably prevail in such a lopsided gunfight.
But, yeah, I’d still rather be carrying my Glock or Bersa than not at all.