Ann Coulter: What Liberals Don't Know About Guns

[Devrbd]

http://www.anncoulter.com/

Fresh off of blaming Jared Loughner's killing spree in the Tucson mall on Sarah Palin, liberals are now blaming it on high-capacity magazines. They might as well imprison everyone named "Jared" to prevent a crime like this from ever happening again.

During the presidential campaign, Obama said: "I don't know of any self-respecting hunter that needs 19 rounds of anything. You don't shoot 19 rounds at a deer, and if you do, you shouldn't be hunting." It would have been more accurate for him to end that sentence after the word "hunter."

It's so adorable when people who wouldn't know a high-capacity magazine from Vanity Fair start telling gun owners what they should want and need.

In fact, high-capacity mags put a predator like Loughner at a disadvantage because they are so long, unwieldy and difficult to conceal. This may be why the Tucson shooting appears to be the first spree killing involving a high-capacity magazine. It would have been easier for Loughner to bring two guns.

On the other hand, for a homeowner who is a poor marksman, a large-capacity clip could be a lifesaver.

But after every multiple murder, liberals come up with some crackpot idea to "do something" that invariably involves infringing on some aspect of our Second Amendment rights.

The ACLU won't let us put nuts in mental hospitals and Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik wouldn't lock up Loughner even after he had broken the law several times.

In an open society that includes Sheriff Dumbnik and the ACLU, deranged individuals may explode into murder and mayhem now and then. The best we can do is enact policies that will reduce the death toll when these acts of carnage occur.

There's only one policy of any kind that has ever been shown to deter mass murder: concealed-carry laws. In a comprehensive study of all public, multiple-shooting incidents in America between 1977 and 1999, the highly regarded economists John Lott and Bill Landes found that concealed-carry laws were the only laws that had any beneficial effect.

And the effect was not small. States that allowed citizens to carry concealed handguns reduced multiple-shooting attacks by 60 percent and reduced the death and injury from these attacks by nearly 80 percent.

When there are no armed citizens to stop mass murderers, the killers are able to shoot unabated, even pausing to reload their weapons, until they get bored and stop. Some stop only when their trigger fingers develop carpal tunnel syndrome.

Consider just the school shootings -- popular sites for mass murder because so many schools are "gun-free zones." Or, as mass murderers call them, "free-fire zones."

At Columbine High School, two students killed 13 people before ending the carnage themselves by committing suicide. They didn't need high-capacity magazines because they were able to stop and reload.

At the Amish school shooting in 2006 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the deranged killer murdered five little girls and then committed suicide.

In 1998, two students in Craighead County, Arkansas, killed five people, including four little girls, before the killers decided to stop and attempt an escape.

And in 2007, a deranged student killed 32 people at Virginia Tech -- 30 of them in a very short period of time in one building. He didn't need high-capacity magazines because he had two guns and reloaded.

There was no one to stop him.

School shootings that have been halted were almost always stopped by the happenstance of an armed citizen on school property.

In 2002, an immigrant in Virginia started shooting his classmates at the Appalachian Law School in Grundy. Two of his classmates retrieved guns from their cars, forcing the killer to drop his weapon and allowing a third classmate to tackle him.

Three dead.

In Santee, Calif., in 2001, when a student began shooting his classmates, the school activated its "safe school plan" -- as the principal later told CNN -- by sending a "trained campus supervisor" to stop the killer.

Possibly not realizing that he was in a gun-free zone, the killer responded by shooting the trained campus supervisor three times. Fortunately, an armed off-duty San Diego policeman happened to be bringing his daughter to school that day. With a gun, he stopped the killer and held him at bay until more police could arrive.

Two dead.

In 1997, a student at Pearl High School in Pearl, Miss., had already shot several people at his high school and was headed for the junior high school when assistant principal Joel Myrick retrieved a .45 pistol from his car and pointed it at the gunman's head, ending the slaughter.

Two dead.

In 1998, a student attending a junior high school dance at a restaurant in Edinboro, Pa., started shooting, whereupon the restaurant owner pulled out his shotgun, chased the gunman from the restaurant and captured him for the police.

One dead.

See the pattern?

In response to Columbine, schools adopted "anti-bullying" policies; in response to Virginia Tech, eBay ceased selling magazines online; in response to the Tucson shooting, liberals want to ban the particular magazine Loughner used.

And then the next killer will come along with a different arsenal and a different motive, and the only way to stop him will be with an armed citizen with a gun.

[LisaA]

Certainly applies in my family's case. If there were armed citizens to protect them, then maybe my father and sister would be still alive.

[Shadow Heart]

Rep added, Good find, GREAT READ!!!!!!!!

[fragmag]

Dead on accurate.

[The_War_Wagon]

Wow... considering the TITLE of the article, I expected a MUCH longer read. Like say, the ENTIRE contents of the Library of Congress.

Cubed.

[PaBimmerGuy]

what she misses is the important fact that if there were no guns thered be no dead people in any of her examples. of course the killers could have used katanas or molotov cocktails or pipe bombs but thats not important. is it?

[ChamberedRound]

Good read, and more common sense in a sea of knee-jerk insanity.

[theshadow]

what she misses is the important fact that if there were no guns thered be no dead people in any of her examples. of course the killers could have used katanas or molotov cocktails or pipe bombs but thats not important. is it?

Sure we Believe you, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...lated_attacks:

Detroit Free Press
February 3, 2001
by PETER JACKSON
ASSOCIATED PRESS


Man with machete hurts 9 in school
Injuries not critical; motive is unknown

FELTON, Pa. -- A man walked into an elementary school with a machete Friday and struggled with a principal and several teachers in a kindergarten classroom before being subdued.

Three women and six children were hurt, but officials said none of the injuries were life threatening.

William Stankewicz, 55, was arrested about 20 minutes after the attack at North Hopewell-Winterstown Elementary School, about 75 miles west of Philadelphia. He was held in lieu of $2-million bail after being arraigned on various charges, including two counts of attempted homicide.

Stankewicz lives about 400 miles away, in Johnson City, Tenn. He had a history of troubles with police, including a 1996 federal conviction for threatening to kill his former wife, her children and a congressman.

Authorities said the motive for Friday's attack was unknown, but prosecutor Thomas Kelley said Stankewicz's former wife's children had attended the school.

The struggle began in the school lobby and spilled into two adjacent rooms, including the kindergarten classroom.

"We heard screaming from outside in the hall," said 12-year-old Chelsea Stein, who was in her sixth-grade classroom when the attack began.

Principal Norina Bentzel, 41, was slashed on her arm and hand, nearly losing a finger, and Linda Collier, 52, a kindergarten teacher, had surgery for cuts on her hand. A third-grade teacher with minor injuries was treated and released.

The five children, ages 5 or 6, were not seriously hurt, the school district said.

[ViperGTS19801]

Excellent find - posting this to Facebook.

[Svickstc]

Nice read and definitely makes sense, going to be showing a couple people this article