We had a mass-murder in New Orleans last week. We also had an attempted mass murder in Las Vegas. The targets were in the French Quarter and at a large casino. Those places are unusual, and I’d like to do more than dump our feelings into the public discussion.
I understand why this is an emotional issue. Feeling strongly about it makes perfect sense. Even with so many unanswered questions, we are awash in an ocean of “facts.” It is hard for us to separate the truth from third-hand rumor. We are not sure what is important and yet we have to decide if we are safe.
If you stop to think about it, we do that all the time. How important is it that one of the attackers used a rare explosive and we don’t know where he got it? How important was the possibility that one attacker had a traumatic brain injury and was on medication for it? Like many others who chose suicide, we know that one attacker was recently divorced.
In the face of all that confusing information, we go with our gut because we have to decide if we are safe. Most of our politicians are doing that too. They speak well and wear a nice suit, but the politicians are equally confused.
We’ve studied mass-murderers a lot. Here is what we know when mass-murderers try to attack a casino or an entertainment venue. They feel that their life doesn’t matter so they want to do something significant. Mass-murderers are not worried about dying. That is why gun-laws don’t stop them. What they are afraid of is failure. Getting shot by the little old lady who is sitting at the cafe isn’t what they had planned and the murderers really want to avoid that ignominious end. That explains why these attacks are aimed at gun-free zones. Depending on the time period we study, between 83-percent and 94-percent of attacks like these occurred in places where guns were banned. Mass Murderers are crazy but they are not stupid. They want a shooting where the bullets go one way. Unfortunately, we give them what they want. They do not want to be part of a gunfight where they can get shot.
Let me underline this for you. The way to stop mass murderers is to make them worry about what will happen. We’ve never had an attempted mass murder at a school that had a public policy of arming the school staff. Unless you study it, you probably wouldn’t know that we have about 3-million days where a trained and armed staff member was at school. That number excludes the uniformed School Resource Officers.
Mass murderers hate uncertainty. You want to know that you get to kill a lot of people if you are on a one-way trip to a murder-suicide. Armed citizens can and do stop mass murders. That makes mass-murder a roll of the dice.
The murderers study before they act. The murderers know that good guys shoot back. They choose to attack where there are no armed good guys. Let me resort to facts because this story goes against the mainstream narrative. Ordinary honest citizens who are armed have stopped attempted mass murderers about 180 times. That is more than half the time when we look where the good guys were allowed to be armed. That means that there are a lot of good guys out there. These armed good guys are almost always successful at stopping the mass-murderer.
When the bad guy attacked where citizens were armed, the good guy who acted were almost always able to stop the murderer. The murderer either died, took his own life, or the murderer ran away. I think that is extremely important because democrats are trying to turn some states into one huge gun-free zone. Anti-gun billionaires said that any of the places where we practice free speech or freedom of religious expression must be gun free zones. Unfortunately, politicians listen when money talks.
We could talk about that all night.
I want to turn this question of the recent mass murderers on its side. Why weren’t more people armed to defend themselves. Remember that the recent attacks were at the French Quarter and at a huge casino. Some states require that we are disarmed where alcohol is served. Fortunately, states handle that issue in a wide variety of ways.
- No guns where alcohol is served. That defends the drunks and turns bars and resorts into gun-free zones.
- You may carry if you don’t drink. This is the designated driver and defender rule.
- You may drink and carry, but you must not be intoxicated. That treats a gun the same way we treat our car keys.
- You may drink, but it is against the law to use your car or to use your firearm while you are legally intoxicated. You have to leave your keys in your pocket and your gun on your hip if you’re drunk.
It is easy for politicians to say they did something by passing another ineffective gun-control law. Please note that we have over 23-thousand firearms regulations already. We have lived with alcohol and guns for centuries. We ignored the risk of creating gun-free zones out of every bar or casino. We have some more thinking to do in order to make ourselves safer.
