[Magdalen] My County responds.

[thedonboyd at austin.rr.com]

Sibyl, bless your heart, I take your post to mean that you believe stricter laws about who can possess firearms legally would do little if anything to prevent occurrences like the San Bernardino massacre.

I believe that you are right as regards people like the couple who are presumed to have been the shooters at San Bernardino.   If people don't mind breaking the law, and (especially) if they don't mind being killed while doing it, they are just about unstoppable.

When I was in high school my best friend's older sister told her boyfriend that she would not marry him.  That night the boyfriend put the muzzle of a shotgun in his mouth and blew his brains out.  I don't think there's any law that could have prevented that--these were farm people, and farm people sometimes need to kill varmints to protect their livestock.  The young man's ownership of the gun was legal, and he was well trained in gun safety.

On the other hand, there are hundreds of "accidental" gun deaths some of which might have been prevented by such simple already-available expedients as requiring that all firearms be kept in locked safes that require two people to open them.  I recognize that such laws would be hard to enforce, but if they saved any lives at all the effect would not IMO be trivial.

You have tactfully refrained from suggesting that those who holler "We need stricter gun laws" are at best naive or perhaps clueless.  (Maybe you are more charitable than to think that.)  I thank you.

And for the record, I don't believe for a moment that you believe the current state of affairs to be an unavoidable evil.  Just because we haven't yet hit on a solution doesn't mean that we should, or dare to, stop trying.  (I bet we can agree on that last sentence.)

Blessings,
Don in Austin   
---- Sibyl Smirl <polycarpa3 at ckt.net> wrote: 
> I found a "meme" on Facebook that says exactly what I mean, for a 
> change, but I didn't write it.
> 
> **************************
> 
> They broke the law by conspiring to commit a mass murder.
> 
> They broke the law by illegally transporting weapons.
> 
> They broke the law by possessing unregistered semi-automatic guns.
> 
> They broke the law by bringing guns to a gun-free zone.
> 
> They broke the law by going armed to the terror of the public.
> 
> They broke the law by constructing bombs.
> 
> They broke the law by detonating bobs in an attempt to assault and murder.
> 
> They broke the law by brandishing weapons.
> 
> They broke the law by assaulting people with weapons.
> 
> They broke the law by attempting to murder people with weapons.
> 
> They broke the law by disobeying Police orders.
> 
> They broke the law by evading Police.
> 
> They broke the law by attempting to murder Police Officers.
> 
> They broke multiple traffic laws during the pursuit.
> 
> They broke the law by endangering the public during the car chase and 
> the police shoot-out.
> 
> They broke the law by resisting arrest.
> 
> _________
> 
> But....We need to create more laws to stop this from happening.
> 
> 
> 
> *****************
> 
> Expressed in short, in another way, by the old bumper sticker you're no 
> doubt tired of seeing:
> "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns."
> 
> -- 
> Sibyl Smirl
> I will take no bull from your house!  Psalms 50:9a
> mailto:polycarpa3 at ckt.net