Gunning for the job.

The latest gun tragedy in America is bound to reopen arguments about the pros and cons of the American Constitution's Second Amendment and the idea of armed citizens anywhere (see some of the comments here for example). What most won't consider is that anyone bright enough to be a university professor and reportedly "a brilliant researcher" is probably bright enough to come up with an alternative means to using a gun if she's barking enough to kill over failing to get a cushier job. As I blogged at length some time ago you just can't legislate for crazies when practically anything can be used as a weapon and plenty of things can be made to explode.

...the next Michael Ryan or Thomas Hamilton will not be prevented from killing by the UK’s strict gun laws when they can achieve as much carnage or more by means of a home-made bomb constructed from legal, easy to obtain products. The IRA have proved that with diesel/fertiliser bombs, David Copeland proved it with bombs made from fireworks, and of course more recently the London suicide bombers in 2005 murdered more than 50 with peroxide based bombs followed shortly after by a similar unsuccessful attack and further attempts in 2007 using gas cylinders in cars. Frankly if I went nuts and wanted to maim and kill as many people as possible guns look like the second best choice anyway. So what do we do if we are trying to legislate away the dangers of madmen? Ban motor fuel, fertiliser, fireworks, hair products and barbie cylinders?

On top of which, as I pointed out at the same time, guns are always there for those who want them, and if you want one to commit the very serious crime of shooting and possibly killing someone then the lesser crime of simply getting a gun when they're illegal really isn't much of a deterrent. What then happens is that criminals and/or fucking maniacs are in effect free to arm themselves while law abiding people, people who would shoot only in self defence or to prevent loss of life, are not. Of course in Britain this extends to most police officers as well.

As I said the other day I don't particularly want to carry a handgun in public myself. I don't even want to own a handgun, though unlike the UK here I can actually have one (subject to plenty of restrictions on type, calibre, dimensions etc. - I didn't say it was easy, just that it's possible). I'm not under any illusion about my pistol skills and if I intended to kneecap someone I'd probably remove their brain with it instead. But I do want to be able to carry a gun and I want every other law abiding citizen to be able to carry a gun. Who will have them and who won't? Well, you won't know by looking and neither will the villains.

Of course it won't stop gun murders as long as there are places where guns are banned because, as we've seen again this weekend, that's a barrier to the law abiding and no-one else. Not all gun wielding headcases target areas where they expect no-one else to be armed, but the vast majority do.




Obviously a gun in the right hands might not change anything, but in the same way the police can't help if they're not there the lack of gun guarantees that it can't make a difference.