Guns Banned, Knives Next?

Shockingly, New York and London, two world-famous cities of similar population sizes, currently have equivalent murder rates.  The glaring differences are that the United Kingdom has no Second Amendment, and prohibited firearms in 1997.  That has not stopped the violence, however.  The mostly gang-related carnage has been accomplished with knives instead. 

That’s no problem to London Mayor Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim to hold the post in a major Western capital.  He tweeted, “No excuses: there is never a reason to carry a knife. Anyone who does will be caught, and they will feel the full force of the law.”  Since Mr. Khan plans to restrict British cutlery, will his next target be serving forks?  If this is the new trend there, he has certainly fashioned a big job for himself.  Imagine confiscating all of the blunt objects at hand, or lying about, that can be weaponized!

When will leftists finally acknowledge the simple truth that inanimate objects cannot be blamed for the hateful intentions of the wielder?  So much for the “evolved sensibilities” of our floundering cultural cousins in the gun-free zone across the pond.

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Virtuous Hands with a Gun

“What actually stops an evil psychopath is what we saw on Sunday—a good guy with a gun.” – Jordan Stein, spokesman, Gun Owners of America

Would the massacre have happened if the congregation of the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas had clung as tightly to guns as their Bibles? On Sunday, in a bizarre echo of Sayfullo Saipov's Halloween rampage in New York, suspect Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, brought death into a house of worship. Like some villain straight out of the slasher flick “Scream,” he was outfitted in black body armor and a skull mask. Within this sacred space, this Grim Reaper killed 26 innocents and wounded 20. Thirty miles east of San Antonio, in the worst mass shooting in Texas history: about 4% of the town's population (reported as 683) were slain.

Since time immemorial, that's what civilized people call acts of evil. Ultimately, Mr. Kelley's true problem was his homicidal impulses—expressed as externalized rage. Therefore, holding responsible the inanimate object, that was his tool of choice, is a simplistic response. So too is blaming the law that criminals habitually disregard as somehow “insufficient”. In that vein is the imperfect background check that inadvertently allowed Mr. Kelley access to the firearm he utilized (read: The Air Force failed to provide the FBI with the shooter's criminal history). And despite this unfortunate bureaucratic blunder, where does individual accountability factor into this latest bloodbath?

In reality, almost anything physically imposing can be used as a weapon. For example, just last week in New York a zealot screaming “Allahu akbar” misappropriated a rental truck killing 8 and injuring 12. Likewise, at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, South Carolina on August 12, a third unhinged miscreant, James Alex Fields Jr., killed local protester Heather Heyer, 32, and injured 19 others with his Dodge Challenger. If guns are truly the systemic “problem” here—as gun control advocates repeatedly parrot—why does Chicago persist as an annual killing field despite the strictest gun laws in the nation? And why aren't these same critics ignoring the unfettered freedom to buy cars, and rent trucks? After all, don't all of the above potentially serve an evildoer's murderous design?

As the 18th century philosophical father of modern conservatism, Edmund Burke famously remarked, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” To that end, a good Samaritan interceded on Sunday in Sutherland Springs. That small town hero gaining national attention is Stephen Willeford, 55. Synchonistically, he's a former National Rifle Association instructor who confronted the attacker, wounding him twice (in his Velcro covered side despite protective plating). As light dispels darkness, Mr. Willeford repealed villainy despite his fear, and the inherent danger. As he told local affiliate 40/29 News in Fort Smith-Fayetteville:

“I think my God, my Lord protected me and gave me the skills to do what needed to be done, and I just wish I could have gotten there faster.”

In this regard, mere mortals beg to differ. This faithful defender got to the scene so quickly he arrived barefoot. Alerted by his daughter of the sounds of a firearm discharging, Mr. Willeford removed his own rifle from its safe, loaded a magazine, and ran across the street to the church. Standing behind a pickup truck for cover, he exchanged gunfire with the escaping interloper. He even shot through the open driver's side window of Mr. Kelley's fleeing Ford Expedition SUV. At a stop sign, Mr. Willeford then flagged down a 27-year-old motorist, Johnnie Langendorff, and a high-speed highway chase ensued. En route the younger man called 911. Eventually, their pickup caught up to the gunman's SUV. Apparently, the assailant started driving erratically. He pulled over to the side, seeming to slow down, then accelerated again until he hit a road sign, lost control and flipped his truck which landed in a ditch. Mr. Langendorff pulled over, and ducked down. Meanwhile, his heroic companion exited the vehicle, planting his rifle on top of the pickup's hood. Keeping a look out, Mr. Willeford yelled for his adversary to get out of his truck, but all remained still. When law enforcement arrived on the scene, they confirmed that Devin Kelley had committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.

Separated by time, specific circumstances and geography is the fact that guns in legal and responsible hands actually preserve life. This is also true of another hero, New York police officer Ryan Nash, who subdued Islamic terrorist Sayfullo Saipov; and Charlottesville police who subsequently apprehended suspect James Fields. Indeed, the loss of life is a terrible tragedy—particularly in situations initiated by the radicalized. For resolution, what demands society's focus is the discounted evildoer himself, not the distraction of his method. Philosophically to blame a criminal's firearm is equivalent to condemning the car or the truck rather than its driver. It's a false premise that misses the crux of the issue. Such intentional naivety actually endangers the public. These days, in diverse gathering places like First Baptist Church or Sandy Hook Elementary School, what's become more unsafe than a gun-free zone?

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Killer's Prosthetic Leg Alibi

“We believe [not following protocol: device on skin for Mr. Green] was absolutely human error.” - Chris McDowell of Sentinel Services (fitter and supplier of bracelets on pretrial detainees)

No doubt Mr. “Mc-Do-well's” tepid mea culpa is very reassuring to former D.C. resident Dana Hamilton. He—shot dead on May 19^thin Southeast Washington—lived in the “gun-free zone” that is the nation's capital. Yet, the Orwellian technology—same as gun restriction laws (like the new ones sit-in Democrats occupying Congress are “desperate” to pass)—didn't protect Mr. Hamilton. Neither did the keystone cops who lost track of the one-legged man who murdered him.

Quincy “Q” Green, a 44-year old charged with the crime might have been missing a limb, but he had something authorities collectively didn't have: a brain. How did this “mastermind” manage to outsmart D.C.'s finest? Like a bad Agatha Christie mystery, their records showed the assailant was a mile away from the scene when the killing occurred. In the living room of his second floor apartment—to be precise.

These duped rocket scientists suspected Mr. Green had tampered with the GPS device they'd fitted him with. The big reveal (you've already guessed at): when the powers-that-be fitted him with the tracker they neglected to put it on his natural leg. So, he simply removed the prosthetic. Stowed it safely in a box where it signaled away contentedly. Swapping it out for a spare, this aptly named villain—like a murderous character from the board game “Clue”—went out to do his dastardly deed.

Another little police oopsie daisy that cost an innocent man his life. Still, what if Mr. Hamilton had been a legally armed gun owner (something forbidden in D.C.)? His chance of survival would have been 50% rather than what it was: zero. That's why lawless Democrats' gun control harangue is utter nonsense. The responsible party is always the user. This one-legged bandit in DC—and the radical Islamic terrorist in Orlando.

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Punishing Pop-Tart Gun Kid

Apparently the mass hysteria gripping school officials has swayed a presiding judge—three years later—to also confuse a Pop-Tart as a “dangerous” weapon.

Back in March of 2013, then 7-year-old Josh Welsh ran afoul of school bureaucrats when he supposedly chewed his strawberry breakfast pastry into a “gun” and allegedly wielded it saying, “Bang, bang,” to a fellow student. This “boys being boys” behavior earned the second-grader a two-day school suspension from Baltimore's Park Elementary School. Today, this ludicrous decision has been upheld by Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Ronald A. Silkworth. (Or is that Silkworm?) This authoritarian Wonderland Queen of liberal bleeding hearts wrote: “[A] suspension was appropriately used as a corrective tool to address this disruption, based on the student’s past history of escalating behavioral issues.” How is this lily-livered judge not obviously drunk with a fascist's power? Did he cower behind his bench when ruling against the now ten year old?

In America, “land of the free, home of the brave,” this pronouncement is anti-American madness. During the original incident, Josh's father said, “I would almost call it insanity. I mean with all the potential issues that could be dealt with at school, real threats, bullies, whatever the real issue is, it’s a pastry.” Even the Florida legislature added to the lunacy by passing a bill that “protects” against the act of “brandishing a partially consumed pastry or other food item to simulate a firearm or weapon.” If these radical responses aren't “1984” style thought-crime—punishing children for their imaginations—what is?

The real issue here is the systematic emasculation of boys by progressive statists: it's fascism run amok in the public school system. Last time I checked, the purpose of educators is to enlighten, not to engage in radical beyond-the-scope hard left social engineering. This situation exactly depicts the irrational intention to punish typical, masculine “tough guy” behavior in favor of that of the wussy, subservient pajama boy: an archetype that has defined the disastrous Obama years.

As the Sandy Hook massacre tragically and definitively demonstrated, schools as gun-free zones facilitate danger while promising the illusion of safety. The zero tolerance policy should not be directed at boys' and their pretend “weapons of war,” it should censure kangaroo court judges for punishing them for normal “manly” conduct.

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