Merely semi-automatic rifles

There has been another school shooting, this time in neighboring eastern Oregon.

A student opened fire, killing a teacher and eight students. He had enough time to fire a warning shot, tell the victims to lay down on the floor, and then ask some of them questions about their religion before shooting them. Agonizing minutes later, a first responder shot him. He then shot himself.

One victim had military training and acted as a human shield, taking 7 bullets that could have hit others. He even survived.

Which brings up the question, what if he had been armed?

Mass murders have nearly all been in some kind of “gun free zone.” Many people who don’t live in Israel or Montana feel uncomfortable about having guns on campus. Nevada has come close to allowing campus-carry in the last two legislatures. Will this incident cause students and administrators to rethink the issue?

The liberal politicians and media quickly trotted out the same tired proposals they always do, like calling for bans on scary looking guns that are merely semi-automatic rifles with a few decorative attachments.

The Oregon shooter used handguns.

Closing background check “loopholes” is another proposed panacea. Expanding background checks to private sales would be ineffective without a national gun registry. If toppling Tehran and Moscow are the ultimate prizes for the neocons, a national gun registry is the end game of all gun controllers. Gun controllers say it’s common sense we don’t want convicted felons having a gun, or, god forbid, domestic spouse abusers. Better for the felons to get their guns from other felons, and if gun control makes it harder for domestic violence victims to get a gun, well, you have to break a few eggs.

The shooter passed his background checks.

Hillary Clinton wants to use the executive order powers that Bill Clinton, George Bush and Barack Obama have institutionalized. Who needs a Congress when she, with “a stroke of the pen, kinda cool” is the new lawmaker?

Early reports called the self identified mixed race shooter a “white supremacist.” He liked Nazi regalia and called himself a conservative Republican. But the main complaint in his now obligatory manifesto is he was a 26 year old virgin living with his mother, and would die without a girlfriend.

You don’t have to understand Wilhelm Reich to see a correlation between sexual repression and fascism. Would the best gun control be to legalize prostitution in Oregon, allowing those hormones some natural release before they explode in a stream of bullets instead? To me, it makes more sense than increased background checks.

The killer was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome, a mild outlier on the autism spectrum. Over 31 million people worldwide have this condition, which can make it harder to interact with others. But infinitesimally few turn into mass murderers. Nevertheless, more calls to “toughen” the rules to prevent those with less than perfect mental health to defend themselves quickly appeared.

Republican Presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson got in a lot of trouble with the liberal media over remarks about gun control and the Holocaust. President Obama got into very little trouble over false comparisons between gun control laws and gun violence in different states.

In the end, most Americans sadly acknowledge these mass murders are happening, but thankfully with diminishing long run frequency. Like Carson, Americans understand gun rights are part of the natural right to self defense and are more important than any horrific incident. Perhaps evil does exist, but we have the right as individuals to arm ourselves to defend against it.