A Common Thread - Granite Grok

A Common Thread

“Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live.” —Robert Kennedy

In the wake of this recent horrible tragedy in Newtown Connecticut, the anti-gun grabbers wasted no time coming right out of the block to renew the arguments for taking away our gun rights. While First Responders were still on the scene, the anti-gun left tweeted, blogged and mouthed off in the lamestream media with their cherry-picked facts and selective assumptions.  The one common thread they all ignore is the stark absence within the school to meet the deadly force with equally opposing deadly force.  That is the common thread found in all of these massacres. And the timely pandering hoplophobes likely blackened each others’ eyes, amidst the thrust of elbows in the breakneck race and fight to the microphones.

This is telling. MSNBC underscored this  recent quote from NY Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy. Not surprising at all from a leftist-Obama-cheering lamestream media outlet:

 “The gloves are off  if President Obama fails to act on the issue. I know the president is going through an election and I’m telling you after the election I’m coming out (on Gun Control) full force” 

I bet Chris Matthews got that chill up his leg.

The gun control crowd is always reliably creative with their facts. I am not only amused, but always marvel at the anti-gun rationale that European nations with their highly restrictive gun control, do not have the crime or the mass murders we bear witness to in these United States. Those assertions, however always belie the facts. Here are just a few examples:

On September 23, 1995, 16-year-old French high school student Èric Borel murdered his entire family walked miles to the village of Cuers the very next day.  Borel then shot dead 12 more people and wounded another four, using a .22 caliber hunting rifle, a hammer and a ball bat. Synonymous to the UK and Australia, French gun ownership is heavily regulated and controlled and like its counterparts, places firearms into different categories based on their function and caliber.

On April 29, 1996 28-year-old Martin Bryant went on a killing spree in Port Arthur in Southeastern Australia, killing thirty-five people and wounding twenty-three others. Australia has some of the tightest, most restrictive gun laws in the world. Air pistols (what we Americans commonly refer to as, “Pellet Guns and BB Guns”) are as difficult to acquire as rimfire (.22 caliber) and centerfire ammunition-fed handguns. Likewise, Low-powered air guns are as difficult to license down under as their traditional cartridge-firing counterparts. Conversly, Airsoft guns are banned in all Aussie states and non-firing replicas are banned in most.

On September 27, 2001, 57-year-old Swiss national Friedrich Heinz Leibacher, an unemployed alcoholic with a personality disorder, dressed up as a Police Officer, entered the Zug Parliament and open-fired, Killing fourteen members of parliament and wounding eighteen others before detonating a bomb and killing himself.

Switzerland is unique in comparison to other European states and their gun laws. Often times, Second Amendment proponents will mistakenly point to Switzerland as a model of gun freedom. But such an assertion lacks a proper context or understanding. Switzerland maintains NO standing army and relies upon its citizens for its defense. In Swiss culture children are taught at a very young age that  when they reach adulthood, they will have Military training and will be part of a citizen Militia standing ready to defend the country from outside hostile belligerents.  However, when one actually drills down and looks at Swiss gun laws, There is a registration and categorization  system in place and firearms restrictions do in fact exist.

On February 9, 2002, 29-year-old Bulelani Vukwana, a South African National went on a killing spree where eleven people died and six others were wounded. The UK has as equally restrictive gun laws, in some cases less so, than Australia.

On June 2, 2010 in the Southeast UK village of Cumbria, 52-year-old English cab driver Derek Bird used a double barreled shotgun and a bolt action .22-caliber rifle to kill twelve people and  wound eleven others before killing himself.  Location….reminding us again of the “highly restrictive” UK gun laws.

The list goes on. Examples are found in Canada, Germany, Russia, Poland, Philippines, Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan, Finland, and Norway.  The liberal-progressives  love to hold European and other international Gun laws out there as a comparative example showing why America should become just like them. The cold hard honest fact is that America does not have an exclusive lock on crazy people.  Moreover, The aforementioned examples above give creedence to why in instance after instance of lawful defense with a gun, there is no news value.

A stark example of the media bias against guns is the remarkably absent commentary in the wake of the the Appalachian School of Law shooting on January 16, 2002. Perhaps the body count wasn’t high enough for the lamestream media…or perhaps, an armed citizen meeting a threat does not fit their liberal anti-gun paradigm. A disgruntled student killed three people and wounded three others before being taken down at gunpoint by an armed law school student.

With twenty-seven dead in Newtown Connecticut (A state the Brady Campaign lists as one of the top five toughest gun law states) it made me absolutely sick to see the media patting people on the back and celebrating the so-called heroes in this when the fallen corpses of the murdered dead still lay lifeless in Sandy Hook Elementary school .

This school had security measures in place…cameras, being “buzzed” in…like what so many schools around the nation have. Yet, the killer got in….he smashed a window.  And finally, there are the pundits with that time-honored notion, “If there was armed security there, it would not have made a difference…” ” A paradox of “what-ifs.”

Clearly, more restrictive gun laws do not stop these massacres. What schools put in place for so-called “Security” certainly does not protect students or teachers, either. So as time passes in the wake of this recent tragedy, enter the Charlatans, Panderers and Hypocrites…to gleefully politicize this massacre all on the backs of dead children and teachers who did nothing wrong other than to go to school. Shameful.

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