Palaima: U.S. gun laws allow normal day at UT to take a scary turn

 SOURCE: Palaima: U.S. gun laws allow normal day at UT to take a scary turn

Thomas G. Palaima, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, writes about his experiences on the day of Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2010 as shots and sirens rang out on that dreadful Tuesday morning at UT. He says “...news reached us that a gunman was near or in the library. Violence had come into the heart of our campus.”. He goes on to describe from his own point of view exactly what happened that morning. By the end of the editorial he not only questions our State's current gun laws, but why ANY gun, assault weapon or not, is legal to buy or use at all. “...but also thanking a clearly disturbed person for not making us pay a horrible price for the gun laws that prevail in our country.” he mentions in closing. 

I would have to say that on most topics, I am quite the liberal. However, on the topic of gun control, count me as a conservative, and big time. The problem I have with gun control is that it just doesn't work, period. Dr. Palaima seems to suggest that if we had stricter gun regulations in the United States, like the U.K for example, this may not have happened. While he would probably be right if we somehow went back in time and banned all firearms before so many made it into circulation, it's just too late for any effective ban nowadays. If you take away all of the law abiding citizen's firearms, the only people left with guns are the criminals.

Imagine this, let's pretend a state passed some “obscene” law that requires ALL persons over the age of 21 to carry a firearm and know how to use it. Sounds pretty crazy huh? Well let me ask you this, would you risk robbing a bank knowing full well that every single one of those 26 people in there are packing heat? Probably not. What about the next state over where all firearms are banned? Now you're the only guy with a gun because guess what... You're a criminal! Criminals don't care that guns are illegal, that's why they're criminals in the first place.

While that may have been a little bit of an extreme example, I think it counters his argument quite nicely. The second I saw that he teaches “seminars on war and violence...” I pretty much knew where he stood on the topic before even finishing the editorial. The events of Tuesday seems to have sparked up the old debate of whether or not students with concealed carry permits should be allowed to carry their handguns on school campus and whether or not they may have been able to stop the gunman (although thankfully no one else other than the gunman was killed) and I believe his aim was to counter that argument. He doesn't actually post any evidence or statistics to back his claim of our absurd gun laws and how restricting them would reduce crimes such as these.

Anyhow that's my take on it. I actually own an AK47 myself, so I'm sure my opinion on the matter is quite biased as well. But I have grown quite tired of people like him who think that by removing guns from law abiding citizens, it will somehow remove them from the hands of criminals as well. While the shooter at UT probably legally purchased and owned his rifle, the majority of gun crimes committed in the US are with illegal firearms anyway.