The recent massacre in Charleston is a national tragedy, and my prayers go out to the families of the innocent victims and to the whole congregation at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. It makes me sick to think of how a madman took their lives in such a horrific way.
With a mournful heart, I would like to echo Police Chief Gregory Mullen words: “This is a tragedy that no community should have to experience. It is senseless. It is unfathomable that someone would walk into a church when people are having a prayer meeting and take their lives.”
But rather than blaming the second Amendment for this tragedy (like many anti-gun activists), or blaming the pastor of the church (as an NRA board member so callously did), I would propose that Americans take time to learn from it instead.
And the most important lesson we can learn is that gun control measures (or “gun safety measures” as gun grabbers like to call them) would have done nothing to stop these brutal murders.
Even President Obama admitted doubts that gun control measures would have stopped what happened in Charleston prior to manipulating it as a push for more gun control.
As he noted at a press conference after the tragedy: “If Congress had passed some common-sense gun safety reforms after Newtown, after a group of children had been gunned down in their own classroom — reforms that 90 percent of the American people supported — we wouldn’t have prevented every act of violence, or even most. We don’t know if it would have prevented what happened in Charleston. No reform can guarantee the elimination of violence. But we might still have some more Americans with us.”
The fact is that the killer is mentally ill, and no gun law would have prevented him from getting his hands on a weapon or to do what he did. As it happened, his father stupidly gave him a gun, and he used it to murder nine innocent victims.
By law, he should have never owned a gun. He had been indicted on drug charges, and despite how some people are blaming a loophole in gun legislation, it’s hard to believe that the killer’s father did not know about his criminal history before transferring the gun ownership to him.
Regardless, the fact that he accepted the weapon shows that he was no law-abiding citizen. On the contrary, he was an evil-hearted criminal. And, as we see time and time again, gun control does not hinder criminals—it only empowers them.
I completely agree with those who call him is a racist and a terrorist. He committed a purposeful hate crime, and he should be punished for what he did. I think to call him insane and let him off the hook is to overlook his evil motives and the blatant facts of the case. The families and friends of the nine victims should receive justice.
But why should good-hearted people become victims as a result of this madman?
As Sean Davis, a founder of The Federalist, pointed out, “nine innocent men and women were slaughtered in a mandatory gun-free zone by an evil madman wielding a gun.”
Law-abiding citizens are not going to bring a gun into a mandatory gun-free zone. Yet if one person in the bible study had a gun, the evil killer might have been the only casualty reported.
Rather than condemning guns, Americans should condemn evil. And rather than considering more restrictive gun laws, lawmakers should consider how they can empower law-abiding citizens so that more innocent people do not become victims.
We live in a dangerous world, and good people should not be denied protection under the law.
The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the position of Guns.com.
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