It is highly unlikely the Orlando shooting could have been prevented. Even though the perpetrator had caught the attention of the FBI, so have tens of thousands of other people. Out of all of these “possibles,” however, only a tiny fraction are ever moved up to “probables,” and only a small fraction of those ever go on to commit a crime. Sometimes, the FBI’s hard work pays off, and they stop bad things before they happen, catching, for example, a bomb-maker in the act of making their bomb.
That, however, is the exception, rather than the rule.
In fact, most people who commit shooting sprees have never appeared on the FBI’s radar. What the FBI cannot do is put the 99%+ of their “possibles” who would never have gone on to commit a crime behind bars. “But we can deny them guns, right?” Legally, yes. Realistically, no. Furthermore, that act alone may be what sends them over the edge, either from “possible” to “probable,” or worse, from either category to the category perpetrator.
The level of heinous behavior that deprives the innocent (until proven guilty) of their fundamental rights, including the right to keep and bear arms, is relegated to totalitarian governments such as existed under Hitler and Stalin. Not only is fundamentally opposed by freedom-loving people throughout the world, but it flat out does not work. I, for one, am sick and tired of watching brain-dead idealists impose “solutions” that miss by a mile while depriving honest, law-abiding American citizens their God-given and Constitutionally-protected rights.
Meanwhile, it remains highly doubtful the Orlando shooting could ever have been prevented. It most certainly could, however, and should have been stopped.
The problem with the Orlando shooting wasn’t that the perpetrator was armed. That is simply not a viable, achievable objective, and countries which try wind up leaving most of their citizenry in an unarmed, defenseless state.
The problem with the Orlando massacre is that of the more than 300 Americans who were present, NONE of them were armed. If only ONE American citizen attending the event had armed, they could have taken out the mass shooter. If five had been armed, they almost certainly would have taken out the mass shooter.
This situation has been repeated time and time again throughout all mass shootings, including Orlando, Virginia Tech, Newtown, San Bernardino, Fort Hood, and Aurora. In every instance, not ONE of the intended victims was armed.
Being unarmed in the presence of a mass shooter DOES NOT WORK. Just look what happened in Norway: One mass shooter. Seventy-seven dead. Why? Because not a single one of the victims and many more people subject to Breivik’s attacks were armed. They were unarmed. They were defenseless, and they suffered the worst fate because of it.
If that’s not a wake-up call, I don’t know what is.
How many more wake-up calls must we suffer before those in power actually wake up and smell the coffee? Before they realize that disarming the populace has ALWAYS resulted in a significant increases in violent crime?
Being unarmed DOES NOT WORK, America.
It doesn’t work in America. It doesn’t work in Norway. It doesn’t work in Nigeria, Chad, Niger, and northern Cameroon, where Boko Haram have killed 20,000 and displaced 2.3 million from their homes. It did not work in Nazi Germany, when Hitler largely disarmed the general populace, restricting ownership of firearms to “…persons whose trustworthiness is not in question and who can show a need for a (gun) permit” i.e. card-carrying members of the Nazi Party. Disarmament has not worked in the United Kingdom, where violent crime rose 250% after they disarmed the general populace. Sure, it reduced firearm murders, but what Piers Morgan and the others refuse to tell you is that the overall murder rate increased.
An armed populace, however, does work. During the last thirty years, firearms laws have been relaxed in nearly every state. Also during that time, crime has dropped — a lot — but the drop always followed the relaxation of firearms laws.
The trend in gun control relaxation began in the mid-1980s, but the overall trend in violent crime peaked around 1991, from nearly 800 per 100,000 population to less than 400 per 100,000. That’s half, a huge reduction, throughout which firearms laws continued to be relaxed. Put simply, the relaxation of gun control laws resulted in more American citizens being armed. As a direct result, violent crime is about half of what it is today as compared to thirty years ago.
Being unarmed has never worked. It never will. Disarming Americans is a direct violation of our God-given, Constitutionally supported and protected rights. Our Founding Fathers established the Second Amendment’s “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” for outstanding reasons, most notably of which is that a well-armed populace is the best deterrent against criminal activity.
Armed American citizens are the solution. Just look at the attempted Islamic mass shooting at the Mohammed cartoon event in Texas. Result: The two mass shooters were STOPPED. They were SHOT DEAD, most notably, before they were able to fire into the crowd of attendees. As disquieting as this may sound to some, if they had not been stopped via armed intervention, there were some 200 people attending the event who would have suffered grievous harm if not death. Many would have been killed. Many more would have been injured. All would have been emotionally scarred for life.
Various opinions claiming “armed citizens have never stopped a mass shooting” appear after every mass shooting. They largely stem from a false claim made on the Mother Jone’s website just after the Newtown massacre. Their “study” claims that out of 62 of the mass shootings that occurred over the last 30 years (1982-2012), “in not a single case was the killing stopped by a civilian using a gun.”
There are two glaring problems with Mother Jones’ “study.”
First, when armed civilians are present, they often stop mass shootings before it becomes a mass shooting. The FBI defines mass murder as murdering four or more persons during an event with no cooling-off period between the murders. A mass shooting, on the other hand, simple involves multiple victims of gun violence. However, the U.S. Congressional Research Service has adopted the FBI definition for mass murder.
Second, whatever criteria Mother Jones used in their “study” has failed the reality test. In fact, there have been twelve mass shootings stopped in their tracks by armed U.S. citizens:
1. Pearl High School: Perpetrator Luke Woodham opened fire at his high school, killing two students and injuring seven others before being stopped by Assistant Principle Joel Myrick with his .45 caliber handgun. Myrick lost valuable time responding because he was forced to retrieve his firearms from his vehicle due to the school’s “no firearms” policy and standing as a “gun-free zone.”
2. Parker Middle School: The 14-year-old perpetrator opened fire at a high school dance, killing one teacher, wounding another teacher and two students. James Strand, the owner of the banquet hall where the dance was being held stopped the shooter when he confronted him with his shotgun.
3. Appalachian School of Law: The perpetrator killed the dean, a professor, and a fellow student, wounding three others, before being stopped by an armed law student, an off-duty sheriff’s deputy, and an off-duty police officer. All three lost valuable time responding because they were forced to retrieve their firearms from their vehicles due to the school’s “no firearms” policy and standing as a “gun-free zone.”
4. New Life Church: The perpetrator killed two members of the church, wounding 3, before being stopped by Jeanne Assam with her personal concealed firearm. The perpetrator fired at her, missing her. She returned fire, stopping the perp.
5. New York Mills AT&T Store: The perpetrator fired inside the store. Donald J. Moore drew his own personal weapon and stopped the gunman, killing him before he could murder the list of employees he planned to kill as he’d written on the list he was carrying with him. Only one employee was wounded.
6. Sullivan Central High School: The perpetrator entered the high school, but was stopped at gunpoint by a school resource officer and held for ten minutes. When the perpetrator started firing, he was shot and killed. No others were harmed.
7. Freewill Baptist Church: The perpetrator pulled a shotgun from his truck and approached the church. Aaron Guyton, the pastor’s grandson, spotted him and locked the doors. After the perp kicked in the doors, Guyton stopped him, holding him at gunpoint while two members of the church took him to the ground.
8. Clackamas Town Center Mall: The perpetrator opened fire in the busy food court, killing two people and seriously wounding a third before being stopped by Nick Meli who drew his own firearm on the gunman, when then retreated and killed himself.
9. Mystic Strip Club: The perpetrator entered the club and opened fire, wounding one bouncer and a waitress. The other bouncer stopped the perp by drawing his own handgun and killing him.
10. Austin, Texas Construction Site: The perpetrator irately opened fire on his co-workers. The foreman stopped the perp when he opened fire on him. Only the perp and the foreman were injured.
11. Cache Valley Hospital: The perpetrator entered the hospital and began making demands while holding two handguns. When the perp racked the slid on one of his handguns, he was stopped by two corrections officers who shot him dead.
12. Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital: The perpetrator, a patient at the psychiatric hospital, killed his caseworker and wounded his doctor. The doctor stopped the shooter by drawing his concealed handgun and shooting the perp dead.
In any given year, armed U.S. citizens stop anywhere between 650,000 and 800,000 crimes. Many of those are violent crimes. Some of those involved armed shooters. We will probably never fully know just how many of those perpetrators would have created another mass shooting had they not been stopped by an armed U.S. citizen.
When well-meaning but idealistic and/or delusional idiots establish so-called “gun-free zones,” those zones become a hotspot for violence and aggression, a favorite target of the criminally insane. More than three-fourths of all mass shootings this century have occurred in gun-free zones, despite the fact that such zones occupy way less than 10% of the places frequented by the people.
The solution to this madness is clear: Stop establishing “gun-free zones.” Even in countries where “everyone is disarmed,” there ain’t no such animal. The idea that disarmament will keep people safe is repeatedly proven as fiction, and dangerous fiction, at that.
Our Founding Fathers wrote “the right of the people to keep and bear arms SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED” into the U.S. Constitution for a REASON, people. It was to keep blithering idiots from stripping Americans of the ability to DEFEND themselves.