This ones about gun control.

     There has been a lot of talk in the media about gun control lately.  The sad fact of the matter is that every time a tragedy strikes, someone will try to use if for political gain.  I am usually reluctant to pull things from the headlines because I don't want to be a part of the typical media storms that significant events inspire.  However, I will do so after enough people try to give me their misinformed or fear-inspired views.

     A lot of people think that politicians talking about gun control means that they are trying to pass laws that will allow the government to send an armored SWAT  team into their homes to take away the firearms they already own.  This will not happen.  What the politicians are trying to do mainly is look like they are actively addressing an important social issue.  What they are really doing is being the corrupt, lazy, and inefficient bureaucrats that they are.  Hotheaded activists on both sides of the issue will make things more muddy by spouting off tirades designed to antagonize their opposition.  Ultimately, the best the politicians or activists will ever be able to manage is adding a few more ineffectual laws to an already ludicrously large pile of similar legislation. 

     The truth about gun violence is that every child murdered in a school, every family killed in a movie theater, every innocent person slaughtered in a public massacre by some homicidal jackass with a gun were all abiding by our laws.  They didn't have guns on them because they were somewhere guns weren't allowed, or they had chosen not to own a gun.  The criminal with the gun doing all the killing is the one breaking the law, and that jackass honestly couldn't give a damn how many gun laws they have broken when they are on a killing spree.  No matter how much you or anyone else might not like it, guns are out there in the world--and no amount of legislation or wishful thinking will ever make them cease to exist.

     This is the ultimate truth about all our gun laws: they cannot keep guns out of the hands of criminals who want to obtain them.  The best thing more gun laws can do is create a larger selection of targets for criminals.  Making magazines smaller just means the bad guys will carry more of them.  And being shot with a .45 pistol round or a 5.56 rifle round really will not make any difference to the person with a hole in their head.

     Here is another harsh fact about gun violence: your typical mass murderer, the one that walks into a school or mall or ambushes first responders, usually eats a bullet as soon as any resistance is offered.  Or they give up.  Either way, the killing spree comes to an abrupt halt.

     This is the last hard truth about guns and violence I am going to give to you all: if those schoolteachers or everyone in those malls or movie theaters had been armed, if even just one of them been armed in each attack, the outcomes of them would have been wildly different.  The body counts of these incidents would have been zero or in single digits.  Because the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.