Posted by
Bill of Rights on Friday, December 07, 2007 8:31:09 PM
The dust has settled. The Westroads mall, site of the latest mass-murder, is now famous, right up there with Columbine, Kent State, and that one-room Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania.
Fear not, you will not find the murderer's name on my posts.The cry is loud for "gun control", as usual. The Brady Bunch are already screaming, wringing their hands, gnashing their teeth, and wetting themselves for more laws, more regulations, more control.... which is what it's all about: Control.
This was a 19 year old chronological adult. He had been treated for mental problems. He had, we are told, "shown signs". Ultimately, he wrote a note, stole a semi-automatic Kalashnikov rifle, stuffed it into his clothing, and went off to the mall.
Let's break this down:
The mass-murder happened in Nebraska, a state with laws mandating that CCW is restricted to those 21 and older.
Nebraska does not recognize any CCW permit except their own, which is not obtainable by anyone who does not live in Nebraska.
Nebraska allows private businesses to, with force of law, restrict even those who hold a NE CCW from carrying therein.
Westroads mall is one such business that so restricts carry.
There were reportedly several permit-holders in the mall and located such that they could have stopped this crime very early, had they been permitted by local law to have their tools of self-defense with them.
The murderer was not of legal age to hold a carry permit, even without the mental problems. He wrote a suicide note, then took the stolen rifle (note: NOT "assault rifle", which would have meant it was not only capable of select-fire (automatic vs. semi-automatic), it would also have cost several thousand dollars, rather than a couple hundred.) No, this stolen rifle was capable of only semi-automatic fire, meaning one shot for each pull of the trigger, and the action of firing reloads the chamber for the next shot, much like a hunting rifle. One pull, one shot.
The murdering criminal also "smuggled" the gun into the mall.
So, the homicidal/suicidal monster is willing to violate not one but two of our strictest societal taboos, the first of which stayed the trigger finger of many soldiers in WWII who could not bring themselves to fire on other living people and the other to end one's own life.
Given that willingness, the laws about underage CCW, theft, and his hiding his stolen gun until it was too late for anyone to stop him from beginning to use it, would any written law have stopped him?
Further, given the seemingly intentional disarming of anyone and everyone who could have stopped him (one man said he was close enough at one point to see the shell casings ejecting!) there was nothing anyone could legally do to end this threat.
Many times it's been pointed out that the "gun free zones" only tell the criminal that no one there will be able to oppose him or her.
Of the greatest importance, however, in stopping these monsters, is to never again publish their names, thus removing the incentive of "I'm gonna be ****** famous!"
Not if I have anything to say about it you won't, you little slime.