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April 19, 2007
Florida Fear Mongering
This is the top story on the front page of the Florida Sun Sentinel today...
What a fine piece of propaganda that is, complete with the scary picture, mention of "murderous rage" and the quote that it could happen here.
The article itself quotes the spokesman for the Brady Campaign who complains that Florida has no restrictions on the number of weapons that can be bought at one time while Virginia permits only one gun to be purchased within a 30-day period. His group gives Florida an F-plus on its gun-control report card, compared to a C-minus for Virginia.
Except... the tougher gun law in Virginia didn't prevent Cho's massacre now, did it? Virginia's waiting period didn't save anyone's life. Viriginia's limits on how many guns you could buy didn't save anyone's life either. That situation needed more guns, in the hands of law abiding citizens who might have shot the bastard dead before he could kill anyone else. Virginia's gun laws, and the school's status as a gun free zone, protected Cho, not his victims.
"If there had been armed people on campus, when he walked into the first classroom, maybe four or five people would have shot him and it would be over," Nick Lipschultz, owner of P.A.R. Firearms & Supplies in West Palm Beach, said.
Lipschultz, who said he sells hundreds of guns each year to law-abiding people, said criminals will gain access to firearms no matter how many gun control laws are imposed.
"I've never seen a bad guy in my store," he said. "Criminals buy guns on the streets.
In other news, yesterday, the Florida House shot down a bill that would have forced businesses to allow employees to keep guns locked in their cars in company parking lots.
Posted by LindaSoG at April 19, 2007 07:35 AM
Comments
As someone looking from the outside (I don't live in the US) its amazing to see just how easy it is to get a gun in some states.
Posted by: Lior Haner at April 19, 2007 08:13 AM
Two quick points- we are far more endangered by Governor Crist's restoration of full civil rights for felons immediately upon release- where is the outrage from the Sun-Sentinel about that? Second, this individual should have been removed from school and placed in psychiatric care once it was shown that he was a paranoid schizophrenic, coupled with his extreme anti-social behavior. It appears (at this point) that he should have been removed from his college setting far earlier, but the prevailing attitude of college administrators seems to be one that everyone can be normalized or accomodated, regardless of their psychosis.
Leave it to the Sun-Sentinel to miss both points.
Posted by: Vince at April 19, 2007 09:09 AM
The sad part is the Palm Beach Post makes the Sun-Sentinel look like it was written by Rush Limbaugh.
Posted by: DoubleU at April 19, 2007 11:15 PM