Second Amendment fans make case in favor of guns
Gun control does the reverse of what it aims to do, according to researchers and Second Amendment advocates, as some firearms owners simultaneously acknowledge the tragedy of mass shootings as well as the importance of their personal liberty and rights.
In a study entitled, “Information on K-12 and University Shooting Deaths: The number of deaths has been declining over time,” the Crime Prevention Research Center looked at instances of school shootings back to the 1992-93 school year.
In general, the report showed that such shootings have been decreasing over time, interspersed with spikes every few years.
“Shooting deaths at K-12 schools make up over 78 percent of deaths at all schools, but despite an unusually large number of deaths so far this school year, both the number of deaths and the number of shooting incidents at K-12 schools has been declining over time,” the report stated.
“After an unusually large number of deaths, these attacks tend to go back down to the normal rate for the rest of the year,” it said.
An expert and researcher in economics, John Lott, who’s worked extensively in academia from the University of Chicago to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania to the Yale Law School to Stanford University, formed the Crime Prevention Research Center in 2013 as an avenue to pursue research he wanted to do.
“I’m tired of all the political correctness in academia,” said the Swarthmore resident, adding that he’s been involved in the issue for much of his professional career.
He said he detests mass shootings as much as anyone else. “I desperately want something to be done about these types of attacks,” Lott said, “but, instead, people are talking about things that make no sense.”
For instance, he said the issue of mass shootings doesn’t touch background checks on transfer of guns.
“Name one mass shooting that would have been stopped if that law had been in effect,” Lott said. He and Second Amendment
“America is not based on need. America is based on what we choose and how we choose to exercise our rights. Would you want an AR-15 in the middle of the L.A. riots or would you want to be shot? Your rights and my rights are not predicated on that lunatic down there in Florida.”
— Kim Stolfer, president of Firearms Owners Against Crime
tation of the federal Gun-Free Schools Act in 1994 as a game changer.
Lott said prior to this law going into effect, there had only been one public shooting.
Even now, he said 25 states, not Pennsylvania, allow staff or teachers to carry guns on the property.
“In none of those places do you have any of these attacks,” Lott said. He continued. “The police have a very difficult job,” Lott said.
He said the mass shooting attackers spend a minimum of six months planning out their attacks.
“Newtown spent two and a half years planning his attack,” Lott said.
Kim Stolfer, president of Washington County, Pa.-based Firearms Owners Against Crime, said he’s been thoroughly involved in this issue for more than three decades.
“We were told back then that this was going to protect kids,” he said. “We said back then it would be a murder magnet.”
Stolfer said from 1966 to 1996, there were 11 school shootings and since the enactment of the Gun-Free Schools Act, it’s gone up 1,200 percent.
“That’s just one part of the picture,” he explained. “We have Parkland, we have those kids dying and we’re going to blame the instrument used. The Parkland killer, he got to school in an Uber. Why aren’t we blaming the Uber for taking him there?”
He said what happened in Florida was catastrophic.
He said that school district had a program called “Breaking the Pathway to Prison” meant to identify at-risk students. Stolfer, however, said the district wasn’t reporting as significantly as it should have been.
Had they been, he added, “These kids would have been alive now.”
He noted that the killer, Nicholas Cruz, had previously been caught with bullets on the school campus.
“It was because of him they couldn’t have backpacks,” Stolfer said, adding that on the day of the tragedy, he was witnessed carrying coming onto the school property with two backpacks.
“So now here we’re pushing the narrative that taking away all Americans’ rights or restricting them is somehow going to make them safer,” he said. “What is the purpose of the Second Amendment? What does freedom mean? It’s not about hunting and it’s not about anything else other than defending the country from all threats foreign or domestic.”
Stolfer said a 1934 U.S. Supreme Court case known as the Miller decision permitted weapons that are suitable for military use.
“America is not based on need,” he said. “America is based on what we choose and how we choose to exercise our rights. Would you want an AR-15 in the middle of the L.A. riots or would you want to be shot? Your rights and my rights are not predicated on that lunatic down there in Florida.”
He said many firearms owners are becoming frustrated with the characterizations they find themselves with by others.
“They’re highly upset,” Stolfer said of his 2,200 direct activists and 110,000 contacts throughout Pennsylvania. “They’re really frustrated with the constant demeaning insinuations that their choices for exercising their rights they’re being tarnished with having blood on their hands. That’s insulting and it’s really beginning to upset them.”
Part of that, he said, is because the overwhelming majority of them are within the confines of the law.
“One in nine Pennsylvanians carry a firearms with a license to carry,” Stolfer said. “We are routinely more law-abiding than more police officers.”
He pointed to the case last month in Illinois where a person saw a stabbing taking place in Oswego Township and they went home, grabbed their AR-15 rifle and, according to Fox News, “was able to stop the attack ‘with only a threat of force.’”
Stolfer also pointed to the church shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas, last November when a nearby neighbor heard a commotion, took his AR-15 and shot the shooter twice, after which he dropped his weapon and fled.
Now, Lott said, societally the gun debate has reached surreal proportions.
“Most civilians would recognize there is a benefit for having a semi-automatic gun,” he said, adding that it doesn’t make sense to ban a gun based on its color or how it looks on the outside.
Lott explained that there are three types of guns: Manually loaded, in which a bullet is fired than another bullet has to be physically loaded into it; semi-automatic in which a bullet comes out and it reloads itself; and fully automatic or machine guns in which the trigger is pressed and bullets come continuously.
“If you have someone break into your home or a couple of people break into your home, you may not have the luxury of reloading your gun,” he said.
Lott explained there is no easy answer, no quick fix to stopping mass shootings.
“I wish it was easy to go and control these things,” Lott said. “You read the diaries and statements from these killers – it’s clear that they pick out these places where people can’t defend themselves.”
The president of Firearms Owners Against Crime said the issue for him centers on individual rights and that there are societal mechanisms in place to address these issues.
“I believe strongly in the Constitution,” Stolfer said. “I believe that what’s going on now is a tragedy. You have a situation that government broke down and didn’t protect those kids.”