[...]
But tools can be used for good as well as evil—if they're available.
The patrons at Pulse would have had the potential to defend themselves
against Mateen had they been carrying firearms as is permitted in much
of the United States. But carrying guns in bars is illegal in Florida,
and well-intentioned people are more easily constrained by rules than
are terrorists—a fact on which Mateen may have relied.
Bizarrely, the Sun-Sentinel's Michael Mayo insists that the massacre
disproved the value of guns, because one armed guard failed to deter
Mateen. He's joined by a chorus insisting that letting people defend
themselves is no answer.
But not everybody agrees.
"It is difficult, if not impossible, to foresee such an event," notes
Gwendolyn Patton, First Speaker of Pink Pistols, a GLBTQ self-defense
advocacy organization. "But if they cannot be prevented, then they must
be stopped as fast as someone tries to start them."
Patton worries that further legal restrictions will affect only the
law-abiding, leaving them yet more defenseless against future Omar
Mateens.
"Ask
yourself: If that was Denver, Col., if that was Texas, would those guys
have been able to spend hours, days, shooting people randomly? What I'm
saying is it makes police around the world question their views on gun
control. It makes citizens question their views on gun control. You
have to ask yourself, 'Is an armed citizenry more necessary now than it
was in the past with an evolving threat of terrorism?'
Tom Palmer, a gay libertarian and one of the original plaintiffs in the
groundbreaking Heller Supreme Court gun rights case, agrees.
"Let's get one thing very clear. Gun control advocates disarmed the
victims at that night club," he wrote in the New York Daily News.
"Legally designated gun-free zones are invitations to killers."
When good people were not rendered defenseless by law, they have
stopped mass murderers. Eugene Volokh rounded up a good selection for
the Washington Post, but here are two from just the last few months:
In April, a Chicago Uber driver shot a gunman who had opened fire on a
crowd.
Weeks before that, Philadelphia police say a good samaritan "saved a
lot of people" when he shot and killed a man who opened up on customers
and staff in a barber shop.
[Full
Article]
