By: Ted Nugent
Some people are painfully slow to learn. Others are actually resistant to learn and to accept the truth and facts, because it is either uncomfortable or does not meet their distorted view of reality.
Either way, when teachable moments occur we should permit learning to occur. Such was the case of the heartbreaking Sandy Hook massacre a year ago.
The Sandy Hook massacre was not the first mass shooting in the world, and it won’t be the last. Fortunately, the likelihood that you or your child will be part of such a massacre is extremely remote. Even so, that is no reason not to be prepared. If we fail to be better prepared to stop the next mass murderer, then those precious little 20 children and their six teachers and faculty members at Sandy Hook Elementary died for nothing.
The first lesson we should take away from the Sandy Hook massacre is that the self-inflicted scourge of political correctness has dumbed down America enough to allow the conditions to continue to exist that will facilitate another twisted individual capable of doing the same thing to flounder about our society. In fact, it already happened at the Washington Naval Yard. It is going to happen again. And again.
The only way to stop a madman with a gun is a good guy or two with guns. Nothing else will work.
Enough with the hand-wringing and fantasy driven wishful thinking that more gun control is the answer. It is not. No new feel-good law or infringement on the good guys is going to stop a criminal or the chronic mentally ill from getting their hands on a gun.
The second lesson we keep denying is that gun-free zones are slaughter zones. It is the very definition of barbarism for a government to knowingly create conditions that place law-abiding citizens at risk, and that is what gun-free zones do. Gun-free zones should be made extinct.
The third lesson is that we cannot continue to ignore glaring, red warning lights. Fortunately, the overwhelming majority of chronically mentally ill people are not violent. In fact, you have a much higher chance of having your door kicked in by a recidivistic, paroled street rat than being the victim of a violent crime committed by a chronically mentally ill person.
However, Adam Lanza’s mother had to have been aware that her son had an affinity for mass murder. He had a giant list of previous mass murders in his room. To allow him access to guns and to teach him how to shoot was a thunderously dangerous mistake that cost Lanza’s mother her life and the lives of 26 other people.
Had Lanza’s mother prevented her son from having access to guns and not taught him how to shoot this massacre may have been avoided. As gun owners, we have a responsibility to restrict access to guns to chronically ill family members who have displayed violent tendencies or behavior.
As uncomfortable as the National Education Association (NEA) and its members find it – you know, the group that has “educated” some of the dumbest kids on the planet – supporting arming teachers and other faculty members is clearly the right choice. A third of the states already permit this. For the NEA to continue to fight against arming teachers and other faculty is to support an environment that places kids in harm’s way.
Think of it in these terms: Banks, airports, courthouses, military base, Congress, the president and power plants are all protected by armed guards. What the NEA continues to support is to protect our children with a sign on the school doors that says “Gun-free zone.” Real genius.
The good citizens of Newtown, Conn., sadly had to learn that violence can rear its ugly and dangerous head anywhere and at any time. They learned. Requests for gun permits have doubled in Newtown since the Sandy Hook massacre. These are smart people who care. Good for them.
We must create conditions and laws that permit good guys to eliminate bad guys or else the good guys become victims. Surely no one wants that. Let us vow to do whatever we can to ensure those precious little kids and their teachers and faculty members did not die in vain.
To show we have actually learned something from this tragedy, let caring people unite to eliminate the known factors that always bring about mass murders. Ban gun-free zones, keep violent offenders locked up and bring back the system that keeps dangerously deranged people off the streets.