Americans Should Not Respond to Violence by Banning Liberty

About Mike Sweeney:

Mike Sweeney is communications manager at the Gun Owners' Action League.

Blaming objects is the easy way out.

Once again, the evil action of a violent criminal has caused a renewed attack on our civil liberties. As humans, we search for answers as a way of coping with such unspeakable evil. For many, the easiest course of action is to blame the object; in this case, firearms. The simple truth of the matter is this: In a free society, we are vulnerable to the acts of violent criminals. No matter how much legislation is passed, no matter how many bans enacted, it is simply impossible to stop violent acts. In China, where civilian firearms ownership is heavily regulated, there has been a spate of mass knifings, many of which took place in public elementary schools when the deranged individual walked in and started killing.

[See photos of the Colorado movie theater shooting.]

We have a choice as Americans: We can go down the road of banning, regulation, and restriction until we resemble communist China, or we can decide we want civil liberty and that we want to be free and accountable for our actions. Ronald Reagan said, "As government grows, liberty contracts." Those words never rang more true.

Instead of banning firearms and blaming objects, we should be accepting responsibility for preventing future instances like these by becoming firearms owners, taking training courses, and lawfully carrying wherever we go. If James Holmes knew that he was walking into a theater full of armed, law-abiding citizens, we doubt that today we'd be blaming guns for mass murder.

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Tags:

Ronald Reagan,

gun control and gun rights