Brady activists: abstinence, not prevention, answer to violence
What message does it send our children when they see men and women use firearms as tools to protect them? Violence is never the answer, especially when it comes to protecting children. A child protected by a handgun might as well be killed for all the mental anguish it causes his parents. Abstinence from self-defense is more important than prevention of murders.
The Campaign to Protect Gun Violence’s abstention campaign also warns rape victims about the consequences of using firearms in self-defense.
Imagine dropping your son off for college and learning his roommate—some veteran you’ve never met before—has a gun in his desk. And it’s perfectly legal!
This was the unthinkable state of affairs during the heyday of the G.I. Bill—and you don’t have to know the unbloodied history of colleges in the fifties to know it was absurd.
Do we really want to return to those horrible days when students would bring their rifles to school and go hunting immediately afterward? When teachers, often veterans, were legally allowed to carry concealed handguns? Sure, it might have protected students from crime, but what kind of message did it send to them that guns can prevent crimes?
Prevention is not the answer. You wouldn’t ask men to wear condoms to prevent pregnancy. Abstinence is the only cure both for pregnancy and for firearms.
When it comes to keeping colleges safe for the poor, misguided, violent minority, a small group of self-defense extremists keeps telling us that we just need more defenders.
It doesn’t work. Why, when you define a mass shooting as any shooting where four or more people were killed, the number of shootings stopped by “good guy” civilians with a gun is zero.
More defenders is not the answer. Not when those defenders use firearms. Like millions of Americans, I was heartbroken when I learned about the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012. Why could it not have happened in Texas, or in Oregon, or some other D-rated state? Why an A-rated state like Connecticut?
The only consolation is that, thanks to our brave Connecticut legislators, those children and parents were spared the anguish of learning that they survived only due to a teacher who happened to keep a concealed firearm.
Whether your child is in college or first grade, Texas or Connecticut, no parent should ever have to experience the torment of having their child alive thanks to a firearm in a teacher’s desk or fellow student’s purse.
My son was fortunate enough to live through the Virginia Tech shooting six years ago without having to endure the pain of being protected by a gun-wielding student. Colin and I are both eternally grateful for Virginia’s laws ensuring that none of the thirty-two people who died that day were forced to endure such pain either.
So how do we fight back against a small but powerful group of self-defense lobbyists who wish to inflict the pain of gun defense on students and parents throughout the country? We’re counting on you to get involved and make your voice heard.
Celebrating victims of gun violence can’t be all we do in the wake of tragedies like Virginia Tech or Newtown. It’s time for everyone who opposes effective self-defense to stand with me and the Brady Campaign to Protect Gun Violence. Together we can transform the pain of self-defense into the happy silence of knowing, at least they weren’t saved by a teacher with a concealed carry permit.
When it comes to self-defense, abstention is the only sensible policy.
- Auditing Shooting Rampage Statistics: Davi Barker
- The average number of people killed in mass shootings when stopped by police is 14.29. The average number of people killed in a mass shooting when stopped by a civilian is 2.33.
- Ed Schultz makes bold claim that U.S. has ‘never had a civilian stop a shooting’—so we prove him wrong: Jason Howerton
- “MSNBC personality and radio host Ed Schultz on Thursday made the bold claim that the U.S. has ‘never had a civilian stop a shooting’ while arguing against having armed personnel in schools. His claim is easily debunked. In fact, TheBlaze has reported extensively on situations where law-abiding gun owners have exercised their Second Amendment right to neutralize a threat.”
- Is it True Armed Civilians Have Never Stopped a Mass Shooting?: Mark Hemingway
- “There are a couple of major problems here with arguing that armed civilians don’t stop mass shootings. One is that when armed civilians are present, they often stop mass shootings before they can become mass shootings. One of the criteria Mother Jones used to define mass shootings is that ‘the shooter took the lives of at least four people.’”
- Latest Ed Schultz Whopper: ‘We’ve Never Had a Civilian Stop a Shooting’: Jack Coleman at NewsBusters
- “It would be more accurate of Schultz to say we haven’t had a ‘civilian’ stop a shooting—in a ‘gun-free zone.’ That’s because law-abiding citizens, seeing a sign outside a movie theater or shopping mall or elementary school informing them that the site is a ‘gun-free zone,’ won't enter the property if they are armed. Criminals, especially those intent on murder, do the opposite.”
- The New Era of Anti-Gun Groups: Bitter
- “What’s interesting is that their boycott is not based on the idea that they don’t want to be around gun owners while they enjoy their scones and frappuccinos, its actual goal is to force Starbucks to donate to NGAC. To end the boycott will require Starbucks ban all guns from its stores—and become a major supporter of policies to reduce gun violence. In other words, banning guns isn’t enough. They will demand that corporations line the pockets of the leaders of this group in order to end the boycott.”
More Brady Campaign to Protect Gun Violence
- Stop the NRA!
- “Effective self defense is a solvable problem. We know it won’t be easy. But we can make it harder for the wrong people to defend themselves through strong gun laws. It is time for our nation’s leaders have courage to say ‘no’ to the gun lobby’s mantra of self defense, freedom and liberty.”
- Sarah Brady supports racial profiling
- Former Handgun Control leader says racial profiling works well for other countries.
More mass murder
- The media’s Trump hatred causes mass murder
- The media’s desperate need to link Trump to all crimes may be encouraging mass murder.
- Civil rights vs. showboat killers
- If we want to take away people’s civil rights to stop the showboat killers that seem to have proliferated since Columbine, is it worth it?
- Flying blind in Broward County
- The problem with not reporting when people commit crimes, is that it makes everyone else blind to the potential threat. And the federalization of law enforcement also means no one cares about how blind they are.
- The Vicious Cycle of Mass Murders
- We now know what went wrong. Let’s ignore the ghouls on Facebook and fix it.
- How do we keep this from happening again?
- Whenever there’s a tragedy, there is a small cadre of people who frantically push solutions that never worked in the past and wouldn’t have stopped the current tragedy. They’re in a hurry to act before the facts come out that would let us craft a real response. Real prevention means solving real problems. That means waiting for the facts.
- Five more pages with the topic mass murder, and other related pages
Omar decries “White Hate”: In the wake of anti-white violence by a Muslim shooter in Denver, Representative Ilhan Omar begins campaign to “stand together to stop white hate.” (read more…)
Andrew Goddard is Chairman of the Board of the National Gun Victims Action Council of activists of the Brady Campaign to Protect Gun Violence. His son, Colin Goddard is the Assistant Director of Victims and Youth Advocacy and Federal Legislation for the Brady Campaign to Protect Gun Violence.
Yes, we made up everything in this article, but we did not make up those titles.