Gun Control and Tragedy

The recent Colorado tragedy in which twelve people were shot to death and another fifty-eight injured has left in its wake dozens of recovering families and millions of disturbed Americans. It has also reignited the gun control debate on the national stage, something the blogger TexasFred was quick to pick up on. In his recent article*, TexasFred critiques a news post by the Associated Press (AP) which detailed some of the current controversy. Specifically, the AP pointed out that the shooting suspect James Holmes had access to his large array of guns, ammunition and other weapons by buying off the Internet.

TexasFred’s response? An immediate attack of the AP as “an instrument of the LEFT,” claiming that the story made “every gun owner in America [look] like some kind of dangerous, murdering psycho.” Don’t mind that the original article made no such claim or insinuation. Whatever gives TexasFred a soapbox to yell from.

TexasFred then spends the remainder of his rant explaining that the only reasonable explanation for Holmes’ actions is that he suffered a sudden outbreak of insanity. No evidence for this broad claim, no link to an article explaining Holmes’ symptoms of insanity which might show this to be the case. Rather, TexasFred makes an assumption about the nature of the incident and sticks his fingers in his ears. For those of us who plan on watching the case unfold with open, objective minds, we will just have to wait to see whether TexasFred’s guess was correct or not.

However, let’s assume for the sake of argument that TexasFred was right. Maybe people like Holmes just suddenly snap, with no outward symptoms beforehand. Maybe the average person has some chance of turning into a mass murderer at any moment. Isn’t this an argument for gun control? Doesn’t this seem to suggest that it should not be within a person’s rights to buy assault rifles, multiple hand guns, shotguns, a large supply of ammo, and other weapons all at once? If this sort of incident is just a probability away, maybe we should do something to make it less likely.

That being said, I personally believe the takeaway here, the one which TexasFred missed entirely, is that gun purchases over the Internet should be extremely limited or banned outright. If Holmes had been forced to purchase his weapons from a store, face-to-face with another human being, perhaps that employee could have suspected something and the whole tragedy could have been avoided. That’s a story we’ll hear less and less of, however, if TexasFred and his anti-gun control friends have their way.

*TexasFred. "Colo. shooting suspect used Internet for arsenal." The TexasFred Blog. Posted July 23, 2012. Accessed July 24, 2012.