From: [c d t] at [sw.stratus.com] (C. D. Tavares)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.politics.british,uk.politics,talk.politics.misc,talk.politics.guns
Subject: Re: Part 1 of 3: The Case Against Gun Control
Date: 19 Oct 1993 21:10:32 GMT
IF A GUNSHOT STOPS THE BAD GUY, IS THERE A SOUND?
by J. Neil Schulman
This is the story you saw on the evening news:
At lunch hour on Wednesday, October 16th, George Jo
Hennard of Belton, Texas smashed his Ford pickup through
the plate glass doors of Luby's cafeteria in Killeen,
injuring some patrons immediately. While other patrons
rushed toward the truck believing the driver was a heart-
attack victim, Hennard calmly climbed out of his pickup,
took out two 9-millimeter semi-automatic pistols, and
started shooting people in the cafeteria's serving line.
Hennard continued shooting for ten minutes, reloading
five times. One of his pistols jammed repeatedly, causing
him to discard it. There would have been plenty of
opportunity for any of the cafeteria's customers or
employees to return fire. None did because none of them
were armed. Texas law forbids private citizens from
carrying firearms out of their home or business. Luby's
employee's manual forbids employees from carrying firearms.
Police officers were inside Luby's within minutes, but
before they were able to corner Hennard in the cafeteria's
restroom, causing the gunman to turn his gun fatally on
himself, Hennard had killed 15 women and 8 men, wounded 19
more, and caused another 5 or so people to be injured
attempting to flee.
The Killeen massacre was ready-made excitement for the
media: a madman with a gun, lots of gruesome pictures. CBS
News ran a one-hour prime-time Dan Rather special on it.
Sarah Brady of Handgun Control, Inc., capitalized on it in
her syndicated column to call Congress cowardly for voting
down more stringent gun laws the next day.
Now here's a story you probably didn't see:
Late at night on Tuesday, December 17th, two men armed
with recently-stolen pistols herded twenty customers and
employees of a Shoney's restaurant in Birmingham, Alabama
into the walk-in refrigerator, and locked it. Continuing
to hold the restaurant's manager at gunpoint, the men began
robbing the restaurant.
Then one of the robbers found a customer hiding under
a table. Thomas Glenn Terry, legally armed with a .45
automatic pistol, fired five shots into that robber's chest
and abdomen, killing him instantly.
The other robber, who was holding the manager at
gunpoint, opened fire on Terry. Terry returned fire,
hitting the second robber several times and wounding him
critically.
The robbery attempt was over. The Shoney's customers
and employees were freed. Aside from the would-be robbers,
no one else in Shoney's was hurt that night.
Because Thomas Glenn Terry was armed, and used his gun
to stop two armed robbers who had taken a restaurant full
of people hostage, there was no drawn-out crisis, no
massacre, no victims' families for Dan Rather to interview.
Consequently, the story hasn't received much coverage.
Among those who rely on national news media for their
view of the country, the bloody image of Luby's Cafeteria
is available to lend the unchallenged impression that guns
in private hands serve only to kill innocent people. The
picture of twenty hostages walking out of Shoney's
refrigerator unharmed, because a private citizen was armed
that night, is not.
In the month that we celebrate the bicentennial of the
Bill of Rights, it's worth noting that the Framers wrote
the Second Amendment so the people's defense would be in
our own hands, and we wouldn't have to rely on a "standing
army" or "select militia" for our security. Though no
police departments existed in America then, there's no
historical doubt the Framers had considered centralized
public defense, and considered it not merely ineffective,
but itself dangerous to public safety. Recent vigilante-
type police attacks lend credence.
Yet, it's fashionable to relegate constitutional
protections to the dustbin of history. Judges sworn to
defend the Constitution ignore its clear provisions, as do
legislators and executives. Virtually every major organ of
society -- from both parties, to media, to the ABA, to the
ACLU -- urges them to do so.
Today's "consensus reality" asserts that private
firearms play no effective role in the civic defense, and
that firearms must be restricted to reduce crime. The
media repeat these assertions as a catechism, and treat
those who challenge them as heretics, consigning them to
the perdition of marginalization.
Yet, we have before us an almost scientifically
controlled experiment, showing us alternative outcomes. In
case one, we have a restaurant full of unarmed people who
rely on the police to save them. The result of the
experiment is 23 innocent lives lost, and an equivalent
number wounded. In case two, we have one armed citizen on
the scene and not one innocent life lost.
How can the choice our society needs to make be any
clearer?
It's time to rid ourselves of the misbegotten idea
that public safety can be achieved by unilateral
disarmament of the honest citizen, and realize that the
price of public safety is, like liberty, eternal vigilance.
We can tire ourselves in futile debates on how to keep guns
out of the wrong hands. Or we can decide that innocent
lives deserve better than to be cut short, if only we, as a
society, will take upon ourselves the civic responsibility
of defending our fellow citizens, as Thomas Glenn Terry did
a few nights ago in Birmingham, Alabama.
> The British have it right. 30,000 annual american deaths prove it every
> year.
The Mexicans have it even more right. They've banned ALL civilian
ownership of guns. Unfortunately, their murder rate is even GREATER
than that of the United States. I wonder what the connection is.
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