This event is a perfect example of why more gun control will not serve as an effective tool against violence.

By: Jim Carroll

Jim Carroll

As most of you already know, last week there was an incident in Santa Barbara, California involving a deranged man that killed 6 people and injured 13 more.

Let me start by saying the loss of innocent life as always is a terrible event, but additional gun control would do nothing to stop such events.  The liberal media quickly jumped on the story, announcing that there had been a “mass shooting” or a “shooting rampage” and 7 people had been killed with many dozens wounded.

Sorry, I have a hard time counting the assailants death in the body count.  (The media does it to get a higher more spectacular number).

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Immediately the liberals let out the hue and cry, “how could this happen, we need common sense gun laws to stop this type of madness.”

Since that point, the issue of “Gun Control” has again raised its ugly head as the liberals try to take advantage of the tragedy.  Having their facts straight is not important.  Misrepresenting the facts and errors in reporting are irrelevant.  They must push for more gun control onward toward their goal of outlawing guns completely.  For the liberals, this incident is just another point they can use to nickel and dime away at our second amendment rights.  To them it doesn’t matter what really happened or what the real cause of the issue is, it is the gun’s fault that people are dead.  One parent went as far as attacking the National Rifle Association, laying blame of his son’s death on the NRA.  I hate that you lost a child, but the NRA did not murder your child, Elliot Rogers did.

Now that things have settled down, let’s finally take a look at the facts of the situation and why the liberal media doesn’t report them.  I think the most important issue to take note of is that the person that perpetrated this incident was mentally unstable.  In past incidents there have not always been clear indications of a person’s mental status, but in this case there was.  The perpetrator, Mr. Elliot Rodgers, had been reported to authorities and mental health personnel on several occasions as being unstable.  There were not one or two red flags about his mental state, but numerous including a manifesto he sent to several people and a YouTube video of his plans.  So you ask, what was being done to help him or at least ensure that he couldn’t hurt anyone?  I can answer this in a word, nothing.  People did go talk to him and his parents sent him to a therapist, but overall, he was allowed to continue on with his affaires.

My second point, how were people actually killed and injured?  If you pay attention to what the mainstream media says, this was a mass shooting with numerous casualties.  They don’t really want to go into details beyond that.  They just want to give the impression that this was a man with a high capacity military type weapon committing a mass atrocity.  When the liberals and media only want to give sketchy details, I always ask myself why.  In this case it is because, not counting the shooter, who committed suicide, there were 6 people killed.  I don’t mean to degrade that fact that innocent people died, that is a truly awful thing, but it is important that we look into how and why.  Of the 6, only 3 were killed by the use of a firearm.  You read that correctly, of the dozens of casualties reported by the media, actually 19 total injured and killed combined; only 3 deaths and a portion of the injuries were caused by a firearm.  Despite this the media largely only refers to this incident as a shooting.  What has been largely ignored is that 3 people were stabbed to death with a knife, and many more were assaulted with a vehicle.

What???? How could that be?

This incident was the fault of an assaultomatic million round capacity firearm.  How could half of the people killed in this incident been killed with a knife?  I could go into details of the number of knife assaults each year, versus other weapons or what a motivated individual can do with any weapon, but it comes down to intent.

The assailant intended to kill these people and the method by which he did it was irrelevant to him.  Obviously the gun wasn’t making him kill anyone.  He took advantage of what he had available and in this case, a knife was as effective as anything else.  Funny though, I haven’t heard any cries for knife control over this incident.  The knife was the initial weapon used to kill the first three victims.  Then we get into the second weapon used, a car.  Mr. Elliot Rogers is reported to have used his car to assault people.  Fortunately no one was killed in this assault, but it did result in several injuries.  And finally, we get to the firearm that was used.

I actually had to dig to find out what kind of firearm was used.  It is not being readily reported.  Wonder why that is?  Do you think the media wants you to have your own impression of the firearm used?  I think it’s because the gun used didn’t fit in with their agenda, because it was a restricted capacity handgun.  That’s right, it wasn’t the military style, high capacity assaultomatic killing machine that sprays millions of heat seeking bullets a minute that don’t even require aiming, it was just a common handgun that used restricted capacity magazines.

Now we get to my final point and another that the media and the liberals don’t want to talk about.  The liberals are screaming for more gun control, because “common sense gun control will stop this type of incident”.  What they are not acknowledging is that California already has some of the most restrictive gun control laws in the country.   If more gun control law prevent shootings, how did this happen?  Of course since half the people killed, were killed with a knife, I don’t guess any amount of gun control laws would have helped them.

This event is a perfect example of why more gun control will not serve as an effective tool against violence.  Furthermore, it’s a good example of how the failure of our mental health system to act on given information, aka red flags, for a person with known violent tendencies and mental issues can be disastrous.

Another issue, that on the surface is not apparent but I suspect would be if we dig deeper, will be the desensitization to violence in our culture and the all so prevalent “entitlement” mind set.  So what is the answer?

Well, despite what the liberals want you to believe, it is not a one issue simplistic answer such as outlawing guns.  Such incidents touch a number of areas such as a complete adjustment to how we deal with mental health, violence in our culture, holding individuals accountable for their actions as well as crime and punishment just to name a few.