In the 24 hours preceding my writing this piece, we've been shocked to see yet another mass shooting, once again in a school, in Bend, Oregon. The perp is rumored to be a 16-year-old, but details on that are sparse at the moment; watch RedState for more information as this develops. We do know that, so far, there are reports that three children and one teacher have been killed.
What many in the legacy media aren't mentioning is one key point: The shooter was engaged and killed by a citizen with a concealed sidearm. Without that intervention, who knows how many more would have died? The answer to that is, certainly more, maybe many more. But that didn't happen, and it was because of a good guy with a gun.
When you need a gun, nothing else will do; this was one of those times, and this is why we will never give up our guns.
While the case of Bend, Oregon is still under investigation, we do know that the shooter entered the school and opened fire, but was killed very quickly by an armed citizen who evidently saw the shooter enter the school with a long gun, as yet unidentified. We mourn the loss of the four dead in this matter, but we should also recognize the hero who ran towards the gunfire, not away from it, who engaged the shooter and put lead on target, ending the threat quickly and decisively.
The shooter and the hero in this case have been identified as I was writing this, as reported by my colleague Teri Christoph.
On Friday, NBC News identified the shooter as John Griffin II, while the armed civilian who took Griffin down has now been identified as 36-year-old Kaylub Giamanco, a carpenter and father of two girls who attend Silver Rail.
If there's any justice in the world, Mr. Giamanco will be lauded far and wide as a hero, and should never have to pay for his own drink again.
Last August, we saw a very similar case, this one in Twin Falls, Idaho, where a shooter, whose name I will not mention, opened fire on customers waiting at the drive-up window of an In & Out burger. That shooter was engaged by an armed citizen, Jordan Salinas, and an off-duty state police officer, Steve McClain. The shooter disengaged when bullets started coming his way and turned his gun on himself. Jordan Salinas and Steve McClain, two good guys with guns, may well have prevented countless more injuries and deaths.
This is why we will never give up our guns.
The Founders were well aware of the need for an armed populace. They may have been more concerned about overbearing government than crime, but that's neither here nor where; what the Founders did do, as part of developing the Bill of Rights, was to ensure that the citizens' right to be armed in defense of self, family, home and community was enshrined in the Constitution. It may be the role of government to protect the liberty and property of the citizens, but the founders knew that agents of government can't be everywhere all the time — and that this responsibility ultimately resides with the people; the people mentioned in the Second Amendment.
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
And those last four words are key: Shall not be infringed.
If we've learned one thing in all this argument, it's that bad guys will always find a way to arm themselves. In Mexico, a country that has one — count them, one gun store, in the entire country, the cartels seem to have little trouble obtaining military-grade firearms. And in Britain, where they have made legal gun ownership nearly impossible and self-defense a crime, "migrants" are running amok with machetes, and some British pols are starting to talk about knife control. The bad guys will always be armed. Therefore, it stands to reason, good guys must also be armed.
Setting aside mass shootings for a moment, we might note that America's violence problem, where guns are concerned — let's dispense with the "gun violence" horse squeeze, there's no such thing; violence is perpetrated by people, and a gun is only a tool — is only a problem in a few key areas, and in those areas, legal gun ownership is low. According to the Crime Research Center's Dr. John Lott, just two percent of all counties in the United States produce over half of all murders, and an even higher percentage of murders by firearms. These are, almost in every case, Democrat-controlled urban enclaves with tight gun control laws — laws that clearly aren't working.
New Research: The worst 2% of U.S. counties produce an even larger share of firearm murders than of murders overall. Those counties account for 53% of all murders but 57% of firearm murders. Most in heavily Democrat controlled areas. U.S. murders are concentrated far more heavily than Canada’s and Australia’s.
This is why we will never give up our guns.
Some years back I had a conversation with a friend of mine who I've mentioned before, a deep-blue, East Coast, urban progressive. We don't talk politics much for reasons that should be obvious, but we did have a brief exchange once on this topic; his knee-jerk reaction was to object to there being two people with guns, instead of one. My reply? "Is it better for me to be helpless before an armed assailant? No, I'll keep carrying my gun."
This is why we will never give up our guns.
I have carried as long as the law allowed. On some occasions, when I felt reason to, I carried before the law allowed, like when I was repossessing cars in Chicago in 1981 and 1982. And I will continue to champion the value of having armed citizens, ready and willing to respond to a crisis like these I describe here, and to end things, decisively and finally.
And, again, this is why we will never give up our guns.
