The Evil That Men Do
When something bad happens, we naturally look for answers. We want to know why it happened and how we can prevent it from happening again. We also want to know who to blame and ever increasingly, what to blame. What to blame comes from the perception that we cannot hold people accountable for their own actions. If it hadn’t been for the WHAT, this would never have happened in the first place. At least that is the logic of the anti-gun activists.
The latest attempt to blame the what follows the horrific acts of a demented individual in Las Vegas. Far too many lost their lives or were injured in the assault. But rather than holding a person accountable for their own actions, the anti-gun crowd blamed not only the gun or the so-called high-capacity magazines, but an accessory, the bump fire stock.
Bump fire stocks are replacement accessories that allow your semi-automatic firearm to simulate fully automatic fire. The key word here is simulate. Like a host of other stocks, triggers and other odd devices, they are not regulated as firearms or by the ATFE under the National Firearms Act. These items are readily available and usually easy to install. The cost can vary from the reasonable to the rather pricy. You can also accomplish the same kind of thing with a rubber band or belt loop. So why don’t you see them on everyone’s firearm? Quite simply because it is hard to hit the broad side of a barn with them.
I’ve tried a couple of these myself and they are quirky at best. It takes a lot of practice to be able to use them semi-reliably. And, while you’re doing that, you aren’t able to keep your rounds on any kind of target. Those who have shot true select-fire firearms in full auto know what it takes to stay on target with a firearm designed for it. These eccentric little add-ons make it all the more difficult. Of all the people I know, everyone from experts to novices, I don’t know a single person that would ever recommend one.
What are these things good for? Mostly wasting a lot of ammo. Call me old fashioned, but I’m the type of person that thinks if you are going to shoot at something, you should be able to actually hit it. Dispersing lead over a wide area without accuracy on target is at best, pointless. But… that is exactly what the demented individual in Las Vegas was after. His target was a crowd of 22,000 in a 15-acre site about 500 yards away. He didn’t have to be accurate; he just had to point in a general direction.
In this incident, firearms purchased legally from FFL (Federal Firearms License) dealers were used by an individual with nothing in his background to stop his purchases. But for a moment, let’s say he wasn’t able to purchase his firearms and ammunition legally. Would that have stopped him? Of course not, if that was true no criminal or terrorist anywhere in the world would have access to firearms.
Could he have killed and injured this many people by other means? Absolutely. Other than firearms — of which many others without a bump fire stock could have been used just as effectively — even a cursory look at attacks and terrorist incidents around the country and the world show he could have used everything from cars, trucks, planes, bombs, poison or gas to accomplish the same deadly results.
At the center of all of this is the one thing that hasn’t changed, an individual and his desire to do harm to others. For whatever reason, this man wanted to kill people at this music festival and was willing to give up his own life in exchange. The weapon used would not have mattered, only his evil intent.
Yet many blame the object. It’s as if mechanical devices such as firearms and accessories turn normal, law-abiding citizens into crazed killers just by being available. Whatever mysterious dark power these items have, clearly they shouldn’t be available to anyone except the government — who are of course immune from their influence. All this despite the fact that millions of people in this country have these mechanical devices and they are used only to protect their owners and families, never harming anyone.
If this kind of logic sounds warped to you, welcome to the rest of the world that believes we should hold individuals accountable for their own actions. Criminals — yes, criminals, not the politically correct term “justice involved individuals”, should be punished with sentences in accordance to the seriousness of their crimes, equally applied to all.
If the political powers want to make the public safer, here are two suggestions to get them headed in the right direction:
1) Stop blaming inanimate objects for crime by placing more restrictions on the people who have not committed any crimes.
2) Stop the revolving door justice system they have created by holding people accountable for the crimes they do commit.
Bob
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