L.A. Times blames guns for Washington shooting

[ericire12]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-cops1-2009dec01,0,4102431.story

Crazy about guns

Tragic shootings like those in Washington show the deadly side of our love affair with firepower.
 
News that an armed fugitive who shot and killed four police officers near Seattle on Sunday was still at large prompted fear, anger, sorrow and something else: The desire to grab a gun. "I can tell you that most people have probably got their weapons loaded right now," a retired computer worker from Parkland, Wash., told The Times. "I think people should carry their guns and be ready," a local taxi driver told National Public Radio.

It's a typical American response to an all-too-typical American incident of gun violence. It is also a striking example of the disconnect between our desire to feel safe and our insistence on loose gun laws that make us less so. The murdered officers were armed, well trained in the use of their weapons and wearing bulletproof vests. It didn't save them.

Americans seem hard-wired to love guns; our frontier history and our bloody split from the British crown have made gun ownership both a cultural imperative and a constitutionally enshrined right. That's not going to change any time soon, and polls show that's OK with increasing numbers of Americans. But we pay a steep price for our fascination with firepower.

Had Sunday's victims been, say, Mounties, it wouldn't necessarily have sent Canadians scrambling for the gun racks. But then, such killings are far less common in Canada. According to the FBI, the U.S. homicide rate in 2008 was 5.4 for every 100,000 people; 67% of those killings were committed with guns. In Canada, the homicide rate was 1.8 per 100,000, with 33% of the killings committed with guns. Notice a pattern? Canada has stricter guns laws than the United States, requiring owners to pass a safety course and get a license before buying a gun, rather like drivers must do here. The need for a driver's license seems obvious to most Americans -- after all, a car with an untrained driver behind the wheel can be deadly.

Time will tell how the suspected shooter in Parkland got his weapon. If he stole it or acquired it from an accomplice, there are few gun laws that could have prevented the tragedy short of a blanket ban on handguns, and the Supreme Court last year ruled that Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban was unconstitutional. Yet regardless of the circumstances in Parkland, it is simple for criminals and the mentally unstable to acquire guns in this country. In most states (though not, thankfully, California) they need only go to a gun show and buy from a reseller, because dealers in second-hand firearms usually aren't required to perform a federal background check.

That "gun-show loophole" should have been closed years ago because it would protect the public while doing nothing to restrict law-abiding citizens' right to bear arms, but the gun lobby has successfully resisted every attempt at reform. Americans could stand to be less gun-crazy and more willing to stop crazy people from getting guns.

[tombogan03884]

 More socialist crap.
These bobble headed a$$holes always have to blame the tool, never the POS user that THEIR touchy feely idiocy allowed back on the street. This particular dirtbag probably should have been EXECUTED at 18, not released.

[shooter32]

L.A. Times.......      Shocker 

[MikeBjerum]

As a side note, according to the AP report on the shooter's death this morning he was carrying a gun he took for a dead officer.  Wonder if the officer ran a back ground check before transfering the firearm or if the officer had proper control of the weapon as he lay on the ground to prevent unauthorized use.

The next will be that these four "trained professionals" were not protected by the weapons they carried, so what makes us idiots think we will be any better off with ours.

Enough of this BS! 

[JC5123]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought I read somewhere that this was a relatively new police force. Which begs the question, just how well trained were these officers. I have said before that I while I do have respect for LEO's. I have my doubts as to weather or not they are any better trained than those of us who carry concealed?

[Sponsor]

[Texas_Bryan]

I could get the jump on four people with a pocket knife and maybe kill them all, the tool makes no difference, so right away this guy is full of crap.  If our gun laws made sense and people were allowed to defend themselves in public, someone else who didn't get suckerpunched along with those unfortunent police officers could have helped them.  Our problems with violence have nothing to do with tools and everything to do with our sick, disgusting, perverse, free love lawyers and social 'do-gooders' letting these scum bags out of prison and into the public, and then disarming the rest of us as if the police could be our shadow all the time.

[MikeBjerum]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought I read somewhere that this was a relatively new police force. Which begs the question, just how well trained were these officers. I have said before that I while I do have respect for LEO's. I have my doubts as to weather or not they are any better trained than those of us who carry concealed?

With appologies to all the good officers out there I will state what I know from time spent training officers (on the emergency medicine and rescue side) as well as spending time helping them at the range for training, practice and qualifications:

LEOs have so much to deal with that most do not have the firearm or weapon skills they need and should have.  Many also have terrible basic street survival skills.  It is frightening to see how poorly many handle their firearms, and how quick they go from observent and aware to brainless frat boys.  As sad as it is when this happens, this is the type of setting to get officers in.  

There are good officers out there that take their position in society very serious and are ready at all times.  However, even when you take the citizen with a ccw that is just on a macho trip out of the picture, I think that "as a whole" the armed citizen has better awareness and skills than the average LEO.

Officers out there, please remember that I am talking in generalities and from my experience.  There are good and there are bad in every area, but weapons use and self defense are two areas I see lacking in the average officer.

[Hazcat]

AH!  They finally posted my comment!

[shooter32]

AH!  They finally posted my comment!

BRAVO!!!!

[Texas_Bryan]

We all know that your standard local police officer is, most of the time, just a social worker with a gun.