There has been another school shooting tragedy with five innocent victims dead.

Pundits are asking how such a thing could happen … after all, Northern Illinois University was as gun free zone. So, many are renewing the call for increased gun control, despite its dismal record of failure.

Typical of such flawed and dishonest thinking was a column by Los Angeles Times columnist Tim Rutten in the Feb. 16 issue. After rehashing a recent series of shootings ranging from Kirkwood, Mo., to Chicago, to Louisiana Technical College, Rutten has fingered the villain — the National Rifle Association. He blames what he calls “Second Amendment fundamentalists,” pressuring politicians. If not for them, he reasons, effective gun control laws could be enacted.

Guns, he maintains, “…make the malicious, the malcontent, and the mad powerful.”

What he doesn’t say is that is that it makes the crazies powerful because they know their intended victims are disarmed and helpless.

That is the legacy of “gun free zones.”

Rutten does note is that 12 states — Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington — are considering legislation allowing students, faculty and staff with concealed-weapons permits to carry weapons on campus. He calls this, “social idiocy.”

What he doesn’t note is that other school shooting incidents were halted when armed faculty members or students confronted the shooters. Pearl High School in Mississippi and Virginia’s Appalachian School of Law are two such examples.

Academic study also supports the premise that concealed-carry deters such shootings. University of Chicago Professor John Lott’s book “More Guns, Less Crime” clearly shows the correlation. As for the mass shooters, Lott notes, “Such people may be deranged, but they still appear to care whether they themselves will be shot as they attempt to kill others.”

He based this conclusion in part on finding that states that adopted nondiscretionary concealed-carry laws between the years 1977-92 virtually eliminated public mass shootings.

The evidence, both academic and empirical, is clear — more gun control laws and creating “gun-free zones” guarantee mass shootings will continue; concealed carry permits will stop them.

But recognizing this involves a degree of intellectual honesty that Rutten and his ilk lack. To use Rutten’s own phrase, they persist in the “social idiocy” of denying simple truth.

1. Darn, wonder why there’s many shootings in gun-free zones???

   Thats like asking why were having so having so much poverty and homeless people in the cities after 50 yars of throwing money at them.

   The only place Gun control is not going to result in more shootings is where there are no guns the first place.

   Comment by T. A. Gray — February 22, 2008 @ 8:21 am

2. People who say that there would be fewer murders if criminals did not have guns always omit exactly who will take away the guns.

   Comment by Michael Ejercito — February 22, 2008 @ 9:51 am

3. As I understand, the shooter at Northern Illinois also had much time to reload his gun and continue on. Had someone had a concealed weapon he would have never had the opportunity to lock and load a second time……he would hopefully have a bullet between his eyes by that time.

   Comment by John Houghton — February 22, 2008 @ 9:52 am

4. “The only place Gun control is not going to result in more shootings is where there are no guns the first place.”

   Great observation, T.A. Unfortunately, that’s exactly where donkeys and jackasses are headed. Then, literally, the only ones with guns will be the military and the real criminals, and of course, the Reids, Kennedys and Pelosis who of course are more equal than the others…

   Comment by Carlos — February 22, 2008 @ 9:56 am

5. Like EVERY stinking Liberal they are afraid of guns to their very core. They know that one day soon the masses will have had enough and that they are the very first targets.

   Be afraid libs, be very afraid…

   Comment by Mitch the Bitch — February 22, 2008 @ 10:48 am

6. Somewhere once I read, that the only thing a government needs to fear is an armed populace.

   Comment by T. A. Gray — February 22, 2008 @ 9:37 pm