At least 22 people are dead and another 20 to 40 wounded in El Paso, Texas, due to a planned, murderous rampageby a man who drove 650+ miles to reach the site. He carried a semi-automatic rifle and wore both eye and ear protection.
13 hours later, a second man also carried a long gun and put on eye and ear protection. He added a bullet proof vest and a huge ammunition magazine. When he attempted to enter a neighborhood bar, he was refused entry, was immediately surrounded by police, and yet managed to kill nine people and wound dozens of others.
These followed closely on the California Garlic Festival shooting that claimed three lives, including two children.
The killings alone are enough to prove the killers are evil and full of hate, but their history and social media portray individuals focused on hate, erasing all doubt. It appears that the Texas shooter identified with white supremacists white supremacists while also professing to be anti-government and anti-corporation, while concerned about the environment. The Ohio shooter was known to be obsessed with guns, had participated while armed in a counter-protest against white supremacists and was politically left-leaning. The motives of the California shooter aren’t clear at all.
Meanwhile, in Chicago,at least two mass shootings in public parks went nearly unnoticed, although seven people were killed by guns in the City and 52 were injured and treated at local hospitals.
Yet, Chicago and Illinois have some of the strictest gun control laws in the US:
“””The age to purchase a firearm is 21. The state requires gun owners to obtain licenses and face background checks as well as imposing waiting periods on firearms purchases. Judges can take guns away from owners who are deemed to be a threat to themselves or others. And recent legislation aims to begin a fingerprinting database of all gun owners in the state.””
However, as noted in that article,
“””Apparently it doesn’t work like that. (Someone should tell our elected leaders.)””
These are the same strict gun control measures that are now being demanded across the Nation. The contention is that strict gun laws will decrease gun violence.
The problem seems to be (both in Chicago and around the country) that legal gun owners are not the ones causing the issues, these gun control laws are also suspected of impacting poorer citizens disproportionately, and, in the recent cases, it’s unlikely that any of the often-proposed gun control laws would have prevented the murders: The murderers decided to kill people. Each went to extremes and broke laws already in place, in order to carry out their plans.
Evil will find a way.
The UK has had 285 knife killings in the UK IN 12 months, 40K+ knife attacks and hundreds of homicides using knives or other sharp instruments in the last year. Twenty people were killedwith a knife attack in Japan in 2016. Three more were killed and in another knife attack this year. In 2015, a man attacked teachers and students with a sword, killing two.
And this week, four people were killed and others wounded by a man with a knife in California, a State with the most strict gun laws in the country.
The greatest risk is that an unarmed populace is vulnerable to domination by armed criminals. Gun control in Mexico is nominally very strict, yet the gun murder rate is five times that of the US and large parts of the country are oppressed by organized – and armed – criminal cartels.
What will Texas response be?
I doubt that any of the proposed gun control laws will ever be passed in Texas.
First, it’s important to realize that Texas’s Legislature only meets every two years. The next Regular Session won’t meet until January, 2021. The Governor is unlikely to call a Special Session to increase gun control.
Second, in spite of calls by President Trump and some Republicans, it’s highly unlikely that the Lone Star State will back (attractive, even to me) “Red Flag” laws because of these attacks. So called “Red Flag” laws are billed as attempts to make it easier to seize guns from current owners who may be dangerous, but are certain to result in armed resistance by owners and the refusal by law enforcement. In fact, nearly half of the Sheriffs in Washington State have made it known that they won’t enforce that State’s new law, I-1639.
Any move to prohibit classes of guns and ammunition will likely face a successful court challenge, at least until the more unlikely event that the Second Amendment is constitutionally repealed. Even if you see repeal of the Second Amendment to the Constitution as a remote possibility, how quickly do you think it could happen?
In Texas, the result will probably be more guns.
I won’t be surprised to see an increase in gun purchases, in Concealed Carry License (CCL) applications and to see more current CCL holders actually carry, rather than to decide to leave the gun at home.
I do hope that more people will sign up for CCL, safety and response classes.
But, if we learned anything from these recent shootings, it’s not that guns are dangerous: The gun needs a human to pull the trigger. But it’s more obvious than ever that even when the police are present or respond immediately, they can’t prevent a determined killer from the attempt.
WingRight 
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