Actually, Guns Do Kill People [View All]

[jpak]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-a-henigan/norway-shooting-and-gun-laws_b_910909.html

All Americans join the world community in mourning the horrific loss of life from the Norway terrorist attacks. We can only imagine the void left in the lives of the victims' families. The staggering toll of young lives taken by a gunman at the Utoya youth camp reminds us all, once again, that guns are the enablers of mass killers.

For those who are quick to argue that "guns don't kill people, people kill people," it is instructive that the Norway killer took many more lives with his guns than with his explosives. Violent individuals intent on inflicting multiple fatalities don't choose knives or baseball bats. With few exceptions, they choose guns.

There are some in the American "gun rights" community who will no doubt use this shooting to assert that Norway's strong gun laws don't work, or to support the National Rifle Association's campaign to make it easier for Americans to carry loaded guns on the streets, and into restaurants, coffee houses, bars, college campuses and other public places. Does this mass shooting in Norway suggest that Western Europe's restrictive gun regulations are futile, while America's practically non-existent gun regulations make us safer?

Such a conclusion approaches absurdity, when we consider some well-established facts. Press reports indicate that as many as 70 young lives may have been taken in the Norwegian youth camp massacre. Whereas that number of shooting deaths in a day is treated as a historic event in Norway, it is less than the death toll from guns every day in America -- which is now in excess of 80. Whereas a mass shooting in Norway is an extraordinary tragedy, described by that nation's prime minister as a "national disaster," it is a regular occurrence in America. Within 48 hours of the Norway shooting, there were at least four mass shootings in our country: six dead at a skating rink in Texas, nine wounded during a fight between teenagers at a birthday party in Central Florida, a 15-year-old killed and eight wounded at an outdoor party near Stockton, California, and seven wounded in a casino shooting near Seattle.

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