Concealed Weapons: How The West Can Be Won

Nine years ago, I wrote a post – “Concealed Weapons:  How The West Was Won?” – as a response to conceal-carry laws going into effect around the nation. I am fine with saying that I was wrong about the barbarity that was sure to ensue from such laws. Given that fact and my changed attitude from even four years ago toward conceal-carry laws over the last decade, I considered simply deleting the post as if it never existed. Doing so, however, would deny my evolution on the issue.

To be clear, I still do not feel guns are the answer for civility among humans. Unfortunately, in the name of self-protection, certain humans seem only capable of learning a lesson in civility looking down the barrel of a gun. I also believe in the Second Amendment, which intrinsically guards and protects all other rights (particularly, those of the First Amendment) outlined in the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights against those who could seek to take them away – namely, the very government the Founding Fathers had established. It was not designed as an exclusivity clause restricting access to certain types of weapons, but rather as a measure ensuring citizens had access to any and all. Given they had fought for and won independence from a tyrannical government that had sought to oppress their rights, they had the foresight to deem the necessity of such protections.

When an incident like a mass shooting or murder-suicide occurs, we should not have a knee-jerk reaction to dismantle those principles. Instead, we as a society would be better served to understand the root cause of those incidents – mental illness, domestic abuse – rather than assail the nature in which it was carried out.

The sad irony of “gun control” is that it only makes victims out of law-abiding citizens. On the other hand, criminals and the mentally disturbed by nature will not magically comply with the continuous propagation of gun laws politicians pass and agencies attempt to enforce. As my dad stated when teaching me as a kid how to shoot a rifle, “a well-aimed shot is the only proper gun control.” If there were more, not less, law-abiding citizens able to take that shot in times of a crisis, rather than being progressively handcuffed by laws and regulations, perhaps gun-related tragedies could be minimized. It is flawed logic to think that laws can and will end behaviors society deems illegal; from drug use to murder, none in the history of mankind have brought about such a utopia free of criminality. 

©2012 Steve Sagarra