An example of the E-mail I sent
Good day :
On SB00173I.Please ,lets use our heads here and not emotion.
Feel Good politics is never good law.There is a big difference between sound reasons and reasons that sound good.
Every gun shooting at a school was a violation of the law already. What possible good would it serve the public to disarm the lawful who could prevent such tragedy.
Thanks to the media, you are now much more aware of school shootings than you have ever been before. Do you have the perception that the problem is bad, and getting worse? If you do, it's wrong; the perception is created by the media via sensationalism, and is not real. Every measure of teen violence is decreasing and has been for
several years. School shootings in context:
http://www.securitymanagement.com/library/schoolreport.html
Conclusions: Declines in fighting and weapon carrying among US adolescents between 1991 and 1997 are encouraging and consistent with declines in homicide, nonfatal victimization, and school crime rates. Further research should explore why behaviors related to interpersonal violence are decreasing and what types of interventions are most effective.
From JAMA: Recent Trends in Violence-Related Behaviors Among High School Students in the United States
http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v282n5/full/joc90430.html[Recent Trends in Violence-Related Behaviors Among High School Students in the United States
Nancy D. Brener; Thomas R. Simon; Etienne G. Krug; Richard Lowry
JAMA. 1999;282:440-446.]
(N.B.: Though Columbine happened after the dates covered by this study, the downward trend is still continuing even if you include it.) I cant wonder but why you see this as good law.
Schools as of 1990 are all federal "gun free" zones, meaning that people cannot legally defend their lives there. However, this has not stopped school shootings such as Columbine from happening. Most high-profile school shootings happened after being declared "gun free" zones. If repealing these laws would save only one life, wouldn't it be worth it?
Arkansas, Kentucky and Mississippi--the three states that have had deadly shootings in public schools in the recent past--all allow law-abiding adults to carry concealed handgun for self-protection, except in public schools. Indeed, federal law generally prohibits guns within 1,000 feet of a school.
One good example of several why this law and gun free school zones make no sense;
The October 1997 shooting spree at a high school in Pearl, Miss.: An assistant principal retrieved a gun from his car and physically immobilized the gunman for a full 4 1/2 minutes while waiting for the police to arrive. The gunman had already fatally shot two students (after earlier stabbing his mother to death). Who knows how many lives the assistant principal saved by his prompt response?How many would he have saved if he had been closer to his gun?
"[Knowledge is neither good nor evil, but takes its character from how it is used.] In like manner, weapons defend the lives of those who wish to live peacefully, and they also, on many occasions kill [murder] men, not because of any wickedness inherent in them but because those who wield them do so in an evil way."
