The FSU shooting is a little closer to home than I'd like. I'm about an hour and a half from Tallahassee and have been there many times, including a few trips to the FSU campus.
And right now, a lot of people are using this awful tragedy to justify gun control and call for more of it, but that crumbles in the face of what happened.
See, Florida may be fairly pro-gun, especially when compared to states like California or New York, but it's also what I call the most restrictive pro-gun state in the nation. They have more gun control laws on the books than most pro-gun states ever would.
And none of them did a thing to stop the alleged killer.
In fact, this shooting is actually proof that gun control doesn't stop these things from happening.
Age Restrictions on Gun Purchases
In the wake of Parkland, Florida enacted several measures in response to the tragedy. One of those was age restrictions for long gun sales.
Handguns can only be purchased by those 21 and up by federal law, but Florida includes long guns as well. No one in the state can buy any kind of firearm unless they are 21 or older.
The alleged shooter at FSU was a 20-year-old.
He couldn't buy a gun lawfully, and didn't need to. He stole his mother's firearm. She, an active police officer, had purchased her old duty weapon from her department when they upgraded their sidearms.
Red Flag Laws
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Florida passed a red flag law in the wake of Parkland. Proponents of these kinds of laws claim that it will allow the police or family members to disarm dangerous people before they can hurt themselves or others.
Again, Florida has one.
Clearly, it wasn't used here. Why?
Right now, it's too soon to really know what anyone could or couldn't see with this guy. It's possible he gave every signal of a problem and no one noticed because, well, few people think someone they love is capable of being a monster.
It's also possible that he didn't provide even an inkling that he was going to go down this road.
Either way, red flag laws didn't stop it like we were told they would.
Magazine Restrictions
Restricting magazine capacity is a popular enough gun control measure, and plenty of people figure we need to enact one after FSU.
However, witnesses report something like seven or eight shots on Thursday, not 14 or 15. As most magazine restrictions create 10-round limit maximums, it seems kind of stupid to believe that any such thing would have prevented an incident where the alleged shooter didn't take more than 10 shots in the first place.
And that doesn't even get into the fact that people can reload.
Assault Weapon Bans
The alleged shooter used a shotgun and a handgun. He didn't need a super evil AR-15, AK-47, or anything like that.
The worst school shooting in American history was the Virginia Tech shooting, where the killer there used a couple of handguns.
For all the hysteria about so-called assault weapons, they're not remotely needed to commit horrible atrocities. As a result, banning them in any way isn't likely to do anything except make it harder for good people to defend themselves.
Gun-Free Zones
Florida State University is a gun-free zone.
We see how that worked out.
In fact, most mass shootings — at least as most people think of them versus how the Gun Violence Archive and other anti-gun entities define them — happen in gun-free zones. FSU was no different.
Would-be mass killers prefer to find targets that can't fight back. Their goals are generally to kill as many people as possible, which means targeting folks who have no means of returning fire.
So, gun-free zones don't prevent mass shootings. They encourage them.
Mandatory Storage Laws
Those laws generally only apply to keeping a gun locked up when there is a minor in the house. The alleged shooter is 20 years old. It wouldn't have applied in this case.
And these laws often make it more difficult for people to access a firearm when they need it during times of stress, making things more dangerous for law-abiding citizens.
Gun Control Doesn’t Work
When you look at the above policy suggestions and what I had to say about them — which is, admittedly, brief — it's pretty clear that gun control didn't or couldn't do anything to prevent this incident from happening. Really, though, why would it?
The problem isn't guns. It's never been guns. If you take away the guns somehow, you'll get mass stabbings. If you then take away the knives, you'll get mass beatings.
The problem is that we have a mountain of people who want to kill others for absolutely no reason. Until and unless you address that, you'll keep having problems.
In the meantime, we should empower people to protect themselves from these maniacs, not make it more difficult on the potential victims, which is all the anti-gunners are interested in.
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