Serious Talk on Gun Control: We Can’t Keep Criminals from Getting Guns

So after the tragedy Friday, there’s been a lot talk about gun control. Mainly vague talk from people who want “something” done or wondering why there isn’t a serious talk about gun control. Well, here is the serious talk: There are over 300 million guns in this country. If your plan for safety rests on making sure a criminal or maniac doesn’t get his hands on one, your plan is beyond useless.
Really, what gun control law would keep a homicidal madman from stealing guns from his mother? Nothing beyond full confiscation, which in a country that has hundreds of millions of guns would not be realistic even if everyone magically went along with it. People propose so many laws about background checks or other things which they think are common sense, but common sense says they are completely useless since criminals — by definition — just go around the law. And even if your law prevents a criminal or a crazy person from getting a gun once, he doesn’t then cease to exist. He can just try again. And if you want to prevent mass shootings, your gun control needs to be 100% effective at stopping people from getting guns or all you do is make a shooting gallery. And, once again, nothing will be 100% effective in a country with hundreds of millions of guns. It’s like trying to make sure a criminal never gets inside a car to run people down — except harder, since you can’t conceal cars.
So any real discussion on gun control that will have any useful results needs to start with everyone accepting these two facts:
1. There are lots of guns in this country and there always will be.
2. Criminals and maniacs are going to get guns no matter what we do.
If anyone in the discussion doesn’t accept these two facts, then nothing useful will come out of it.
So what comes out of accepting those two facts? That the only thing we get to control through gun control is whether law-abiding people have guns or not. The extent to which gun control works was demonstrated by the fact that no one other than the killer had a gun in that school. Laws about guns are very effective in controlling law-abiding people, but how safe does that make us? That’s like considering it a nuclear disarmament success if all countries got rid of their nuclear weapons except Iran and North Korea. Yes, there would be fewer nuclear weapons around, and we’d also be less safe. Because that is all gun control does: It makes the gun in the hand of the criminal more powerful, since he’s the only one with that power.
So if you want a change in law that might have actually stopped the tragedy at Sandy Brook, the only one would be to get rid of the moronic “gun-free school” zone. We might as well call those “safe haven for mass murderers” laws. I know a lot of people don’t want to hear about arming more people — especially on school property — but it’s the only option we have. The choices are nothing (or less than nothing with passing more useless gun control laws) or arm more law-abiding people. That’s it. There is no option C, and the longer you pretend, the more time you waste.
Look at the 2nd Amendment:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Maybe we should pay more attention to the first part. The militia is us, the free citizens of this country, and it is on each of us to help preserve the safety of this nation. And in many situations, that means carrying a gun.
So that’s the serious discussion on gun control: We either embrace freedom as a solution or we pass more useless laws pretending that will keep criminals from getting guns and then wait for another tragedy to pass even more useless laws. Those are the only two choices; we need to stop pretending otherwise.