Four-letter word dominating

Published 12:00 pm Thursday, June 23, 2016

Guns. It seems those four letters have dominated the national media for the last couple of weeks in light of the atrocity that occurred in Orlando. Many liberal left-wingers have been clamoring for stricter gun control laws after a terrorist slaughtered dozens of people.

But creating gun laws to try and keep weapons out of the hands of people bent on the destruction of others is impossible. They will find a way to create havoc.

For those begging for tougher gun laws who may have forgotten, there was a guy named Timothy McVey who killed hundreds without a single shot by blowing up a federal building in Oklahoma City in the 90s. And then there was a group of terrorists who hijacked planes and flew them into buildings on Sept. 11, 2001, who also did not pull a trigger to accomplish their goal. In the ’70s, a guy by the name of Jim Jones encouraged nearly a thousand people to drink poisoned Kool-Aid. So my point is that controlling guns will not prevent terroristic or mass killings.

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As I have stated in previous columns, I do not favor assault-style weapons in the hands of civilians and believe those weapons should only be used by military or law enforcement personnel. But I also don’t believe more gun laws are going to stop the type of violence that happened in Florida.

It disturbs me how politicians on the left are seizing upon this opportunity to promote their gun legislation agenda, rather than deal with the issue of preventing terrorists from committing another such massacre.

Just yesterday, approximately 100 Democrats staged a sit-in on the House floor demanding a vote on gun control measures. Many were the same Democrats who walked out of the House chambers during a moment of silence last week for the victims of the Orlando terrorist attack. Do they honestly believe more legislation is the answer to preventing such an attack by a terrorist or a mentally ill person?

To show how off base the liberal left is, I recently saw a report where gun sales among the gay community have risen and many believe it is a direct result of the Orlando attack. The increase in gun sales is just an indication that Americans are deciding they’ve had enough and it is time to defend themselves from future attacks.

I, for one, could not agree more that the focus should be on terrorism.

Rob Sigler is managing editor of The Oxford EAGLE. Contact him at rob.sigler@oxfordeagle.com.