{"id":1559656,"date":"2022-07-18T15:19:04","date_gmt":"2022-07-18T19:19:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1559656"},"modified":"2022-07-18T15:19:14","modified_gmt":"2022-07-18T19:19:14","slug":"why-anti-gun-zealots-cant-admit-concealed-carry-saves-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/why-anti-gun-zealots-cant-admit-concealed-carry-saves-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Anti-Gun Zealots Can\u2019t Admit Concealed Carry Saves Lives"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwhy-anti-gun-zealots-cant-admit-concealed-carry-saves-lives%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1559656&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Screen-Shot-2022-07-18-at-2.09.03-PM-1024x464-1.png\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>After a video of law enforcement officers acting like utter cowards at the Uvalde school shooting was released, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChrisMurphyCT\/status\/1547064816162029568?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">claimed<\/a> that the incident \u201cputs to bed, forever, the question of whether the way to deal with bad guys with guns is to make sure there are more good guys with guns.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Well, \u201cforever\u201d ended this weekend, when a 22-year-old <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/07\/18\/the-real-hero-good-guy-with-gun-ends-mass-shooting-in-indiana-mall\/\">fatally shot<\/a> a man armed with an AR-15 who had opened fire in a mall food court in Greenwood, Indiana, killing three. We don\u2019t know all the specifics \u2014 and we\u2019ll never know how many lives the Good Samaritan saved \u2014 but it is clear Murphy\u2019s assertion was incorrect on two counts: Cops who stand around while children are being slaughtered aren\u2019t \u201cgood guys,\u201d but real good guys with guns do exist.<\/p>\n<p>Gun controllers assure us they don\u2019t oppose the Second Amendment, they merely want to pass \u201ccommon sense\u201d gun laws that take \u201cweapons of war\u201d out of the hands of bad guys. Yet their policy proposals and rhetoric tell us something very different. Anti-gun zealots are so singularly focused on guns, they refuse to even acknowledge that the right to personal self-defense exists. Indeed, they can\u2019t even concede that a person obtaining a concealed-carry license \u2014 and these people are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/2017\/01\/new-york-times-concealed-handgun-crime-numbers-are-bogus\/\">less likely<\/a> to engage in criminality than cops \u2014 might serve a positive use, like mitigating the tragedy of a mall shooting.<\/p>\n<p>If you think I exaggerate, here is Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, noting <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/shannonrwatts\/status\/1548856987835723776?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet\">that<\/a>, \u201cwhen a 22-year-old illegally brings a loaded gun into a mall and kills a mass shooter armed with an AR-15 after he already killed three people and wounded others is not a ringing endorsement of our implementation of the Second Amendment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It says something about Watts\u2019 beliefs that she is under the impression the Constitution needs \u201cimplementation.\u201d It also says something about her views on public policy that she seems to believe a \u201cloaded gun\u201d is always \u201cillegal\u201d (it wasn\u2019t). More telling is the fact that Watts is unwilling to allow that an armed man saving numerous lives is preferable to having civilians sitting around in a gun-free zone waiting for the police to arrive as a madman shoots at them.<\/p>\n<p>Kris Brown, president of Brady, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KrisB_Brown\/status\/1549014362073042944\">called<\/a> the act of civilian self-defense a \u201cvigilante safety net.\u201d Vigilantism is law enforcement \u201cwithout legal authority.\u201d Does a citizen who has undergone an FBI background check and been fingerprinted by local police have the legal and moral authority to defend themselves, their family, or their community? Brown does not seem to believe that is the case.<\/p>\n<p>The argument forwarded by \u201cexperts\u201d that good guys with guns make only <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/markfollman\/status\/1548886011903586305\">a negligible<\/a> or no difference in mass shootings is highly misleading. Most planned mass shootings target gun-free zones where there is no one to stop them until the police arrive. It is impossible, unless one is a mind-reader, to quantify how often the presence of good guys with guns dissuades murders. It is likely that shooters, suicidal or not, prefer soft targets that allow them to make the most gruesome impact, which is one reason I simply can\u2019t understand why we wouldn\u2019t want to train (willing) teachers to use firearms.<\/p>\n<p>As far as I can tell, a legal concealed carrier has never carried out a planned mass shooting. Jack Wilson, a 71-year-old congregant and security volunteer at West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas, however, took <a href=\"https:\/\/www1.cbn.com\/cbnnews\/us\/2019\/december\/im-thankful-to-god-71-year-old-trump-supporting-texas-hero-who-took-down-a-church-shooter-in-6-seconds-speaks-out\">mere seconds<\/a> to stop a potential mass murderer a couple of years ago. And Jeanne Assam, a security volunteer at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, <a href=\"https:\/\/denvergazette.com\/news\/local\/jeanne-assam-who-stopped-colorado-springs-shooting-praises-lakewood-officer\/article_574cec1e-69c2-11ec-9ba6-0fbe5424e25d.html\">dropped<\/a> a murderer armed with an arsenal, including grenades, who had already killed four people in two churches. There is a woman in West Virginia who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wral.com\/woman-credited-with-stopping-mass-shooting-at-apartment-complex-in-west-virginia\/20306891\/\">stopped<\/a> a shooting in her apartment complex. A quickly buried Obama-administration CDC <a href=\"https:\/\/nap.nationalacademies.org\/read\/18319\/chapter\/1\">study<\/a> in 2013 found that almost \u201call national survey estimates indicate that<em>\u00a0<\/em>defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>More concealed carry isn\u2019t a panacea to stop deranged people from shooting up churches, schools, and malls. There is none. That said, concealed carry has likely done more to mitigate these tragedies than any gun measure passed or championed by Democrats. For gun-control advocates, anyone with a weapon is a \u201cbad guy.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">\n  David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist. Harsanyi is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of five books\u2014the most recent, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Eurotrash-America-Reject-Failed-Continent\/dp\/0063066017\/\">Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent<\/a>. His work has appeared in National Review, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reason, New York Post, and numerous other publications. Follow him on Twitter, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/davidharsanyi\/\">@davidharsanyi<\/a>.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After a video of law enforcement officers acting like utter cowards at the Uvalde school shooting was released, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., claimed that the incident \u201cputs to bed, forever,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":831,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1559656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/831"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1559656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1559656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1559656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1559656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}