Using The Fort Hood Massacre To Pass Concealed Weapons Laws

Major Nidal Malik Hassan shot up Fort Hood with two semi-automatic handguns. He allegedly killed 13 people (12 soldiers, one civilian) and wounded 43 (34 are wounded from gun fire). It is thought that the guns were purchased legally from “Guns Galore”, a gun store near Fort Hood.

The gun costs about a thousand dollars, and the ammo is expensive as well.

If you’ve been watching Fox News or have been paying attention to the rest of the conservative media, you might have noticed the politicizing of this massacre.

Right off the bat most in the conservative media started bashing Muslim Americans.

Then they started bashing Obama for asking people not to jump to conclusions because all the information hasn’t been figured out.

Now it’s about gun control.

Every time a gun death happens in the country that achieves national recognition, or even regional recognition, the topic of gun control is always brought up.

Of course the right is against gun control and for concealed weapons. The left isn’t.

Well now after the Fort Hood tragedy, the right is once again calling for fewer restrictions on guns.

This is what Redhanded101 wrote in his article:

If anything positive could ever come out of this tragic event is to highlight the importance of giving civilians the right to carry concealed weapons. This is a prime example of why the right to bear arms and carry a concealed weapon is necessary and a deterrent to this type of crime. Already many states have are considering enacting this law to allow for students to carry weapons on campus.

Perhaps if Hasan had known that anyone in that Readiness center may have been armed, he may have thought twice about it. No one would know this with any certainty, but by not allowing the right to carry a concealed weapon, the result would have definitely been the same.

The idea is always the same…If someone else had a gun then someone else would have killed the mass murderer.

I think Red forgets that this was a military base. That there were people there with guns. In fact one of the things the investigation into the massacre at Fort Hood is looking into is how many murdered and wounded were due to “friendly fire”.

The investigators have not ruled out chances of friendly fire.

The likely hood that one man with two guns can kill 13 people and wound 43, just doesn’t seem feasible.

And even though there is no room for logic in the world of a ditto head, logically having the right to a concealed weapon in places like military bases would insure incidences like this happen more frequently.

After all, what Hasan did was bring in two concealed weapons into a military base.

Conservative blogger David Cordea at Examiner.com writes, “So didn't the shooter take full advantage of what is essentially a "gun free zone?”

In a classic example of projection, Republican Sen. Richard BurrSen. Richard BurrSen. Richard Burr of North Carolina is lashing out against the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, accusing the group of exploiting the deadly rampage to oppose his gun lobby backed bill.

The president of the gun-control advocate group said, “America has seen an epidemic of horrific gun violence at churches and synagogues, workplaces, health clubs, high schools, universities, police stations and now Army bases. This latest tragedy, at a heavily fortified army base, ought to convince more Americans to reject the argument that the solution to gun violence is to arm more people with more guns in more places. Enough is enough.”

While the Republicans went all whiny when the Democrats stuck hate crime legislation to the Defense bill, they themselves stuck a couple of gun legislatives allowing for concealed weapons.

One amendment passed, the other amendment didn’t. The amendment allowing people to carry loaded and concealed weapons in national parks was passed. The amendment allowing people to carry concealed weapons across state line didn’t pass.

Excerpt from a July 22, 2009 article in The New York Times:

Every state except Illinois and Wisconsin allows concealed weapons, but the statutes concerning who is eligible to carry one vary widely by state. The amendment defeated Wednesday would have allowed gun owners with permits from states with looser restrictions to transport their guns to states with tougher restrictions; it would not have allowed the use of concealed weapons in Illinois and Wisconsin.

Critics of the amendment argued that it would undermine state and local gun-control laws, and accused Republican supporters, typically staunch defenders of states’ rights, of hypocrisy.

Here’s a video of what happens when both sides have guns.

Most likely there would be an increase of gun violence as gun control laws in high population places keep getting repealed or relaxed. And depending on how many people there are in one place or how many people have guns in that place, there would also be a chance of more casualties from the cross fire.

UPDATE: There is now a correction, it is believed that Hasan had one semi-automatic hand gun and one revolver. I had intially written they were two semi-automatic hand guns.