I usually listen to guntalk on my ipod while I drive home, but I hadn't downloaded it yet so I had Wisconsin Public Radio on. Not surprisingly, the host was having an open forum on Sunday's shootings.
The first call I heard was one guy saying that concealed weapons wouldn't do any good because "this isn't the wild west."
There were a few other calls not regarding guns or concealed carry. Then one lady called in and said that this incident proves that concealed carry is a bad idea. After all, if a police officer can go crazy and shoot up a place, then anyone can go crazy and shoot up a place. Hence no concealed carry.
After listening to these illogical arguments, and hearing the host mostly agree, I decided I had to call in.
I got on the air at 5:56, expressed my condolences, and made three points:
1) Bad people have been around forever, and no amount of laws are going to change bad people. Laws don't make bad behavior go away, look at the illegal drug problem.
2) Self-defense is a basic human right.
3) It is a tragedy that people in Wisconsin are denied the right to carry the most effective self-defense tool available: the firearm.
I said thank-you and they hung up on me. I thought I made my points fairly well because the only thing the host criticized was whether the shooter was really a bad person, since neither he nor I personally knew the shooter. One bonus - I was the last caller of the hour so hopefully people took my comments as a takeaway from the show.
Thanks to Tom Gresham's guntalk for demonstrating how to make these arguments in a persuasive, coherent fashion.
I share in the hopes that others will be inspired to call-in when they hear this sort of talk on the radio.
The first call I heard was one guy saying that concealed weapons wouldn't do any good because "this isn't the wild west."
There were a few other calls not regarding guns or concealed carry. Then one lady called in and said that this incident proves that concealed carry is a bad idea. After all, if a police officer can go crazy and shoot up a place, then anyone can go crazy and shoot up a place. Hence no concealed carry.
After listening to these illogical arguments, and hearing the host mostly agree, I decided I had to call in.
I got on the air at 5:56, expressed my condolences, and made three points:
1) Bad people have been around forever, and no amount of laws are going to change bad people. Laws don't make bad behavior go away, look at the illegal drug problem.
2) Self-defense is a basic human right.
3) It is a tragedy that people in Wisconsin are denied the right to carry the most effective self-defense tool available: the firearm.
I said thank-you and they hung up on me. I thought I made my points fairly well because the only thing the host criticized was whether the shooter was really a bad person, since neither he nor I personally knew the shooter. One bonus - I was the last caller of the hour so hopefully people took my comments as a takeaway from the show.
Thanks to Tom Gresham's guntalk for demonstrating how to make these arguments in a persuasive, coherent fashion.
I share in the hopes that others will be inspired to call-in when they hear this sort of talk on the radio.
