It’s great to see the knee jerkers once again calling for a ban on “assault weapons”. What they seem not to realize is that the fact that Adam Lanza chose to kill is the reason he killed 27 people including his mother. Calling for a ban on weapons that are a part of the inalienable right to protect one’s self and family from either those who would do harm to them and a tyrannical government does not solve the problem.

In May 1927, school board treasurer Andrew Kehoe of Bath Michigan murdered his wife by hitting her in the head. He then set fire to his house and farm buildings. At about the same time an explosion occurred at the Bath Consolidated School. The explosion was caused by a timed detonator setting off hundreds of pounds of explosives (dynamite) and incendiary pyrotol destroying the south wing of the school. Thirty-eight children, two teachers and four other adults were killed. Fifty-eight others were injured. Another 500 pounds of explosives were found buried under the north wing of the school that didn’t explode. Mr. Kehoe was set on mass murder; he accomplished his mission. He didn’t use an assault weapon. Kehoe died in the explosion.

On 19 April 1995, a truck loaded with fertilizer exploded outside the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma killing 168 people including 19 under the age of six – the youngest was three months. Over 680 were injured. Timothy McVeigh was the perpetrator. Like Kehoe, McVeigh didn’t use an assault weapon. But instead of dynamite and incendiary pyrotol he used fertilizer and diesel fuel. Again, like Kehoe, McVeigh was set on mass murder; he too accomplished his mission.

We probably know why Lanza went on his rampage. The rage and/or total mental insanity that he had was what drove him. In all probability he would have killed his mother and several more at the school with a knife or ball bat or other tool he could use as a weapon had he not been able to find a gun. However he did it, his mission was to commit mass murder; he, like Kehoe and McVeigh, accomplished his mission.

I do not have any answers to the question, “How do we prevent something like this from happening again?” I doubt that anyone does. No amount of laws prohibiting anything - murder, guns, or knives - or tightening psychological restrictions will deter someone who is set on mass murder. And what is a law prohibiting possessing and using any type of gun when murder is the goal?

The 18th Amendment took effect on 16 January 1920. The “Roaring Twenties”, bootlegging and mobsters were the result. The people, despite the government, wanted alcohol. Prohibition was repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment in December 1933. Prohibition didn’t work.

We now have a prohibition on “illegal” drugs. Is there anyone who doesn’t know someone who has or does some “illegal” drug? Drug cartels and gangs pushing drugs are the result of “illegal” drugs. That prohibition isn’t working.

What makes anyone think that prohibiting guns, magazines or ammo will stop anyone who wants any or all of the above from obtaining them; especially if they want one to commit a mass murder? So, let’s punish the millions of sane lawful abiding gun owners and take away their inalienable right to protection, (i.e., give up liberty) for the sake of “safety”.

Benjamin Franklin said, “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Bob Brown

LaGrange