When Seconds Matter

In the past few days I have noticed an issue popping up that is near and dear to my heart... gun laws. Nanny Bloomberg has pressed the presidential candidates for their stances on how to introduce new laws that limit guns in the population. However Nanny B. failed to mention the gun laws that Aurora CO already had in place. While reading the article I thought to myself, why in the world would a city allow it's citizens to carry a firearm if it is illegal for most citizens to discharge their firearm away from the gun range? 


I have actively shot for qualification as well as recreation for about a decade now and I'll admit that my load time is still not anywhere near fast enough to load, chamber, aim and
discharge my weapon to stop a potential murder. So common sense takes over, I load my firearm before leaving the house. These beautiful seconds spent at home save me the time in the real world should the need arise to protect myself. Out in the real world, with a real threat to my safety being able to simply draw, flip the safety lever, aim and place a well aimed shot is very critical to survival. In a firefight seconds matter, so the good law abiding citizens should not be held to finding their firearm, finding their box of ammunition, removing the ammunition from the box into the magazine, loading the magazine into the magazine well, properly chamber a round, check to make sure the safety is in the correct position, moving the firearm to eye-level, checking the sight alignment and site picture and then squeezing off a well aimed shot when the non-law-abiding citizen is simply firing at random into a crowd. (remember he knew the plan beforehand, I promise his guns were locked and loaded, safety off before he stepped foot back into the theater) 


Now before you guys say, well yes that's an extreme example of the prep work needed before firing a handgun, and it's not safe to carry a loaded and chambered firearm with safety off and ready to shoot. Yes I agree, it is not responsible gun handling to have a firearm just waiting on a squeeze, but it's also not responsible gun handling to carry a firearm that takes 20-30 seconds of prep work in order to fire. But there is a happy middle-ground, from my personal observations most modern firearms have at least two safeties in place. First is the manual safety selection lever which must be in the fire position for the trigger to be pulled to the rear. Second is the trigger block, where only a squeeze of the trigger will remove an internal plate allowing the firing pin access to the round. On other models such as the 1911 there is also a back grip that must be pressed in an opposite direction to the trigger so that the shooter must have a firm grip on the firearm before a round can be fired. These safeties allow for the carrying of a sidearm loaded and even chambered without fear of accidental discharge.


My point is this Nanny B. and all other big brothers trying to run my life. The tools that we have are just that, TOOLS. Guns are not good, guns are not bad, they are tools. Stricter gun laws are not in the best interest of law-abiding citizens because homicidal criminals are not law-abiding. They don't mind murder, they won't mind breaking gun control laws. All that stricter gun laws would do is put the law-abiding citizen at a greater handicap allowing the murderer a greater advantage. 


Oh and while we are at it Aurora, how many of your judges would be comfortable putting a man in jail if he had pulled out his firearm and protected his life, and the lives of others? How can you expect a law abiding citizen to effectively protect himself with a firearm if it is illegal to discharge his weapon while not at a firing range? Do your politicians honestly think that by placing, at minimum, a ten second handicap on the law-abiding gun owner that your streets are safer? 


Cities do need to look at their gun laws. Who are the current laws picking to be the underdogs, the criminals who ignore rules or the citizens who follow them? 


http://cnsnews.com/blog/ron-meyer/auroras-strict-gun-laws-didnt-prevent-shooting-if-one-law-abiding-person-theater-had

HTML link added. This story of another Aurora shooting earlier this year is also relevant and was provided to me by a friend from facebook.


http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/12175-two-aurora-shootings-one-widely-known-the-other-ignored