We should be able to protect ourselves with guns

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Truth, facts, reason and logic versus guilt, fear, deceit and intimidation.

John Krull has, once again, provided me with another incredible opportunity to get the facts out there about our gun rights and his most recent column on gun violence is so void of reason and facts as to border on journalistic malfeasance. As an elected representative, I have an obligation to correct him. Again.

Krull’s insistence that we are experiencing out-of-control gun violence is based on media driven emotional hysteria and certainly not fact, as a recent Pew Research analysis of CDC numbers shows gun homicides actually decreasing by 50 percent since the ’90s. But this fact doesn’t fit Krull’s anti-gun agenda, so he utilizes guilt, fear, deceit and intimidation. Likewise, if we are truly experiencing “out of control” gun violence, why would Krull want to make innocent people defenseless against people creating such violence?

Next, Krull attacks the NRA and individuals such as myself for standing up and fighting for our constitutional rights. He accuses me of focusing on the NRA’s agenda, although the NRA represents my and about 5.5 million other individual’s agenda. As an NRA Benefactor Member, I simply demand that our constitutional rights be protected as written. Try to imagine the outcry if government suggested treating journalists’ First Amendment rights as we do our Second Amendment rights? I’ll bet the outcry would be epic and it would be called unconstitutional.

Krull demands we implement more “common sense” gun laws. Let’s examine the tragedy at the Florida school, which is what precipitated this latest push for more gun control and ask if more “common sense” gun laws will help or only make it even more dangerous.

What Krull fails to report is that 98 percent of all mass shootings have occurred in gun-free zones. Gun-free zones are where people who obey gun laws are made defenseless and are easy victims for people who don’t obey gun laws.

Broward County had adapted Obama’s “PROMISE Program”, which was a Progressive policy to reduce unnecessarily harsh discipline policies and was awarded $54 million to do so. What they did was basically quit arresting students for incidents, many of them violent. While this obviously showed a greatly reduced rate of student misbehavior, it tragically masked dangerous behavior. As Ayn Rand once stated, “You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.”

The police had been called to Cruz’s house over three dozen times. Many times, the calls were for violent behavior, yet no charges were filed. Had charges been filed in any of these dozens of incidents, Cruz would not have been able to pass a background check and legally purchase his firearm.

It gets worse. The FBI had not one, but two credible reports of Cruz wanting to shoot up a school. The most egregious failure was an actual screen shot of a social media post in the shooter’s own name of him wanting to shoot up a school. The other was a call from an individual expressing concern about Cruz shooting up a school. How many more “common sense” gun laws would stop such catastrophic failures by government?

Most horrendous was the failure of four armed officers to enter the gun-free zone and engage Cruz as he was inside murdering 17 students and staff. Topping off this string of catastrophic government failures is the fact that Cruz exited the building on his own accord without ever being confronted.

Instead of being intellectually honest and admitting that Progressive policies such as gun-free zones and more laws won’t not stop anyone committed on murdering innocent people (made defenseless by Progressive policies), we must stop preventing innocent people from exercising their constitutional right to protect themselves against people that have no regard for life or law. Making good people helpless will not make bad people harmless and you are your first and best line of self-defense.

School shootings are one of the greatest tragedies possible and yes, actions must be taken. However, instead of continuing the tragic failures of government dependency and belief in the false hope of government “doing something” as protecting us, we must allow individuals their constitutional right to protect themselves and eliminate gun-free zones.

Jim Lucas is a member of the Indiana House of Representatives and serves residents of District 69, which includes parts of Bartholomew, Jennings, Jackson and Jefferson counties. Send comments to [email protected].

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