The American Spectator

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Both Barrels

2.22.08 @ 12:01AM

RANDOM FIRE
Re: Robert VerBruggen's NIU Nightmare:

As long as guns and ammunition are easily available, we will continue to have tragedies like those that occurred at Columbine, Virginia Tech and NIU. Why can't people like Robert VerBruggen dispense with the BS and simply confess that the loss of human life in events such as these are acceptable costs for our Constitutional right to bear arms? His painful analyses of what NIU did or didn't do right, whether or not a change in the law governing high capacity magazines would make a difference, the virtues of licensed gun owners and the evils of "liberals" are all really tiresome and insipid.
-- Mike Roush
North Carolina
P.S. Who was the genius on Fox News who thinks packing heat on our alcohol and hormone drenched campuses is a good idea?

I'm always amazed at the prognosticators of gloom and doom in the conservative movement. Is there a recessive gene within a portion of the conservative political population that leads them to desire political defeat? Do some conservatives really want to lose elections believing that it helps the movement? If they want higher taxes and more government spending I'm sure Republicans would oblige and unlike Democrats keep the nation safe.

Robert VerBruggen's statement, "WITH AN ELECTION coming up in which a Democratic president is likely and a filibuster-proof Democratic Senate is conceivable, all this does force Second Amendment supporters to look ahead." Hold your horses Mr. VerBruggen -- you may want to lose in November, but even if your prophecy does come true I count only four Republican Senate seats at risk (New Hampshire, Virginia, Minnesota and Colorado) and 1 Democrat (Louisiana). Even if the Dems hold all their seats and take the four Republican ones at risk that leaves them four short.

Since 1980 neither party has had a filibuster proof Senate. The Democrats came close with 57 seats in the 103rd Senate and the Republicans with 55 seats in the 109th. The last time Democrats had a filibuster proof Senate the proto-Obama Jimmy Carter (America's worst President) was in the White House, fighting with his own party, destroying the American economy, empowering fanatical Muslim extremists and allowing the U.S. to be kicked around in the world.

In 2006 just enough conservatives proved gullible to Democrat propaganda to help them retake Congress, but surely after the Reid/Pelosi Congress those "lose to win" conservatives have learned the lesson that Democrats make lousy leaders and "blue dogs" aren't conservatives. If not I guess they'll keep undermining Ronald Reagan's legacy while pimping his name to help liberals.
-- Michael Tomlinson

Your article was well reasoned until you started to go soft for the sake of the lefties. An armed student in either case would have mitigated the carnage in both cases, immeasurably.

The gun grabbers agenda is to disarm America, period. I, like John Lott, believe that more guns equals less crime. I will never accede to the left on any demand they make for gun control. I can only get 10 round mags for my HK USP 45. If I could buy 30 rounders for it, I would.

What we don't get in this country is, if you commit a crime you should get punished, not rehabilitated; if you commit a crime with a gun you should get 10-15 years on top of your sentence just for the gun or knife or pipe..

If you are a law abiding citizen there should be few if any laws abridging your second amendment rights.
Case closed.
-- Gene Hauber
Meshoppen, Pennsylvania

The disconnection from reality which allowed Steven Kazmierczak to perpetrate his slaughter is tragic. The codified insanity, aka "gun free zones," which allowed him to do it completely unimpeded is criminal.

Those who wish to lay down like lambs before lions are not satisfied to offer up themselves alone. They insist everyone else remain vulnerable to a madman's whims as well. Their rationale rests on the idea that legally armed students and faculty would turn college campuses into "shooting galleries." That "shooting galleries" is precisely what they've gotten -- twice and counting, so far -- absent the ability to stop the carnage is a testament to what occurs when blind adherence to ideology trumps common sense.
-- Arnold Ahlert
Boca Raton, Florida

It is apparent from many of Robert VerBruggen's statements of fact that he is as guilty as the Brady Campaign is for making them up to support an opinion. It is difficult to find a trainer in the defensive use of firearms that supports the opinion that so called "High Capacity Magazines" do not provide an invaluable edge in a defensive situation. This is especially true for home invasions. A home invasion involves multiple perps and the rare occasion when the victim(s) resist with firearms there usually is a firefight. The exception is when the perps are repelled at their point of entry.

Also the typical "High Capacity Magazine" holds 17 rounds or less and is the standard magazine for the pistol it fits. The 10 round magazines sold to civilians during the ten years of the federal ban had limiting devices to fix their capacity to 10 rounds. Why should well trained civilians be less prepared than the professionals?
-- Steve Cushman
Brentwood, California

This latest shooting is yet another tragic example of what we are hearing more often nowadays, and maybe that's a good sign, that we're hearing it finally - that government is broken.

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