School Shooting? Firearm Debate.

Most funerals for the victims of yesterdays shooting at NIU haven't even been planned yet, but already the news media is abuzz talking about the need to ban guns. If that wasn't enough, the media's panicked opinion on the matter seeps right into the minds of the American population. I'm not sure these people will ever get it.

I won't specualte about the shooter. Mostly because I don't care who he was or why he did what he did. All that matters is that it's done. The rest of the country wants to talk about how to prevent future incidents such as this. Ban guns, we need more police, we need more armed security guards, we need more metal detectors.

No, no, no, no.

We have this wonderful document called the Constitution. The 2nd Amendment reads as follows:

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

We, as a country, have seemed to completely lost sight of this. NIU was a "gun free zone," which means that no adult outside of police and armed security were legally allowed to have a gun on campus that day. However, Steve Kazmierczak, who isn't a police officer or an armed security guard had 4 of them on February 14th, 2008. Two handguns hidden in his jacket and 2 shotguns hidden in a guitar case.

What I want to know is why this country has made it criminal for any one of the students who were in that lecture hall that day to have had a gun of their own? I'm not saying that any one of them would have had one, but at least that option would have been on the table for these American citizens to protect themselves and those around them.

Instead, this country has given all of the rights to the criminal element. Something needs to be changed. We won't ever be able to stop people who will do things like this, but we will be able to limit the lives they take and the lives they destroy.