Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
What transpired in White Settlement, TX on Sunday, may well be the greatest testament to the folly of gun control ever. Or, it might not be. After all, some are arguing that it’s evidence that we need more gun control.
However, what we do know is that the attack could have been much, much worse. It wasn’t, though, because a man with a gun stopped the attack. Had he not been there, there were others willing to respond as well. I’ve watched the video, and a number of other people were drawing their guns. It was only a matter of fractions of a second until that attack was ended.
They were armed because of a law passed after Sutherland Springs that permitted armed volunteer security at churches.
Yet Democratic primary frontrunner and former Vice President Joe Biden had some very harsh criticism of that very law.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden attacked Texas Governor Greg Abbott earlier this year for signing a bill into law that allowed lawful gun owners to carry firearms in places of worship, repeatedly calling Abbott’s decision “irrational.”
Biden’s resurfaced remarks come as an attacker opened fire on a church congregation in Texas on Sunday, where he was immediately stopped by a good guy with a gun.
“Dealing with firearms, it is irrational, with all due respect to the governor of Texas, irrational what they are doing,” Biden told reporters on September 2. “On the very day you see a mass shooting … and we’re talking about loosening access to have guns, to be able to take them into places of worship, it’s just absolutely irrational. It’s totally irrational.”
That comment aged well, now didn’t it?
I’ve reached out to the Biden campaign to see if the former vice president still feels this way, but I haven’t received anything but an automated response as of the time of this story being published. I’ll be sure to update if I get a response.
However, I won’t be holding my breath.
You see, Biden’s response isn’t atypical of the anti-gun mindset. Most people on the anti-gun side simply equate guns with criminal violence and fail to understand the fundamental difference between law-abiding armed citizens and armed criminals, which the White Settlement shooter was. Law-abiding citizens needed a law that would allow them to carry in church because, well, they follow the law.
The gunman in White Settlement, as well as the killer in Sutherland Springs, violated plenty of laws when they started shooting. Who on Earth thinks a gun law would have stopped him?
But the people it would have stopped were the very people who ended the attack and saved an untold number of lives.
The big question is whether or not the former vice president understands that or not.
Oh, we could make all the Joe Biden jokes in the world, but this isn’t a joking matter. This is serious. Lives are at stake, and Biden previously stated a law that has now saved lives was “irrational.”
It clearly isn’t.
Tom Knighton is a Navy veteran, a former newspaperman, a novelist, and a blogger and lifetime shooter. He lives with his family in Southwest Georgia. https://bearingarms.com/author/tomknighton/