By Heather Marchese, 1 Million Moms Against Gun Control
“When someone accumulates countless violations of law in mere minutes to perpetrate unimaginable horrors upon others, there are no laws that will stop him but the laws of physics.”
Time and time again we have repeated this same phrase. Now we’re repeating it because a deranged individual decided to play the proverbial “wolf in sheep’s clothing” to murder 9 innocent people who welcomed this stranger to their church during a time of prayer. Where the murders happened, a house of worship, hit far too close to home for many of us.
“How could this have happened? Why did it happen? Why didn’t someone stop him? Why didn’t someone protect them? How do we make certain this never, ever happens again?”
There is no set of words on paper, on platforms, in speeches, no matter how fervently they are uttered, even were they are written in blood—there are no words that will stop evil. There is no law without the arms to enforce it. Just as words cannot kill us, so it is that words cannot protect us.
In the very hours following the horrific slaughter, as the nation once again sat transfixed on the horror, our President took to the cameras nationwide. He did not seek to comfort our wounded national soul but instead Barack Obama once again sought to exploit a political divide.
“At some point we, as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries. It doesn’t happen in other places with this kind of frequency. And it is in our power to do something about it.”
There have been countless mass shootings in other advanced countries. A simple Google search proves President Obama wrong.
Here is a New York Daily News timeline of some of the worst shooting incidents carried out by one or two gunmen around the world in the past two decades.
– April 1982 – SOUTH KOREA – A police officer went on a drunken rampage in Sang-Namdo with rifles and hand grenades, killing 57 people and wounding 38 before blowing himself up.
– August 19, 1987 – BRITAIN – A 27-year-old gunman rampaged through the English town of Hungerford, killing 16 people and wounding 11 before shooting himself.
– July 1989 – FRANCE – A French farmer shot and killed 14 people including members of his family in the village of Luxiol, near the Swiss border. He was wounded and captured by police.
– December 1989 – CANADA – A 25-year-old war movie fan with a grudge against women shot dead 14 young women at the University of Montreal, then killed himself.
– November 1990 – NEW ZEALAND – A gun-mad loner killed 11 men, women and children in a 24-hour rampage in the seaside village of Aramoana. He was killed by police.
– September 1995 – FRANCE – A 16-year-old youth ran amok with a rifle in the town of Cuers, killing 16 people and then himself after an argument with his parents.
-March 13, 1996 – BRITAIN – A gunman burst into a primary school in the Scottish town of Dunblane and shot dead 16 children and their teacher before killing himself.
– April 28, 1996 – AUSTRALIA – A gunman unleashed modern Australia’s worst mass murder when he shot dead 35 people at the Port Arthur tourist site in the southern state of Tasmania.
– June 2001 – NEPAL – Eight members of the Nepalese Royal family were killed in a palace massacre by Crown Prince Dipendra who later turned a gun on himself and died few days later. His youngest brother also died later raising the death toll to 10.
– April 26, 2002 – GERMANY – In Erfurt, eastern Germany, a 19-year-old gunman opened fire at a school, killing 12 teachers, a secretary, two students and a policeman before killing himself.
– September 23, 2008 – FINLAND – A student opened fire in a vocational school in Kauhajoki in northwest Finland, killing nine other students and one staff member, then killed himself.
– March 11, 2009 – GERMANY – A 17-year-old gunman dressed in black combat gear killed nine students and three teachers at a school near Stuttgart. He also killed one other person at a nearby clinic. He was later killed in a shoot-out with police.
June 2, 2010 – BRITAIN – A gunman opened fire on people in towns across the rural county of Cumbria. Twelve people were killed and 11 injured. The gunman then killed himself.
– July 22, 2011 – NORWAY – A gunman blew up a government building in Oslo and then opened fire at a youth summer camp of Norway’s ruling political party, on the holiday island of Utoeya, killing 77 people.
As you can see, even countries that have an outright ban on guns have still had their share of mass murders committed by deranged individuals.
How did Dylann Roof get a gun? We don’t quite know yet. There seems to be, as usual, mixed reports. However, speculating on a tragedy to fuel political propaganda at a time like this is not something the leader of the free world should do.
According to new reports from CNN, he didn’t get the gun as a gift from his father. His grandfather says he got money for his birthday, and the family doesn’t know what he did the cash. CNN also reports Roof told investigators he purchased the gun at a Charleston gun shop. If that is the case, it’s interesting to note that the suspect also had pending felony drug charges, which should have stopped him from being able to purchase a firearm through a gun shop because he wouldn’t have passed the necessary background check.
Our hearts do and will always hurt for the victims and their families. We just don’t see how politicizing a tragedy to try to add any more laws and restrictions on legal law abiding gun owners will stop a madman from being the next copy-cat killer.
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