The Gun Blogs

I am a democrat.

I am also a gun owner and possessor of a concealed handgun permit in my state of residence.

I am also a college professor.

I am not (yet) a member of the NRA, but based on much of the current debate about gun control, I may join.

I recently started my first gun blog at http//www.grapplingwithguns.com where I discuss gun rights as a part of the liberal perspective.

On Tuesday, the day after the shootings at Virginia Tech Rachel Maddow on her Air America Radio talk show began the show by listing all of the college killings she could think of and calling for gun control in the United States.

She mentioned Kip Kinkel who killed two students and injured 22 others in Springfield, Oregon in May 1998.

She mentioned Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold who killed 12 students, injured 23 others, and then committed suicide.

She mentioned Gang Lu, the shooter at the University of Iowa who shot and killed five people and shot and paralyzed a woman who had graduated from my high school who had been a dancer and choreographer in the high school Terpsichore troupe. At the time of the shooting, during my senior year, I and my peers who were choreographing for the high school show felt great empathy for her and all of the victims of the shooting. Many of us had siblings or friends who had gone on to the University of Iowa to study theatre, literature, dance or other arts.

Rachel went down the list (in the US – click here for a list around the globe. This list is incomplete. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777958.html), but she left out some crimes.

Rachel missed Dale Royer. She missed Mr. Royer for a couple of reasons. He committed his crime in December 1986, before the internet as we know it today. He committed his crime with diesel fuel (a detail I remember from sitting in the courtroom during his retrial).

Royer was a graduate student at Iowa State University. According to detective’s testimony at the retrial I observed, Royer drove to his parents farm, filled a portable tank of diesel fuel from the family fuel pump, broke into his instructor’s home during the night, and dumped fuel all over the living room, kitchen, entryway and stairwell to the second floor, then ignited the fuel and left the home.

During the chaos that ensued, the family escaped, except for two of the children, one who was in my seventh-grade class, and his younger brother. The two boys ran from their bedroom to the stairwell, and hunkered down in the corner. They were quickly overcome by smoke and died.

Rachel Maddow, however is fixated on guns. She, and many who consider themselves to be liberal want stringent restrictions on legal gun ownership. What she means is that murder is bad and she doesn’t want it to happen. I agree that murder is bad. I think it’s bad whether the means are through arson or shooting.

We are coming up on Arson Awareness Week, beginning on May 6th. In 2005 the focus was on school related arson, a growing trend in attacks on schools.

I propose that we focus on behavior rather than tools of the crime, with a focus on reducing and stopping all attacks on schools, against instructors, or against students. I want people to reach a point where they choose not to commit crimes against others, although I think this is an unreasonable hope. I don’t think we should take away the right to own tools of self-defense.