The massacre tragedy in Connecticut has already prompted gun rights advocates to attribute the massacre to laws preventing possession of weapons on school grounds. The claim is that if school personnel carried weapons, the massacre might have been prevented.
Their position is that more guns, not fewer, is the answer to gun violence. But that would be especially true in states like Arizona where no permit is required to carry concealed weapons. Yet, at the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, the gunman was tackled, not shot by an armed bystander. And the vast majority of these situations seem to end when the shooter kills himself.
It is time to ignore those who rely on this tired and baseless chestnut and pass some meaningful restrictions on who can possess pistols, automatic and semiautomatic weapons and even body armor.
To the claim that the Second Amendment does not allow such restrictions, the Founders never envisioned weapons that could discharge multiple rounds a second; handguns that were more powerful than any personally carried weapon available when the Second Amendment was added to the Constitution; or tanks, nuclear weaponry, or hand-held missile launchers.
KEVIN DONOVAN
Delmar