How the NRA's Wild West Gun Laws Kill Law Officials
The death of Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland
and his wife, Cynthia, assistant prosecutor Mark Hasse, Colorado Department of
Corrections executive director Tom
Clements and Mingo County Virginia sheriff Eugene Crum stem from the NRA's two
favorite myths: that the thing that stops "bad guys" with guns is
"good guys with guns" and that criminals go out of their way to chose
gun free zones.
Mike McLelland, carried a gun even when he walked his dog and his wife Cynthia also had a license to carry a concealed handgun. "There were guns hidden all over the house,: his son, J. R. McLelland, told the New York Times. "Behind doors, everywhere. He could have been standing next to a .40-caliber Glock and you would not have known it. When they said that he got shot, it was unbelievable because he was so well-armed and so well-versed in guns." Still the couple was murdered in their home over Easter weekend.
Ten days before the McLellands' murder, Tom Clements, the
executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, was similarly
shot in cold blood at his home. And five days after the McLellands' murders,
Walter Eugene Crum, Sheriff of Mingo County, West Virginia, was shot and killed
while eating lunch in his patrol car just a few blocks from the Mingo County
Courthouse.
The NRA has been strangely silent on the murders,
temporarily stopping it catechism about
"good guys" stopping "bad guys" and that criminals
seek gun free zones for their crimes.
Did the fallen officials need more guns? Should they have had their
weapons drawn at all time? Even when opening the door to someone they may have
known? The NRA doesn't say.
The murder of four law enforcement officials and one's wife
since January confirms what criminologists have known for a long time--being
armed is no hedge against the element of surprise. Contrary to the High Noon,
"Draw Your Weapon" scenario that the carrier movement drums up, most
gun crimes approximate what befell these officials and many others every year
with armed but unprepared people dying. Nor do armed civilians probably have
the weapons training the officials have.
Another NRA myth the recent bloodshed against officials
explodes is the "law abiding citizen." Kim Lene Williams, wife of the
former North Texas judge Eric Williams confessed this week that she and the
judge were involved in the shootings of Kaufman County District Attorney Mike
McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, assistant prosecutor Mark Hasse.
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