Paramount Theatre
Gun-on-Gun Action
RECEIVED Fri., April 17, 2009
Dear Editor,
Michael King's excoriation of conspiracy-based hysteria [“Point Austin,” News, April 10] waxed a bit hysterical itself about the availability of guns, which, by the way, has still somehow failed to return us to the days of Wild West shoot-outs and bloodbaths in the streets despite decades of Chicken Little predictions to the contrary. Those "unhinged wackos" are hardly a new invention, either; the same way the illegality of guns on campus didn't stop the murderers at Virginia Tech or Columbine High, it also didn't stop Charles Whitman at UT. What did stop Whitman was the fact that as soon as people realized someone was shooting from the tower, they retrieved their own guns and returned fire. Watch the film footage; those puffs of smoke around the bastard every time he sticks a rifle barrel over the edge of the deck are bullets fired by armed bystanders. A lot of lives were saved because he didn't have time to aim once he was being shot at himself.
Ask New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., how terribly effective gun control is. Ask Mexico. Why does the left seem incapable of understanding that prohibition, which clearly isn't working on pot, clearly isn't working on guns either? It's every bit as absurd as the right failing to understand that the prohibition which clearly isn't working on guns – and never did work on abortion in “the good old days" – clearly isn't working on pot either.
Michael King's excoriation of conspiracy-based hysteria [“Point Austin,” News, April 10] waxed a bit hysterical itself about the availability of guns, which, by the way, has still somehow failed to return us to the days of Wild West shoot-outs and bloodbaths in the streets despite decades of Chicken Little predictions to the contrary. Those "unhinged wackos" are hardly a new invention, either; the same way the illegality of guns on campus didn't stop the murderers at Virginia Tech or Columbine High, it also didn't stop Charles Whitman at UT. What did stop Whitman was the fact that as soon as people realized someone was shooting from the tower, they retrieved their own guns and returned fire. Watch the film footage; those puffs of smoke around the bastard every time he sticks a rifle barrel over the edge of the deck are bullets fired by armed bystanders. A lot of lives were saved because he didn't have time to aim once he was being shot at himself.
Ask New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., how terribly effective gun control is. Ask Mexico. Why does the left seem incapable of understanding that prohibition, which clearly isn't working on pot, clearly isn't working on guns either? It's every bit as absurd as the right failing to understand that the prohibition which clearly isn't working on guns – and never did work on abortion in “the good old days" – clearly isn't working on pot either.
Jason Meador
