Gov. Rick Snyder
Michigan State Capitol
Lansing, MI
Sir,
Today has been a trying day for many, especially the families of those killed and wounded in Newtown, CT. Our sympathy and prayers go out to them and for them.
But make no mistake, at the end of the day there is no equivalency between SB 59 and what happened in Newtown.
What happened in Newtown is about a person who lost touch with reality, killed his mother, stole her firearms, and then took out his rage on defenseless children and school faculty. None of the more than 20,000 laws on the books nationwide regulating firearms and their users could have prevented that.
But the deaths of so many children and teachers was preventable.
You see, until 1990, as a nation we averaged about one firearm-related school attack a year, going back fifty years or more. But in 1990, something changed.
We passed the federal Gun Free School Zones Act (GFSZA).
I am not so naive as to believe that this is the ONLY consideration, but the GFSZA, by declaring schools to be completely gun free, had an unintended effect: it left everyone in schools defenseless against a determined attack. Since 1990, there have been 225 firearm-related incidents at school nationally, resulting in more than 700 casualties (deaths/ injuries/hostages); 183 of those attacks have occurred since the 1999 Columbine attack. By completely disarming faculty and staff, the GFSZA guaranteed the highest concentrations of defenseless, soft targets available to someone out for blood.
Something else has happened in those intervening years: numbers of law enforcement officers have declined, resulting in longer response times when such incidents occur. Grand Rapids, MI, has seen serious reductions in our law enforcement numbers; we are about to lose seventeen more officers, and most of those who are retained will be re-deployed to night hours. You can imagine what this will do to a daytime emergency response time, which now stands at 18-20 minutes per the Crime Prevention Office of the GRPD. Detroit’s 911 response time is well in excess of twenty minutes.
How does this affect the outcome of an active shooter incident?
According to a report written by former Kalamazoo news reporter, Brendan Keefe (now in Cincinnati, OH), entitled “When Seconds Count: Stopping Active Killers,” a report based on the conclusions drawn in the wake of the Virginia Tech shooting, observed, “Based on the Virginia Tech data, experts determined the first officer on scene should make entry immediately with an aggressive attack on the shooter. Every minute the officer waits for back-up, another three or more people could die.” That’s while the officer is waiting for backup. How many victims died while waiting for officers to respond to the 911 call in the first place? This is the problem inherent in an approach that is based on sheltering in place and waiting for law enforcement to respond. And that is what they discovered in Connecticut today - every minute it took for officers to respond resulted in more dead and wounded. By the time officers arrived on scene and finally effected an entry, nearly all of the fatalities had already occurred - eighteen children dead, two others wounded who would die at the hospital, and nine adults killed, including the gunman, who killed himself. It was said in an interview with the commander of the Newtown Police that officers responding to the scene “rescued” many children and adults. While I do not mean to take anything away from the officers, the sad fact is that they “rescued” no one. “Rescued” would indicate that they encountered the gunman as he carried out his attack, interposed themselves, and neutralized him. This was not the case. It is more accurate to say that officers escorted the survivors out of the building. Killings that could potentially have been prevented occurred because no one inside the building was allowed to exercise their right to self defense. As Frederic Bastiat observed in his treatise, The Law, self defense is the most basic of all rights: “Nature, or rather God, has bestowed upon every one of us the right to defend his person...” (Frederic Bastiat, The Law, first published in 1850, copyright 2007, Ludwig von Mises Institute, Alabama).
It is said that nature abhors a vacuum. In this context, that means that the drawdown of law enforcement must be counterbalanced in some other way - and that is where SB 59 becomes so critical.
SB 59 gives responsible adults on the scene the ability to protect themselves AND those for whom they are responsible, whether those are family members, children in a school, or co-workers. These are people who have already proven themselves, who have been background checked, taught and tested, who typically spend more hours on the range becoming familiar with their firearms than most law enforcement officers. These are people who deal with trying situations and people on a daily basis in areas other than pistol free zones without ever drawing a firearm - or even threatening the use of one. Why people believe that the moment one of these citizens steps into a school, all of that restraint and judiciousness will suddenly disappear continues to mystify me. They have proven themselves.
Many of those who oppose this measure will insist that merely posting signs is an adequate deterrent. As I have already indicated, referring to the utter failure of the GFSZA to accomplish its stated goal, this also fails the test of reason.
The same report authored by Mr. Keefe referred to yet another discovery made in the wake of the Virginia Tech shooting:
“The other statistic that emerged from a study of active killers is that they almost exclusively seek out "gun free" zones for their attacks. In most states, concealed handguns are prohibited at schools and on college campuses even for those with permits. Many malls and workplaces also place signs at their entrances prohibiting firearms on the premises. Now tacticians believe the signs themselves may be an invitation to the active killers. The psychological profile of a mass murderer indicates he is looking to inflict the most casualties as quickly as possible.
Also, the data show most active killers have no intention of surviving the event. They may select schools and shopping malls because of the large number of defenseless victims and the virtual guarantee no on the scene one is armed. As soon as they're confronted by any armed resistance, the shooters typically turn the gun on themselves.”
Simply stated, posting a property guarantees nothing. Signs, like locks on doors, prevent nothing when the attacker is determined to inflict harm
In closing, I would like to leave you with a though expressed in 1764 by Cesare Bonesana, the Marchese Beccaria, in his manuscript entitled, Of Crimes and Punishments (Originally published in Italian in 1764, Translated from the French by Edward D. Ingraham. Second American edition. Philadelphia (No. 175, Chesnut St.): Published by Philip H. Nicklin: A. Walker, printer, 24, Arch St., 1819.):
“A principal source of errors and injustice are false ideas of utility. For example: that legislator has false ideas of utility who considers particular more than general conveniencies, who had rather command the sentiments of mankind than excite them, and dares say to reason, `Be thou a slave'; who would sacrifice a thousand real advantages to the fear of an imaginary or trifling inconvenience; who would deprive men of the use of fire for fear of their being burnt, and of water for fear of their being drowned; and who knows of no means of preventing evil but by destroying it.
The laws of this nature are those which forbid to wear arms, disarming those only who are not disposed to commit the crime which the laws mean to prevent. Can it be supposed, that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, and the most important of the code, will respect the less considerable and arbitrary injunctions, the violation of which is so easy, and of so little comparative importance? Does not the execution of this law deprive the subject of that personal liberty, so dear to mankind and to the wise legislator? and does it not subject the innocent to all the disagreeable circumstances that should only fall on the guilty? It certainly makes the situation of the assaulted worse, and of the assailants better, and rather encourages than prevents murder, as it requires less courage to attack unarmed than armed persons.” (bold added)
Mr. Governor, we can be proactive and restore the individual’s right to protect himself, or we can continue to wait for police to arrive on scene and count bodies later. We may not be able to completely prevent every situation such as the one that took place in Newtown; at the very least, restoring the right to self defense gives us the ability to prevent incidents of such magnitude from happening.
I urge you to follow through on your promise to sign this legislation; restore our right to defend ourselves - wherever we may happen to be.
Sincerely,
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