5 Facts To Take Away From The Tragedy In Newtown

Andrew Criscione
Speak Liberty Now

The recent school shooting in Newtown that killed 20 children and 6 adults is a horrific tragedy, and
there are five very important facts to take away from it.

1.) Gun-free zones are extremely dangerous.

In Switzerland, where many adults carry semi-automatic weapons while in the course of their daily activities,
“the gun crime rate is so low that statistics are not even kept.” (1) On the other extreme is Norway,
where guns are very tightly controlled. This enabled a shooter to casually take his time massacring over
70 children at the equivalent of a US Boy Scout camp. In a US Boy Scout camp, firearms are typically
prevalent among adults and older scouts. The shooter wouldn’t have made it very far.

Just a week before the Newtown shooting, a shooting in Oregon was stopped in its tracks by an armed
citizen. A psychopath with a large amount of ammunition was prepared to carry out a massacre. After
he got his first few shots off, though, an armed citizen with a legal gun confronted him. The killer
decided to take his own life quickly rather than risk a painful death in a shootout. (2)

And apart from lone serial killers on a shooting rampage, it’s important to realize that most gun violence
comes from organized crime. In Mexico, where it is very hard for civilians to own weapons, “More
civilians were killed [in 2010] in Ciudad Juarez, the Mexican city across the border from El Paso, Texas,
than were killed in all of Afghanistan.” (3)

When it is against the law to own a firearm, only criminals have firearms, and law-abiding people can’t
prevent a reign of terror.

2.) It is a scientific fact that banning guns does not decrease murder and suicide rates.