We deal with many clients who on a day by day basis face an incomprehensible mix of conflicting laws. Even expert legal advice is of limited use in circumnavigating this maze in that many of the laws are subjective, they all change, and can be used or interpreted in a variety of ways depending on who`s adjudicating them.
Our expert consulting advice is pretty simple: Do what`s prudent, safe, and legal in that order. Don’t get wrapped up over trivialities and if what is legal conflicts with what’s safe and/or prudent then disregard the legalities in favor of prudence. Our modern day society has widespread weaponization of law and it’s basically impossible to avoid persecution if targeted by present-regime authorities in charge unless one is well connected with them or their benefactors. The persecution of President Trump is a good example of this. But that should NEVER dissuade a person from doing the right thing. History is rife with individuals persecuted for doing what’s right and it’s usually these people who advance humanity by their personal sacrifice.
We were heartbroken to hear of another school shooting and our hearts and prayers go out to those families involved. Our position on this has been clear; no amount of law will stop a bad guy with a weapon or a bad guy from getting his or her hands on a weapon. Gun control laws have proven useless, and piling law on top of law has made things worse. Leftists ever want to defang the good guys and use tragedy and fear as a vehicle to advance their agenda. The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a weapon is an on scene good guy or gal with appropriate armament, will, and training to deal with the threat. Rules which enable this can be helpful; gun free signs and zones merely serve to exacerbate the situation and identify soft targets for bad guys. This feel good illusion of security hurts everyone and only placates the weak minded.
Of course, the media was quick to rush to safe storage laws and other nonsense (an inaccessible gun is useless and ANY safe or lock can be easily defeated). In our founder’s day, guns were kept in racks inaccessible to very small children but otherwise left open and usable. Children were trained at early age how to use guns as tools and of the consequences of unsafe handling (just like any other power tool which can cause great harm if mishandled). And in that day, 13 year olds routinely carried rifles used for target shooting, self defense, and recreational shooting with friends. There were no school shootings to speak of and no one would have thought to do so. It was a better and safer time for everyone. So it’s obviously not guns or accessibility to guns that is causing our modern day problems. Nor will further legal restrictions work.
The authorities were quick to jump on the parent for accessibility to guns and try to hang the father. Whether or not he acted irresponsibly has no bearing whatsoever on what happened. The shooter in question easily could have defeated any safe or lock that might have been used to secure any firearm in the house (locks only keep out honest people). The ONLY advantages of a gun safe are fire protection, and to provide a degree of delay after a home is breached such that hopefully authorities or homeowner can be summoned to stop the crooks from stealing whatever (which requires some type of alarm). Safes can be breached within minutes by expert crooks; a teenager or adult family member with unlimited time would have no problem disabling any locking system. Those thinking that some safe storage law might do some good are absolute idiots—ignoring the fact that any of these are easily defeated by a competent teen.
In this case, we are sure there will be weaponization of the law to go after someone other than the evil shooter who did the act. Using the tool and law as an object to pull attention away from holding the individual whodunnit accountable and finding out perhaps what made him do it (which might be the beginning of a solution). The father was charged which is silly; it wouldn’t have prevented the crime nor will it provide any deterrent to further acquisitions of tools used by evil people to do evil things. Or provide insight into what is driving people to DO these bad deeds (and target THAT). Or even provide a deterrent TO potential future evildoers; the only thing that might accomplish that would be the knowledge that there ARE no gun free zones and if someone shoots up a place he might well be shot by anyone on scene; all of which are free to carry arms for personal defense. No law will do anything but punish the good guys and exacerbate crimes.
Since 1968, there have been a flurry of tens of thousands of gun laws. Before 1968, one could order and buy a firearm through the mail—just like a hammer or saw. The law has changed to require forms be filled out, a plethora of background checks, draconian restrictions (and de-facto registration) across FFLs, tons of bans on different types of equipment in varying states, so called red flag laws (in which someone ALWAYS slips through the cracks just like this guy did), idiotic lockdown drills, establishment of various gun free zones (which identify to miscreants where to attack), etc. None of these have stopped any of this and all of it has made things worse.
A rational individual would realize this maze of law is making things worse and quickly abandon it in favor of a more effective strategy (like not encumbering teachers and staff from carrying weapons if desired). Perhaps looking at mental health and how that has morphed and potential substance-personality interactions (and the effects of overmedicating kids). But we suspect there will be a flurry of procedural change proposals none of which will make anything better.
But some MIGHT allow a third party to be thrown to the wolves as a sacrifice to placate the masses of weak minded people who want their feel good laws to work. That if they write a rule on paper it will stop bad things from happening (it won’t).
We advise our clients not to get suckered into such madness, reject the paradigm, and do what is prudent and safe.
Diatomaceous-Johnson 