Gun control didn't work in Orland Park
The Tinley Park mall shooting is certainly an unfolding nightmarish tragedy but not wholly unpredictable.
These victims, like all law-abiding victims before them and those certainly yet to come, were then and will be in the future, unable to defend themselves if the legislative status quo remains. No one can deny that the criminals themselves are responsible for this slaughter and so many other tragic losses. Violent criminals, but not they alone, are to blame for these and other needless deaths.
Illinois' anti-gun law-makers and their unwitting supporters who either put or keep them in office also share a portion of the blame.
Legislatures in 48 states -- but not Illinois -- give only the most responsible of its law-abiding citizens the option to carry a handgun most places they have a legal right to be after having been background-checked, trained and licensed. The majority of lawmakers in 48 states -- but not Illinois -- understand police can't be everywhere all of the time.
Furthermore, they trust and respect their citizens enough to allow them the option to, at a minimum, use an adequate means of self-defense, but again, not in Illinois.
For decades, Illinois lawmakers have undeniably demonstrated their abject failure to stem gun violence irrespective of the massive compendium of existing gun laws.
While having both a right and means to adequately defend oneself or others may not in some circumstances deter the most violent of offenders, it would, however, even the odds that anti-self-defense legislators have knowingly stacked against we law-abiding citizens.
Would it be too much to ask of the good citizens of Illinois to pick up a telephone or pen and demand of their elected representatives, the option to exercise a RIGHT and MEANS to protect themselves and families in places we have a legal right to be?
If it causes too much anguish to accept a percentage of responsibility for one's own safety, then one cannot escape accepting a percentage of blame for the consequences. It's just that simple.
Philip Huff
Naperville