Guns do protect law-abiding citizens

Guns do protect law-abiding citizens

This is in response to Burt Constable’s Jan 11 column in the Herald, “2nd Amendment and guns fail to protect us.” I can tell it was written without thought, and the only reason for it was to rant against guns and back the Brady center’s silly comment.

Guns have not failed to protect us! The NRA has thousands of cases on file where people have saved their lives because they had a firearm. Yes, Arizona is one state where probably 90 percent of the people are armed through conceal carry permits. It works there, and they keep passing more legislation backing it.

Let’s consider the Tucson tragedy. The first thing a law-abiding citizen is told in a self-defense class is always be aware of what is behind your target. If anyone with a concealed-carry permit would have fired at the deranged shooter, I am sure there were numerous people behind him in the crowd.

So the only possible way to stop him was the way it was done. You rush him when you get the chance. Law-abiding permit carriers know not to fire into a crowd. You would only add to the body count. If the killer was standing where shots fired at him would endanger him only, you could have bet someone would have taken him out!

This tragedy only proves that people with permits act in safe ways. If a permit holder would have foolishly fired at him and killed three bystanders, your column would have been about the evil of concealed-carry permits. No one did that, so instead you had to turn the tables and write something against the Second Amendment anyway. I hope now you know how silly your opinion looks to anyone who has common sense.

Don Bekeleski

Elk Grove Village