Guns and reason: Curtailing an American right is the wrong response to terrorism

The mass killing in San Bernardino, California, has, not surprisingly, re-ignited the national debate over gun control.

In its first front-page editorial in nearly a century, the New York Times has called for restrictions on guns, saying it is a "moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency."

We agree that the killings are a moral outrage. But do reasonable minds really believe that restrictions on the sale of weapons would have prevented the shooting that left 14 people dead?

California already has the strictest gun control restrictions of any state and that did not stop the killers from obtaining enough weaponry to kill far more than they did. Would enacting legislation similar to California's nationwide prevent more such assaults? We think not.

The real culprit is not the weapon, but the mind of the person holding it. All the gun restrictions in the world would not prevent someone bent on such an outrageous act from committing it. The killers also had other weapons, such as pipe bombs, available to them. Someone determined to harm others is going to find a way to carry out their devious intention no matter what.

The Second Amendment was written to give Americans the right to defend themselves. Reacting to the recent spate of mass killings by enacting gun control legislation would not keep killers from killing. But it would open the door to chipping away at Second Amendment rights and keep innocent people from being able to protect themselves. And in a world such as the one in which we live, the right to self-defense has never been more important.

Published in Editorials on December 7, 2015 12:48 PM