The shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic school did no one any favors. In addition to dead children who never should have died, we had a push to disarm all transgender people, followed by the typical anti-gun nonsense of blaming the tool used rather than the tool who used it.
It shouldn't have happened. That's the one thing we can all agree on.
The problem, as per usual, is that we can't agree on what should happen to make sure it never happens again.
For anti-gunners, the solution is gun control. Again, as per usual.
But California has extensive gun control laws. More than about anywhere else in the country. More than some anti-gun countries, potentially, though I haven't really tried to check on that.
Still, they just dodged having a similar incident recently. You didn't hear about it because no one was hurt. Why? An armed father outside of the church during mass.
An off-duty detective thwarted what had all the makings of a potential church massacre last week in Sacramento.
Brian Girardot Jr., 20, dropped off a younger relative at St. Mary Parish School on Wednesday morning, then allegedly returned around 9:30 a.m. when St. Mary Catholic Church was in the process of holding an all-school Ash Wednesday Mass next door.
Amy Hale, the principal of the school, indicated that "all church doors were locked per our standard procedure" and "parent observers were positioned outside and inside the church."
One of the parent observers, an off-duty detective, intercepted a suspicious man who approached the front of the church and claimed that he wanted to enter and attend the Mass.According to Hale, the parent observer "located and removed a loaded firearm, concealed on the man's person." The observer then detained the suspect until officers from the Sacramento Police Department arrived on the scene.
Principal Hale assured parents that their children remained in the church throughout the Mass and that "no students came into contact with the man."
Lest you think this was just a guy who happened to be armed and who wanted to attend mass, something that many of us might do, think again.
There's more to this story than simply being found with a gun outside of a church.
In their search of the suspect's home, law enforcement agents also found a series of handwritten notes that allegedly contained references to suicide and threats.
According to court documents reviewed by KTXL-TV, one of the notes listed three family members and stated, "All of you are the reason I've done this."
Another note reportedly said, "Suicide Note f**k you," on one side, and the reverse stated, "Rest of y'all ... f**k you die!!!"
If this were just a suicide, he'd have already taken his own life.
The problem is that he seems to be someone so filled with rage that he wanted to murder innocent children in the process.
But he didn't.
He couldn't, because people were protecting our most precious resource, our children. The off-duty detective had a gun, which meant he could confront the man without worrying that he couldn't defend himself if things went sideways. He was likely one of the few who could be armed in California.
Yet, despite all of the state's gun control laws, this could have turned out very differently. The suspect reportedly had a Taurus Tracker .44 revolver. While wheel guns aren't exactly what one thinks of for a mass shooting, this was a gun-free zone. He'd have had nothing but sitting ducks and likely had time to reload if need be.
Only he never got the chance because an armed individual prevented the massacre.
So yeah, I'm not buying the argument that gun control prevents mass killings. I'm still partial to protecting our children with guns, because as we can see here, it works.
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