“Don’t you care?”

There’s been another school shooting (read:  another active shooter in an ostensibly gun-free zone).  Expect the usual suspects to come out, waving bloody shirts, claiming that we “don’t care” about dead kids when we resist yet more restrictions on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

Well I, for one, do care.  But it doesn’t stop there.  That’s not the only thing I care about.

I also care about the young wife, now a widow, because your newly wedded husband was mugged and murdered by three thugs with knives who not only robbed and killed him, but carved him up so badly that she had to have a closed casket funeral.

I care about the daughter, now fatherless, because more thugs beat her daddy to death with pipes.  In his case, at least, they were able to clean up the corpse well enough that she could say goodbye at the funeral before his burial.

I care about the young mother, who cannot stand the touch of a male, any male including her husband and son, because of severe PTSD from the beating and rape she suffered.

I care about the eight year old boy who can’t understand why his mother won’t hug him any more and wonders what he did wrong.  He’s told it’s not his fault but deep inside he’ll always wonder.

I care about the 800,000 (low end of various studies on the subject) to 3 million (high end of various studies) people who go home safely, who are not mugged or raped or murdered, every year because they were armed for their own protection.

I oppose restrictions on RKBA not because I don’t care, but because I do.  I care about the weak and helpless of the world, the people on whom violent criminals choose to prey.  I care about their families, their loved ones, who deserve better than to be left bereft because those they care about were rendered unable to defend themselves against someone stronger, or coming in groups, or armed with weapons that rely on strength and sheer ruthlessness.

And the victims of that school shooting?  I care about them too.  That’s why I oppose the very idea of “gun free zones”, which folk like the shooters take as “soft targets where they can rack up a large body count.” The shooters are crazy.  They are evil.  They are not stupid.  That’s why they go where the victims cannot shoot back.

The facts are clear.  Armed citizens at the site of active shooter events save lives.  And the claims about the armed citizens “just making things worse” leading to more deaths from folk caught in the crossfire turn out to be false as well.

Stripping the adults present at places like schools of the ability to arm themselves for the defense of themselves and their charges does not make the children safer.  Just the opposite.  It’s like hanging a “free eats” sign in front of a starving crowd.

More restrictions on the law abiding is not the answer.

Freedom is.