New USA Today Op-ed: Guns in schools can save lives: Disarming law abiding citizens left them sitting ducks

My piece starts this way:

Has anyone noticed that these mass shootings at public schools increased after the 1995 Gun-Free School Zone Act? Passed with good intentions, banning guns would supposedly make schools safer. 

But law abiding citizens, not criminals, obey these bans. Instead of making places safer, disarming law abiding citizens left them sitting ducks. 

Killers go where victims can't defend themselves. In the Aurora, Colo., movie theater shooting, out of seven theaters showing the Batman movie premiere within 20 minutes of the suspect's apartment, only one banned permitted concealed handguns. The suspect didn't go to the closest nor the largest, but to the one that banned self-defense. Time after time the story is the same. . . .

New piece at US News: "Gun Restrictions Leave People Vulnerable and Helpless"

My piece at US News starts this way:

When bad things happen with guns, the desire to ban guns is to take away guns is understandable. But doing that can often make problems worse. 

For example, it might seem obvious to protect people by banning guns in areas. But law-abiding citizens, not those intent on committing terrorist acts, obey these bans. Instead of making places safer, disarming law-abiding citizens leaves them as sitting ducks. With just one single exception, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the United States in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns. 

This isn't random. If it were, . . . .

Right below the phrase "The Arguments" here there is place to vote on how you liked the different pieces in the debate.

My newest Fox News piece: Bob Costas can't shoot straight when it comes to guns

My newest piece starts this way:

Bob Costas doubled down on gun control Wednesday night on "The O’Reilly Factor" and  Tuesday on MSNBC. Despite all the commotion generated by his rant on guns during halftime on NBC’s "Sunday Night Football,” he just couldn’t leave well enough alone. He called for restrictions on concealed handgun permit holders and reduced gun ownership in cities. Some Democratic lawmakers followed Costas’ lead and called for more gun control this week.  

Unfortunately, Costas’ statements were filled with errors on topics ranging from "body armor" to “automatic weapons” to the gun laws in Colorado to the views of police to the behavior of permit holders.  

During appearances on both shows Costas worried about the “Wild West, Dirty Harry mentality” of America’s 8 million concealed handgun permit holders.  

Regarding the Aurora, Colorado shooting he attacked: “people who actually believe that if a number of people were armed at the theater in Aurora, they would have been able to take down this nut job in body armor and military style artillery.” But Costas never asked why the killer picked the Cinemark’s Century 16 Theater in Aurora, Colorado on July 20th to commit mass murder. . . .

There are lots of other mistakes that Costas made in his presentation, but I only had about 800 words.  I would have also gone through the claimed benefits from background checks, let alone Costas' claim that even more stringent rules are needed.  The literature on the lack of benefits from mandatory training would have been useful also. His belief that he had never known of a professional athlete who had been helped by the presence of a gun misses the case of T.J. Slaughter who claims that he was being threatened by other motorists.

Newest piece at Fox News: The truth about Costas, Belcher and guns

My newest Fox News piece starts this way:

Did Jovan Belcher, the 6’2” 228 pound linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs, need a gun to kill his girlfriend Kasandra Perkins? How about to commit suicide? Apparently some think that Saturday's murder-suicide tragedy in Kansas City wouldn't have happened if he hadn't had a firearm. Amazingly, during halftime on NBC’s "Sunday Night Football," Bob Costas told viewers he believed: “If Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.” 

Belcher apparently killed Perkins, the 22-year-old mother of his 3-month-old daughter, at home. The horrible tragedy occurred in front of Perkins’ mom. He then drove to the Chiefs' practice facility where he committed suicide. 

Guns can make it easier to kill people, but that isn’t relevant here. Even if no weapon existed, the strength differential is so large that Belcher could have easily killed Perkins in any number of ways. The same is true, sadly, about suicide. There are so many ways that Belcher could have killed himself, including crashing his car at a high rate of speed into a wall or even another car as he drove to Arrowhead Stadium.  

Unfortunately, pointing to two deaths here does nothing to advance the case for gun control. Costas’ rant falls under the category of if gun control could save just one life it would be worth it. The argument makes as much sense as saying we shouldn’t have gun control if guns can save one life.  

The question is the net effect of guns, and what Costas ignores is that guns save a lot more lives than they cost each year. And that's not even mentioning the roughly 2 million times a year that people use guns defensively. 

Whether people like Costas like it or not the facts speak for themselves . . .