What makes people want to carry in public?
There has been a long debate on the benefits or dangers of having guns in public places. The idea of self-defense in populated areas is questioned by many because of the risk of hitting an unintended target. In other words, they see you as a danger and not an asset because of injuries you could inflict on the innocent by trying to help. But what is the alternative? Hunker down and hope the mad gunman doesn’t shoot you before the police can arrive?
For this discussion, I’m not going to look at laws meant to prohibit criminals from carrying weapons in public, or weapons that are carried in the open. Instead, I will focus on law-abiding citizens who choose to carry a concealed gun in a populated place. Each argument should be given careful consideration. But in the end, everyone has to make a decision on where to carry a firearm. What will yours be?
With the long history of mass shootings, tensions rise when the topic of guns in public comes up. The fear of a crazed madman with a gun is one reason people choose to carry a gun for self-defense in the first place.
On October 16, 1991, George Hennard drove his truck through the front doors of Luby’s Café in Killeen, Texas. He got out of his truck with two handguns and started shooting anyone he could see. Suzanna Gratia Hupp was one of the people in the restaurant that day. She had her concealed carry permit and carried a weapon anywhere the law allowed. But Texas didn’t allow people to carry a gun in a restaurant, so she had left her gun in the car. She watched Hennard as he walked through the building shooting one person after another. Suzanna’s parents were with her that day and both were shot and killed. Law enforcement arrived quickly and exchanged shots with Hennard before he killed himself.
For this horrific event, what else could have been done? The police were called. They arrived and confronted the shooter. But in the short time before police could arrive, Hennard murdered 23 people and injured another 27. This shooting would remain the deadliest shooting in US history for 16 years until the Virginia Tech shooting took place.
Incidents like this bring the subject of guns under a microscope. But criminals having guns and law-abiding citizens having guns are two different things.
By Jason Mosher
