North Korea's New Bargaining Chips 

Laura Ling and Euna Lee may be wondering if our sitting president remembers who they are.

Ling and Lee, in case you haven’t heard, are two U.S. journalists who were captured by the isolated nation of North Korea a little over two weeks ago.  The two women, who work for San Francisco-based “Current TV” founded by former Vice-President Al Gore, were conducting interviews with North Korean refugees trying to rebuild their lives in China. Though they were repeatedly warned by their South Korean guide to stay away from the long, and in some places, unmarked border, it is believed that they were captured by border guards and hauled into North Korea, though it is not entirely clear if they had strayed on North Korea’s side as the border guards claim, or if were abducted on the Chinese side of the border.   Personally, I wouldn’t put it past the North Koreans to pull a stunt like this. They have abducted people outside their borders before.

The North Koreans have since announced that the women will go on trial on spying charges. If convicted (and it’s highly unlikely that they’ll get a fair trial), they could face 5 to 10 years in a labor camp.   For the time being, the North Koreans have stated that the women are being detained in a “guest villa”, and have scoffed at suggestions that they have been mistreated, claiming that “We are not Guantanamo”. 

I would hope not. Holding journalists hostage for reporting stories that you don’t like is a lot different from holding terrorist suspects plotting to destroy your nation.   Treatment naturally should be better.

Yes, hostages are exactly what they are, not prisoners of war. It’s likely that North Korea will use the women as bargaining chips to receive further concessions from the U.S. and its allies. 

What puzzles me, however, is that our sitting president, Barack Obama, has never stated what he plans to do about the journalists. Try as I might, I was unable to find even one story in which he directly addresses the hostages in any article related to the subject as of this writing.   The closest I could find was him addressing North Korea’s so-called “satellite launch”, and that’s long since passed.   That’s not to say that I know for certain that he hasn’t, I just haven’t been able to find a story where he does. What is his position on this? What are his plans on freeing the journalists, if he even has one? 

Now, I know that a few conservatives out there, upon learning that the journalists worked for the radical, left-wing, global-warming apocalypse predicting Al Gore, are tempted to write off the journalists as just two more idiots who got what they had coming to them for being stupid enough to put themselves into this position.  Think about this, though; what if the journalists had been successful on their assignment, and had brought their interviews back to the states, exposing what really goes on in North Korea as told by the refugees who lived there? North Korea is an extremely isolated nation… very little, news or otherwise, goes in or out of its borders. Would they be hailed as heroes, or would they still be considered just a couple of idiots? In all likelihood, we would be devouring their tales of “courage, bravery and close calls” in every newspaper and magazine in print, as well as talking about the “never before seen” photos and videos of North Korean life.

Barack Obama needs to put his “Apology for America” tour on hold and start telling us what he plans to do about the hostages.  There are no American hostages in Europe or South America, so perhaps he should think about a trip to North Korea.   He said himself during the elections that he was willing to sit down and negotiate without preconditions with those who didn’t like us … so start negotiating. 

Who knows, maybe all it will take is a handshake, a hand on the shoulder, and saying “Anyong haseyo”. Hugo Chavez gave him a book for such a greeting. Maybe Kim Jong-Il will give him the hostages.   He could even throw in a “we’re sorry we’re so arrogant” apology. Maybe even bow before him. Whatever works.

All kidding aside, it’s time for these women to come home.   Yes, they may be liberal pain-in-the-necks, but they’re still our pain-in-the-necks.   No American journalist deserves to be sentenced to slave labor in a North Korean prison camp for the next 10 years, or be treated as bargaining chips, no matter what we feel they represent. 

Now, President Obama… what are you going to do about it?

Sources:

US Journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee to be Tried in North Korea: AP April 24th, 2009

North Korea to Try Two US Journalists for 'Hostile' Acts: AP April 24th, 2009

Seized US Journalists Become 'Hostages' in N. Korea Crisis: Tim Johnson, McClatchy Newspapers, April 2, 2009

Lisa Ling's Sister Arrested in North Korea: Michael Y Park, People.com, March 23rd, 2009

Is Former President Bush a "Shield" For Obama?   

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that former President Bush seems to have a new part-time job as Obama’s shield?

It seems that every time President Obama’s policies start to face real criticism, the administration and their supporters hold President Bush in front of them in an attempt to deflect attention away from them.   The first time was at the height of the criticism of his handling of the economic crisis, when the markets continued to plunge despite Obama’s assurances that his “stimulus” plans would speed America back to recovery. This was, of course, after his first apocalyptic, gloom and doom speech, where the words “crisis” and “catastrophe” where spoken repeatedly. 

Then, on March 2, 2009, the first group of classified memos was released.   The public’s attention was diverted from the economic crisis, to the more controversial (and scandalous) topic of the torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib as well as the destruction of the taped sessions by the CIA. While the economic crisis affects everyone, torture and conspiracy stories are always a headline grabber.   The result? Less attention on Obama and the failing economy, more attention on the former Bush administration’s controversial policies. The majority of the public’s attention was successfully diverted. Mission accomplished.

It didn’t last, however. A few days later, “tea parties” that were being held across the nation, which were being held as a result of the public’s anger over massive government spending, taxes, and the direction we were heading, were beginning to receive more attention from the media, despite the lackluster coverage at the beginning. This came to a head on April 15, 2009, when nationwide “tax day” tea parties and FairTax rallies were held were just starting to receive major media coverage. Granted, most of the coverage had a negative slant, including supposedly “unbiased” television reporters combatively arguing with tea party attendees, as well as liberal celebrities calling the supporters racists, anti-government, “teabagging” (a term considered sexually obscene) rednecks, but it was still coverage.  Once again, the focus was back on public anger over the economy and government spending. 

Then, out of the blue, the next batch of secret memos was released by the Obama administration.  Not only do they supposedly give in detail the methods used to “torture” the terrorist suspects, but the ACLU has promised juicy photographs of the prisoner interrogations to follow. To top it off, Obama has released his own memos to the general public detailing specific, "more humane" interrogation methods that he will authorize the CIA to use on terror suspects. Needless to say, our enemies will be well prepared to counter those techniques should they be captured by us in the future. 

Once again, sensationalism concerning the fate of a few terror suspects overseas trumps the everyday economic reality of every American, and with the exception of a few conservative media outlets, the news of the tea party movement and their agenda has evaporated.  The public’s attention has once again been diverted to the former Bush administration. Mission accomplished.  

It’s a clever move by the Obama administration.  The release of the memos and promised photos are attention grabbing enough to force the conservative media to divert its attention to the outrageousness of the memos, rather than spending time discussing the troubled economy and their own suggestions on how to improve it. Once again, the Obama administration is free to present its own “solutions” (which usually involve borrowing and spending more money from communist China and appeasing our enemies) to Americans with the Bush administration failures once again fresh on their minds.

In my previous column concerning the first set of memos being released, I said that the focus shouldn’t be so much as what was on the tapes, or even how accurate they were, but why they were being released in the first place.   The simple answer is that Obama is using Bush as a shield.   While the public is distracted by a trip through bad memory lane, it allows Obama to present his own agendas with little challenge. 

Remember this when those controversial photos are published. Think of how many people those photos affect, as opposed to how many Americans are affected by an economy that actually has real meaning for all of us. Which of these issues, upon being solved, will actually benefit you the most; the sensationalism of the Abu Ghraib scandal, or the economic crisis?  The one that you can pat yourself on the back and say "justice for terror suspects", or the one that you can say "the jobless rate is down, the pay is going up"?

I normally could care less about beauty pageants. Watching a bunch of superficially attractive women that the average Joe (like me) would never have a chance with, parading on the stage and giving their ideas for world peace is not my idea of must-see TV.

But what's a beauty pageant without a little controversy? This time, it has nothing to do with a mother sabotaging her daughter's competition, nor is it a contestant giving a judge another bizarre, head scratching answer. This answer was actually, to the horror of the judge, honest.

Perez Hilton, an openly gay celebrity blogger, was one of the judges of pageant. He asked one of the finalists, Carrie Prejean (Miss California), the following question in the final segment:

"Vermont recently became the 4^th state to legalize same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suite, why or why not?"

Carrie Prejean's answer:

"Well, I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land that, you can choose same-sex or opposite marriage (Carrie... just for future reference, it's called heterosexual marriage). And, you know what? In my country, in my family, I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman (It's like that in my country too, Carrie. Sorry, I like poking fun at beauty contestants.). No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised, and that's how I think it should be, between a man and a woman."

Ok, I never claimed it was an eloquent response.

The audience gave a mixed reaction to the answer. Miss Prejean won first runner up in the pageant. Here's where it starts to get ugly... it's rumored that Miss Prejean's answer was a little "too honest" for the judges and it is believed that it may have cost her the pageant. I've heard no real proof of this, and to me, this is just speculation at this point.

Perez Hilton later did a rather flamboyant video blog on YouTube (warning: contains some crass language) that, in a nutshell, lambasted Miss Prejean for not being "politically correct" and giving "the worst answer" in pageant history. In a later interview on the "Today" show, Hilton stated that Miss Prejean should have "left her politics and her religion out, because Miss USA represents all Americans."

First of all, Mr. Hilton, I don't consider Miss USA to be my representative. I could care less who she is, or what she does. The only winner of the pageant I can actually name from memory is Vanessa Williams, and that's only due to the notoriety she gained from the scandal that followed the pageant, though she isn't exactly suffering from that anymore.

Second, if Mr. Hilton really thinks that Miss Prejean should have "left her politics and religion out", then why in the hell did he ask such a politically and religiously loaded question if he wasn't ready for an answer he disagreed with?

Is this what it comes down to now, a contestant not being allowed to give an honest answer if they think that it won't mesh with the judge's belief system? This isn't just from a conservative viewpoint. Let's look at the question from a different angle. What if an openly conservative and religious judge (not likely in a beauty pageant, I know, but play along with me here) asked a liberal contestant a similar question this way?

"The state of California has recently passed an amendment that overturns gay marriage. Should other states follow suite? Why, or why not?"

Should the liberal contestant, who in this case disagrees with the new amendment, be allowed to answer honestly, or should she cater to the beliefs of the judge to increase her chances of winning a contest? Should she be the object of a profanity laced rant by the conservative judge on YouTube because of her honest answer?

I can tell you with a straight face that, despite me being a conservative, I would side with the contestant over the judge in this case. No one, conservative or liberal alike, deserved the kind of treatment that Miss Prejean received from Mr. Hilton.

I should point out that during an interview on Sean Hannity's radio program this evening, she has stated that she even received emails from gay and lesbian groups apologizing for the behavior of Perez Hilton.

On an interview with Larry King, Perez has stated that he hopes that he'll be invited for the pageant next year. I don't see that happening. He also stated his invitation to Miss Prejean to go "out for a cup of coffee." I don't see that happening either.

Oh, and the winner of the Miss USA pageant? Miss North Carolina, Kristen Dalton. As if anyone will remember now. Sometimes, people do remember who came in second, over who came in first.

Sources:

Hilton, Miss California Take Sides on "Today"The Associated Press

The Sean Hannity Show: April 22, 2009

YouTube: Answer Why Miss USA Didn't Win Miss USA (Perez Hilton)

YouTube: Larry King Live Interview

Leave it to pirates to swear revenge for the deaths of their comrades while commiting piracy.

Excuse me, Mr. Pirates, but need I remind you of WHY three of your buddies' heads got blown into a fine mist? It just so happens that people don't like it when you fire rockets at their ships, climb aboard them (without permission, no less), hold their crews at gunpoint, then demand ransom from their respective companies. This is especially true with American ships, as you have learned the hard way. Now you want revenge for your comrades' deaths while they doing things that they really shouldn't have been doing to begin with. Pirates... go figure.

However, the pirates have stepped up their game. Not only did they seize at least four more ships after the rescue, they have attempted to seize another U.S. vessel, the Liberty Sun as well. They failed, with the crew of the Liberty Sun managing to shake their pursuers, and the pirates leaving empty handed (and minus a few rockets that apparently had little effect).

This didn't seem to dampen the pirates' determination, though. In a recent phone interview, one pirate, Omar Dahir Idle, boasted that "Our latest hijackings are to show that no one can deter us from protecting our waters from the enemy because we believe in dying for our land".

Another pirate, identified only as "Ismail", also vowed by phone that "We will seek out the Americans, and if we capture them, we will slaughter them. We will target their ships, because we know their flags. Last night, an American-flagged ship escaped us by a whisker. We have showered them with rocket-propelled grenades."

First, I'd like to point out to "Ismail" that it doesn't matter whether they escaped by "a whisker", or by a mile... they still escaped. You screwed up.

Second, I'd like to ask why we are interviewing these pirates, instead of capturing and interrogating them for information.

Third, I'd like for my readers to take the pirates' quotes under careful consideration. Note that they plainly stated that they're no longer interested in holding Americans for ransom. They just want to capture and "slaughter" them. So, if they're not capturing the crews for ransom, that really doesn't make them pirates anymore, does it?

It makes them terrorists. That is what terrorists do, kill people for the express purpose of causing terror and uncertainy, usually out of a religous cause or political purposes. Not "criminals", as our relatively inexperienced Secretary of State Clinton likes to call them... terrorists.

However, the pirates' boastings may backfire against them. If you were an American sailor, and you knew for certain that these pirates weren't even going to bother holding you for ransom but just execute you once you were captured, would you have any incentive to surrender? More than likely, you'd fight to the last breath, by whatever means possible, rather than just sit back and wait for them to slit your throat. At least, that's what most sane Americans would do.

I say we American sailors to fight back with something besides fire hoses. It's time to start supplying our ships with weapons, in one of two ways: Either arm the sailors themselves, and train them how to use these weapons, or hire armed, trained professionals to sail with them.

I prefer the second option. I understand that Blackwater could use some work now. They would be perfect for this. A great chance for some action, and no "innoccent civillians" to worry about, just bad guys trying to storm a ship.

We could also take a page from the Russian's playbook.

Hire a large ship, and staff it with a skeleton crew, with lots of armed professionals. Take the ship out to sea, and sail it in pirate infested waters. Make sure it's flying the American flag. Call it a Trojan Horse if you will. Sooner or later, those pirates are going to smell blood and attempt to take over the ship. Have the crew lock themselves in their rooms, and let the mercenaries hide in wait. Don't put up a fight; let the pirates climb aboard. When the pirates start sniffing around for Americans to slaughter, release the mercs and watch the fun. Kill every last pirate, spare no one. Stuff their bodies into trash bags (make sure the bags have American flag decals on them. I recommend those new Hefty "flex" bags.), and drop the bodies off onto the nearest Somali beach. If that doesn't make a statement of what will happen to them when they think about targeting another American ship, I don't know what will.

If this sounds cruel and unethical, you'll get no arguement from me. Keep in mind that these pirates vowed to slaughter our sailors if they captured them. Besides, they said it themselves... they believe in dying for their land. I say we oblige them.

Those who show no mercy, deserve no mercy themselves.

Sources:

Another US Cargo Ship Escapes Somali Pirate Attack

French Nab 11 Pirates as Threats Mount on US Ships

 

The television program "20/20" (hosted by Diane Sawer and David Muir) aired a documentary last night titled "If I Only Had a Gun". The title was used in reference to those who believe that they would be able to protect themselves during a violent confrontation if they are armed with a firearm. I had hoped that this program would highlight both the benefits and responsibility of owning and using a firearm, as well as the expected stories of the consequences of what happens if you don't practice good sense.

I was disappointed. Instead, the program concentrated entirely on the dogma that guns should only be in the hands of the police. While Diane Sawyer stated at the beginning that this program was not about whether ordinary citizens should or should not have the right to own or carry a handgun, she certainly gave the impression that "the amateurs" had no business carrying them.

The program (which currently can be viewed in segments on the ABC site ) began with a security camera video of a convenience store clerk defending himself against two intruders in a shootout. Diane asks "Fourteen shots are fired. Do you know who is hit, who is not, and why?" Later in the segment, that same video is shown again. Diane reveals that "even though the store clerk and the intruder fired fourteen shots, not one of their shots even came close (to hitting each other), even at this range."

Here is what Diane missed. The clerk won that shootout, even though he missed his targets. Why? The simple reason is this; the intruders were so busy trying to avoid the clerk's gunfire, that they were unable to get a clear shot at the clerk themselves. That gun saved the clerk's life. I challenge anyone to prove to me that the intruder's bullets wouldn't have found their mark much more easily if it hadn't been for the clerk shooting back. For those of you who believe that the clerk could have saved his life if he had just done exactly what the intruders had told him too, there is no guarantee that they wouldn't have shot him anyway. It's happened before, there's no reason it couldn't happen again.

The program then features six students, with their experiences with firearms ranging from none at all, to a hundred hours on the gun range, unwittingly taking part in an experiment (set up by ABC News with help from the Bethlehem Police Department). Believing they are taking a free gun training course, the students first are given some target practice with a real glock handgun (the bullets are specially designed paint rounds). Diane points out during this segment that "you should know that our basic course is already more hands-on training than almost half the states in the country are required to carry a concealed weapon."

The armed students, one at a time, are taken into a lecture hall to participate in a class on protective gear. Their guns were hidden under their large, uniform sweatshirts. What the students don't know is that they are surrounded not by other students, but by undercover police and ABC News crew members pretending to be taking the lecture with them. Once the class dons their protective helmets as part of the course, a gunman unexpectedly (for the armed student) walks through the door, shoots the instructor of the class, and begins shooting at random. Sometimes its only one shooter, sometimes two walk in at the same time. One time, there was already a shooter in the class, masquerading as a student, who pulled out his own weapon and opened fire on the other "students" after the second shooter walked through the door.

The armed student's reactions were dismal. Some fired back, but either did what would have been minor damage to the intruder, if they hit him at all, or missed him entirely. One student got his gun caught in his oversized sweatshirt and couldn't draw the gun properly. A couple of them froze up and either remained seated, or hid behind his seat. All the students got shot with "lethal" hits, some execution style.

One of the instructors, during his interview after the experiment, explained that the student's reactions were not unusual, that normal citizens tended to "freeze up" and their reactions slowed down during a crisis, even those who have had hours of experience with guns and believed that they would do well. Diane Sawyer points out that the police have to train for hundreds of hours to improve their reaction times, and need to constantly train under stress conditions to competently handle a confrontation. They even quoted one of the students near the end of the segment, just to nail the point home... "I really don't think there was any benefit of me having a gun as opposed to not having it. If anything, it left me more susceptible to being shot." Translation: what chance do we amateurs have? Leave the gun fighting to the police.

There are some flaws in this experiment, however. The first one being that most of the people in the room, save the armed students, were trained police officers who already knew what was going to happen, and as they were instructed, hid or randomly scurried around the room. It was guaranteed that none of those in on the experiment would be packing a gun.

The second flaw is that the "intruder" already knew for certain that one of the students in the lecture hall had a gun. You might have noticed in the video clips that all of the students were seated in the same area during the experiment as well, so it's conceivable that the instructors knew where the armed students were seated ahead of time.

The third flaw is assuming that all armed intruders are trained professionals who know what they're doing. Very few shooters are such people. They may have a plan, true, but they rarely know the exact circumstances that they're getting into, nor are they necessarily crack shots. The intruders trying to rob the convenience store in the beginning surveilance video come to mind. I've also never heard of intruders sophisticated enough to plant a gunman in a room ahead of time to join his partner later after he bursts through the door. While not impossible, it's unlikely.

The program then moves on to the dangers of children with guns. Video clip after video clip is shown of young toddlers playing with real (unloaded) guns. The guns had been placed among their toys for them to find, and the parents, watching the experiment, would have their reactions taped.

Now, I'm just going to mention that any parent who would actually put real guns in with their kid's toys deserve to go to jail, and I doubt that there are many parents out there lacking that much common sense. True, they may not hide their guns as cleverly as they think they do (as illustrated by one father's 10-year old daughter on the program walking right up to the loaded, hidden firearm in her father's dresser), but I doubt they'd hide one in the toy box. To me, this experiment was focused more on drama than any actual lessons being learned (unless it was to show just how nosy kids were when they're parents aren't around).

The program then moved on to an experiment with teenagers, and what they would do if they found a loaded firearm. The intent was to see how many of them would report the guns to the owner (they were moving furniture into a van, with the guns hidden in a dresser drawer. The guns were loaded, but not functional). In short, only three students even thought of reporting the guns, the rest of them opting to observe or play with them, a couple of them even looking right down the barrel to see if it was loaded. I wonder how many of these teens had any kind of gun safety training in their lives prior to the incident? I did note with interest, however, one of the teenagers trying to discourage the others from picking up the guns, mentioning that he had taken gun safety courses, and that "you're not supposed to be doing that." Diane Sawyer chose to ignore this small detail.

Inevitably, the program moved on to the "heartbreaker" stories of young teens accidentally killing their friends with guns. Some 911 tapes were played, and interviews of the teens responsible were given. Long story short, the guilt racked teens were interviewed by the sympathetic looking David Muir. The last teen interviewed, named Mike, who was in a marching band (picked to march at Obama's inauguration) formed under the treatment center for trouble teens that he was placed in after accidently killing his friend when he was 11, went like this:

David Muir: I have a picture of you, looking at the president (Obama)...

Mike: Yeah, that was, was a good day.

David Muir: Is there something that you hope, the president will do about guns and children in America?

Mike: Keep them away from them, like, lock them all up.

David Muir: And how do we do that?

Mike: Make sure that everyone that owns a gun in the country, somehow, someway, to get a lock for their guns so that everyone's safe.

David Muir: To lock them away...

Mike: Mm hm, that's what I'd do if I was president.


And on that note, the segment ended.

Now, I can completely understand the reasoning behind using safety locks on your guns if you have children in the house. No sane parent wants to see their child hurt or killed by the household firearm. The problem is, armed intruders aren't going to wait for you to unlock your gun from the safe, unlock the safety lock on the gun, unlock the ammunition for the gun from a separate vault (as it has been recommended in other places), fumble with the ammo, then shoot, all this being done in the dark and possibly being woken out of a dead sleep. Chances are, the intruders are going to already have the gun out, cocked and loaded, ready for action when they come in.

So what is the solution for gun owners with children in the house? Where is the happy medium? I'll admit that this is a tricky problem to solve. Speaking for myself, this isn't an issue, as I'm single, have no children and I live alone. Having government mandated trigger locks, however, will do nothing but hinder my ability to defend myself. While I do have at least a partial idea to solve this problem, I am saving it for a follow-up article. I wonder, though, if the purpose behind the mandatory trigger locks and vault rules is to create such a hassle of owning a gun, that would-be purchasers wouldn't bother to buy one in the first place, thus "reducing the amount of guns in the homes".

Speaking of purchasing guns, we'll move on to another segment of the program (I'm skipping 10-year old Damon Weaver's story for now, that's an entire article in itself) that featured a man by the name of Omar Samaha, who lost his sister Reema in the shooting spree at Virginia Tech two years ago. Omar was given $5,000 dollars cash by ABC to enter a gun show and purchase as many guns as he could in one hour. The purpose of the experiment was to test to see if any questions or background checks would be given to him prior to purchasing the weapons. Omar has been working to help close the "gun show loophole", which allows private gun dealers who only occasionally sell firearms (such as weekend gun shows) and do not usually require thorough background checks. The first gun he purchased was a glock handgun, and as David Muir claims, one of the same types used by Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung-Hui. He was sold the gun by an individual before he even walked into the store, no background checks, no ID, no questions asked. This helped re-enforce Omar's belief that criminals such as Cho Seung-Hui obtain their firearms through gun shows like these.

Here's the problem with this belief; the Virginia Tech shooter didn't buy either of his guns at a gun show, but one from an out of state dealer, the other from a pawn shop across the street from the campus. Both purchases were legal. He passed the background check, because he was never involuntarily committed to a mental institution. Therefore, his evaluation and history of mental illness never showed up in his record.

All in all, Omar walked out with 10 weapons, ranging from pistols, to shotguns, to semi-automatic assault weapons.

David Muir: What do you think people don't realize about the ease in which you just bought ten guns?


Omar Samaha: That anybody can do it, and it's for real. It's that easy.

Well, I suppose if I was just handed $5,000, I could go and buy ten guns easily too. To tell the truth, though, I'd rather use the money to pay off my medical bills.

Seriously, though, how many gun show attendees have that much cash in hand to just buy whatever guns they wanted? Even if they could, how many people would actually want to spend that much at one time on guns? I'd be interested in seeing the numbers.

David Muir claims that "according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, says that in their investigation, private sellers at gun shows are a major source of crime guns."

This is a bald-faced lie. According to the NRA, a Bureau of Justice Statistics study back in 2001 found that based on interviews of over 18,000 inmates, less than 1% of them bought their firearms from a gun show. In a more recent study by the FBI in 2006, 97% of the guns they recovered from criminals were obtained through illegal means. I'd sure like to know how the ATF conducted their investigation.

Some people may try to point out that two of the guns used by the Columbine High shooters were purchased at a gun show, but it should be pointed out that the shooters themselves did not buy the weapons, but rather received them from a third party (Robyn Anderson), who purchased the weapons for them. This is an illegal practice known as "straw purchasing". They purchased another weapon from a pizza shop employee, who knew they were too young to buy the weapon, but sold it to them anyway. This, needless to say, is also illegal.

I also suspect that one of the reasons why Omar didn't have much trouble buying the guns was because of his appearance and demeanor. Omar is a nice looking, clean cut, polite kid. It's possible that he didn't stir up any suspicions from the dealers, who may not have sold to him if they suspected ill intentions. It is also ridiculous that anyone buying a firearm from these shows should automatically be suspected as a criminal. I could go on to explain my views about the "gun show loophole", but again, that's another article in itself.

Rather than 20/20 just discouraging ordinary citizens from owning a gun, wouldn't it have made more sense in interviewing people who could give instruction on how they could use one properly? What if those firearms instructors in that first experiment had instructed the students on how to quickly draw the firearm under those oversized, bulky sweatshirts, or how to make themselves more difficult to hit, like staying on the move or taking cover? What if they had warned them about the dangers of "tunnel vision", as expressed in the program, or about being aware of not only potential threats around them, but innocent bystanders that could be hurt in a gunfire exchange? How about providing information on where gun owners could take such classes where they could practice in "stress tests"? None of these were suggested in the program.

Final suggestion... the next time 20/20 wants to do a documentary like this, get a more balanced perception. Have it covered by one liberal and one conservative. Specifically, get someone like John Stossel on this story to counter the likes of Diane Sawyer or David Muir. Where the heck was Stossel on this anyway? ABC really dropped the ball on this one.

Do something more than just suggesting we "run, hide and play dead" when the shooting starts. Don't just say that using your cell phone to call 911 is really the most powerful tool you have to counter a shooting. Calling 911 does not stop the intruder from shooting; it just summons the police so that they can come take pictures of your corpse when it's all over.

Sources
20/20 (ABC News)  "If I Only Had a Gun"

CNN.com "Campus Killer's Purchases Apparently Within Gun Laws"

NRA-ILA  "Gun Shows: The Gun Show Myth"

Violence Policy Center  "Where'd They Get Their Guns?"