Op-Ed: Sikh temple shooting will disappoint gun prohibitionists

by Dave Workman

As the history of slain gunman Wade Michael Page continues to surface in the wake of the Sikh temple shooting in Wisconsin, the Associated Press and Seattle Times are reporting some facts that will not help gun control proponents.

They are having quite a chat about this on the Seattle Times reader feedback site.

When he was living in North Carolina, Page reportedly obtained five pistol purchase permits in 2008 from the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department. This is something gun control advocates would like to see nationwide, short of a ban on private handgun ownership. Citizens would need to get permission from the police before buying a handgun.

Wade reportedly did not have a concealed carry permit. So much for any attempt to link this guy to the millions of law-abiding citizens, including more than 371,000 here in Washington, who are licensed to carry.

He used a pistol, not a so-called “assault rifle” that can be easily demonized. The murder weapon has so far been described as a 9mm pistol. Wade is said to have changed magazines several times, which demolishes any argument for banning so-called “high capacity assault magazines” as a preventive measure against such crimes.

Call it incredible timing, but – as this column noted earlier – KCTS, the public television affiliate in Seattle – is airing a program about guns and mass shootings Monday evening. The program features Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Bellevue-based Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, who bluntly told host C.R. Douglas and his co-panelists that strict gun control laws do not work.

“We put all of our time, efforts and resources and police manpower for something that isn’t going to stop a person from getting a gun illegally anyway,” Gottlieb said

Indeed, not only is it clear that Wade bought his gun legally, so did alleged Colorado movie marauder James Egan Holmes. So did accused Fort Hood gunman Major Nidal Hasan, as did convicted Seattle Jewish Federation killer Naveed Haq. Likewise, Café Racer killer Ian Stawicki bought his guns at a Tacoma gun shop. And remember Kyle Huff, the gunman in Seattle’s Capitol Hill slayings? His guns were legally purchased from gun shops in Montana before he moved to Washington.

On Monday, Larry Bodine, chief editor of Lawyers.com lamented in his blog on the Huffington Post that 82 percent of so-called “rampage killers” got their guns legally. Bodine’s take, of course, is that this is terrible. But wait a minute; weren’t background checks supposed to prevent such people from getting guns? Wasn’t the background check supposed prevent such crimes?

Click here to read the entire article at Examiner.com.