The crime scene at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, on Thursday was still being processed when anti-Second Amendment forces started railing against firearms.
This despite the campus being a “gun-free” zone and, more importantly, the teenage shooter who killed four being stopped by an armed father with a lawful weapon.
Supporters of the right to keep and bear arms also responded swiftly.
No one attacks police stations or gun shops for a good reason
Aiden Johnson, director of federal affairs for Gun Owners of America, called statements for more gun control “shamefully weaponizing” this tragedy in an interview with Fox News Digital.
“But more gun control isn’t the solution,” Johnson declared. “The school was a gun-free zone, and the killer didn’t use a so-called ‘assault weapon.’ What did stop the mass murderer and save lives was an armed bystander with good aim.”
Crime Prevention Research Center President John Lott told the outlet that banning weapons at such locations renders targets defenseless and draws evildoers to the site.
“These gun-free zones actually serve as a magnet for these attacks rather than stopping them from occurring,” Lott observed.
Anti-gunners weaponized this tragedy for their own ends
Those manipulating this tragedy for political talking points must not only ignore that it was an armed civilian who ended the senseless violence, but also that the state has virtually every form of gun rights suppression a jurisdiction can enact.
“Oregon already has nearly every gun control measure on the anti-gun wish list–including an A- rating from groups that push them–yet that did not prevent the attack,” the National Rifle Association told Fox News Digital in a statement.
The group added that “the armed bystander who pursued the shooter inside and ended the threat is the clearest reminder that, when seconds count, a prepared law-abiding citizen can stop a killer.”
But this doesn’t fit the narrative, and it is certainly not stopping the deluge of gun rights opponents from calling for even more “common-sense” restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms.
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