Wednesday, September 9, 2009

What one person can do

Kaleb Eulls is a star defensive end on his high school football team in Mississippi. He's now a local hero because he acted decisively in a dangerous situation.

A girl got on the school bus he and his sisters were on, pulled out a pistol and began threatening everyone. Eulls distracted her and then tackled her, wresting the gun from her hand. Problem solved. What a kid.

One statement in the article stands out to me from the rest, though. It's a statement from the town sheriff: "[Eulls] made the statement to one of my deputies that if she was going to shoot anyone, he would rather she shoot him." That statement shows what one person can do in a situation like that. One person who is willing to risk his life to save others can do tremendous good.

This is something that Liberals, especially Liberals in favor of strict gun control laws, just don't seem to understand.

Take, for example, the "news" program 20/20's anti-gun episode, If I Only Had a Gun. The whole point of If I Only Had a Gun is that guns are too dangerous for anyone to ever use responsibly, so only police should use them. No one else should even try. Over and over again the 20/20 crew presents evidence that using a gun is dangerous and that facing someone with a gun is even more dangerous. And they are right. Their failure to really present the opposite realities, that respect for the dangerous potential of a gun and proper training can ensure that a gun owner is of danger only to criminals, lays bare their anti-gun agenda.

One of other the messages that Dianne Sawyer and the 20/20 crew go out of their way to get across is the utter helplessness of anyone facing gun violence. "You can't do anything to save yourself or anyone else," they basically say. "Run, hide, and wait for the police to save you." But this is just not correct. In fact, it's often the worst thing you can do. Taking charge and attacking one's assailant is often the most effective means of thwarting him. You might not be unscathed; you might die. But everyone else will be saved.

This is why we don't praise the actions of the people of American Airlines Flights 11 and 77, or United Flight 175 on September 11th. We remember and mourn them, yes, but we don't praise them. They, to our knowledge, didn't fight back. They submitted to evil; they didn't try to stop it. The people on United Flight 93, on the other hand, did fight back. They're no less dead than the people on the other three flights, but they ensured that the terrorists on their flight failed. So we "praise them with great praise" as Tolkien would say.

And so we also praise Kaleb Eulls. He showed what one person can do when he disregards deadly Liberal propaganda and acts like a man.

Bravo.

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